ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE!!

 Mornings are dark and cloudy with the cackles and barking of dozens ... and I mean DOZENS of chickens and dogs.  I love it ... because I'm up country!

The first order of the day ... and it should be EVERY day ... is the bakery in Makawao.  It's native owned and the best on the island.  Don't expect big city buildings here ... these little towns are from the 1930's.

Donuts on a stick ... peach pear turnovers and a long John.

We ate outside on the deck to the sounds of this cardinal calling all the males in the territory to come take a look see.  We whistled back and forth for ten minutes before she flew off.

This is next door and there are three axis deer in this pasture.  Can you find them?  They are pretty well camouflaged.  

Baba comes over every morning now for her ear scratching.  She is just the sweetest thing!!

In no time we were off to the beach.  The whitecaps could be seen from high up on the road.  That's no bueno, so we headed over to Makenna instead.  It wasn't much better.  You can tell instantly by the brown water swirled up from the big waves.

You'll have to look close at this one.  There are abut six tiny birds on this rock.  They were trying to hit us up for some tortilla chips.

A little later, this fisherman came in on this very cool kayak boat.  He had quite a hard time getting it in to the beach.  The waves coming in were BIG rollers ... like the ones that got me.  He finally made it, but it took him 30 minutes to get the boat out.  We never did see if he got any fish.

The waves got even worse as we got a little damp from rain and sea water.

We met a nice tourist from Dallas with his family, and told him where to go on the island.  We also gave him the secret location of the turtles.  His family came back with BIG smiles on their faces.  YOU MADE MY DAY!!  

That's when I made CYNDAE'S day with THIS secret location.  I've been diving all over this island in years past and surprisingly remembered this diving spot.  This is a family cemetery with a secret walkway.

You end up here ... with water even crazier than other locations.  Lots of local divers go out here, as well as fish off the lava point.  

The waves they were a crashing!!!

There was one diver out ... that's the orange float all divers have to take with them so they don't get run over by boats.  It suddenly began to rain, so we left in a hurry.

Into town we went to the Paia (Pie-e-ah) fish house for some fabulous mahi-mahi.  No one makes it better on the grill ... with huge plates of the best potatoes and slaw I've ever had.  

From there we made a trip to the auto shop to get her car safety check so she could get new tags for next year.  Sadly, the insurance card was left home, so we drove all the way back to pick it up.  All this time I've been driving ... trying to get reacquainted with the island's new highways.  With that done, we finally crashed at the apartment for the rest of the night.   I'm so grateful that Cyndae and I get along good and I get to visit this island again.

In the meantime, I'm looking at a condo for sale.  It might take some accounting magic.  Not that I would live here, but I would put it on the rental market so it can pay for itself.  We'll see!!!

And no, this little guy is never far from my thoughts.  Every single day!!!