I'm posting this in its own thread so that anyone who doesn't care can scroll past. I will only post pictures here. I promise.
After a 5-hour flight from Seattle -- during which a very young child was seated behind me with requisite screaming and seat kicking -- we landed on the Big Island. Couldn't find our car rental info (turned out to be on my phone in a memo. Which I found yesterday) so B started to cold call rental companies. Luckily, he only had to call one. In our Nissan Sentra we made our way to the condo. After a mix-up with our reservation (they had us upstairs) we ended up in our favorite unit, on the ground floor corner by the parking. This makes it easier to get to the car which is important for me. Anyway.... this is the view from the sofa:
The pile of lava rock is actually the remains of the home of Lonoikamakahiki, the once-king of the Keahou moku (district). The condo complex is built on his village but has set aside the ruins, building around them and setting up informational posts. They do a great job of malama (caring for) the ruins. The stones used to be the home of lots of mongooses but their numbers have dropped; I'm not sure I want to know how that happened.
Funny story... the early white colonists of Hawaii found that they brought many pests with them. One of these was rats who came on the ships. The rat population boomed and ideas were sought to handle the problem. Onesmart guy dim bulb suggested mongooses. So those were imported and let loose to deal with the dastardly rats. That's not quite how it worked out, though. You see, mongooses are diurnal. Rats are nocturnal. You see the issue. So now they had a mongoose and a rat problem. Eventually someone figured out that cats might help....
After a 5-hour flight from Seattle -- during which a very young child was seated behind me with requisite screaming and seat kicking -- we landed on the Big Island. Couldn't find our car rental info (turned out to be on my phone in a memo. Which I found yesterday) so B started to cold call rental companies. Luckily, he only had to call one. In our Nissan Sentra we made our way to the condo. After a mix-up with our reservation (they had us upstairs) we ended up in our favorite unit, on the ground floor corner by the parking. This makes it easier to get to the car which is important for me. Anyway.... this is the view from the sofa:
The pile of lava rock is actually the remains of the home of Lonoikamakahiki, the once-king of the Keahou moku (district). The condo complex is built on his village but has set aside the ruins, building around them and setting up informational posts. They do a great job of malama (caring for) the ruins. The stones used to be the home of lots of mongooses but their numbers have dropped; I'm not sure I want to know how that happened.
Funny story... the early white colonists of Hawaii found that they brought many pests with them. One of these was rats who came on the ships. The rat population boomed and ideas were sought to handle the problem. One
