Tuesday, February 10

Easy trip from home to Chicago. Amazingly, my luggage was the first piece to arrive at baggage claim. I took the Go Express shuttle downtown and snapped these photos along the way:

I got settled in my room quickly. Here are some photos of my room, and some of the view:

I did a little exploring in the hotel, and decided to have dinner in the Big Bar. Wine: $8. Three tapas (appetizers) $13. They were yummy.
In the back, in the champagne flute, are three seranno ham grissini -- thinly sliced ham wrapped around a very skinny bread stick. On the left are piquillo peppers with herbed goat cheese. On the right is a red and orange brisket (not sure why it's called that; the lighting was too dim to see either red or orange -- but it was very tasty).















Back to my room to catch up on my email and get ready for tomorrow's meetings.
More tomorrow...

Saturday, December 13th

We were awakened at 3:15 am by a very loud buzzing sound. I hadn't set the alarm clock, but in my early morning fog I almost ruined the clock trying to turn it off. Jerry finally unplugged it, then we realized it was the fire alarm. We peeked out the window and saw no activity outside, so I jumped back in bed and pulled a pillow over my head. Jerry, being the sensible one, got dressed and stepped outside to analyze the situation. My thoughts: if the alarm has been buzzing for 10 minutes and there are no fire trucks, it must be a false alarm. At Jerry's insistance, though, I got dressed and joined him outside. My, that alarm was loud! There were about 30 other guests milling around (obviously most of them were ignoring the alarm like I wanted to).




Eventually the fire department arrived, and went room to room throughout all four buldings, looking for the cause. When they determined it was a false alarm - perhaps caused by the current state of the remodeling - we had another problem. They could not turn the alarm off. Sugar Beach Resort no longer has a resident property manager, so they started working the emergency phone numbers posted on the office door. They located someone - in Honolulu, not much help there.

Finally a lady came running up with a key, she and the firemen went into the office and randomly flipped switches until the alarm stopped. The alarm had been on for about an hour and a half. I'm sure the neighbors were thrilled. We never did get back to sleep.

Another day in paradise :-)

We treated ourselves to breakfast at Stella Blues, then set out for another beach walk. Here's a photo of the outrigger canoes just north of the sea wall, and one of Jerry.














I noticed a square opening in the seawall, and wanted to satisfy my curiosity. In the back of the "cave" is a ladder, leading to...anyone? I'm stumped.











A young girl was playing in the sand; she must have had snow on her mind. Check out these sand people:












Lessons learned:
1) Never stay in a resort that's undergoing a remodel. We were told that they would be working on one building (out of four) at a time, but that wasn't true. While the plumbing and heat/air conditioning work was complete in our building, they were still working on the roof. Hammering began at 8 am and ended at 10 pm.

Half of the parking lot is covered with dumpsters and construction equipment.

Construction vehicles have taken over the tennis courts.






Here is a photo of one of the "stacks" undergoing sandblasting, stucco and repaint - there are guests on either side. Oh, joy.


The problem with the air conditioning I mentioned a few days ago? That turned out to be the entire building, not just our unit - and they couldn't work on the roof during the storm, so the A/C was out for days!

2) Don't trust the google blog software -- it creates unpredictible HTML, and the published blogs never look the same as the preview I see. Bleah. But this is a vacation, and there's only so much time I'm willing to spend tweaking things. I hate to say this, but I think FrontPage doess a better job.

We wanted to end the trip on a positive note, and since Jerry is fascinated with the surfers this trip, we returned to the north shore.















We were in the air before sunset, so I'm cheating with an image from a few days ago:





Today's book count: Began Tami Hoag's The Alibi Man.

Friday, December 12th

The morning after the storm - the skies have cleared and it's a beautiful day.



We enjoyed bacon and eggs on the lanai while we watched a teenager with his boogey board.


After breakfast we received some sad, yet expected news from our petsitter. Our ancient cat, Luciana, has earned her wings. She was over 18 years old, and even with just one eye she was hunting up until a few weeks ago. She was a trooper. We will miss her. We called our vet and made arrangements to pick her up when we get home.

On our morning walk, we saw the damage from the storm. Part of the sea wall has collapsed, and you can see how the sand has been swept from under the sea grass.








These are seed pods from the thorny Kiawe tree.



Lots of interesting things have washed up in the storm. Here's a coconut, and a piece of dead coral. There was a lot of dead coral washed up, and sadly, some that looked like it was still alive.










Here's a shoe, and a former puffer fish.










One of our favorite beach critters are these little ghost crabs that burrow into the sand. Here's one, riding a seed pod from the Kiawe tree -- then a baby crab, about a quarter of an inch long.










Here's a honey bee. Not sure why they are drawn to the surf, but we see them frequently on the sand.





We walked north to where the lava flows meet the high tide line. There are tiny fish in the tide pools.











We turned back when there was as much coral as sand to walk on - we were spending more time looking at where we could put our feet than we were spending enjoying the walk. The coral is sharp! On the way home, we encountered more dogs at play.







I made teriyaki burgers for lunch again - they're so much better with fresh pineapple. Yum!


By afternoon the sky had clouded over again. On our afternoon walk we saw our friends Mike and Margaret, and Dean and Barb.












Jerry had an itch for Buffalo Wings, so we ordered them from the Sand Witch downstairs and enjoyed them while watching this man in his kayak.












Not a bad sunset:










Today's book count: Finished Pandora's Daughter.

Thursday, December 11th - Updated with photos

Boom! Boom! Craaaack! We woke to thunder and lightning. Huge waves out front, and amazing rain, but I'm too chicken to go out on the lanai with the camera. Here's a photo from behind the screen.


We moved the rest of the food from the old condo, and have sort of settled in here. I walked to the office to turn in the keys, and got completely drenched. Pouring down rain, but it's still 75 degrees. Quite a treat!

Not sure what kind of photos we'll get today -- depends on the weather.


******
The storm has continued all day. There are flash flood warnings for Maui, and several of the other islands.

In the last 24 hours, we've received two inches of rain, although other parts of the island have received as much as eight inches.


Here's a snippet from the KHNL website:
A flash flood watch is in effect for Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lanai, Maui and western and southern portions of the big island of Hawaii. A strong kona low northwest of kauai will maintain the threat of heavy showers over the state through friday. While the greatest threat for flooding rains will be over Maui county Thursday night. Additional heavy rainfall is possible over all islands.
















Jerry made tacos for lunch. We spent the afternoon reading, loafing, and addressing Christmas cards. Hopefully we'll be able to snorkel into town tomorrow to mail them.

We did venture out for an afternoon walk. Windy, rainy, but perfectly warm. Sadly, the beach was littered with (former) jellyfish, which we think were Portuguese Man Of War. We were spending more time watching where we stepped than enjoying the view, so we came in early.

Tonight is the banquet up at the golf course, but neither of us like buffets, or driving at night. We'll curl up with a movie and leftover spaghetti.

Today's book count: Started Iris Johansen's Pandora's Daughter.