Category Archives: Signs

Signs: Sign of the times

This sign went up on one of the stores in downtown Hawi recently. Many local stores rely on tourism to make ends meet, but there are virtually no tourists. Not that it matters, because non-essential businesses have been shut down for a couple of months anyway. Some businesses are now being allowed to open again, but a cautious approach is being taken – rightly in my opinion – and it’s likely a fair number of enterprises will never reopen.

Ironically, it was just over a year ago that I did another post about this shop (here). It was after that episode that Hawaii Cigar & Ukelele expanded in to the newly vacated space. But now they’re both vacant and not likely to be filled until something approaching normalcy returns to the area.

Signs: You’re going to die

This sign marks the border between Hualalai Resort and one of the public beaches there. It’s the equivalent of prescription drug warnings that taking them might turn you into a four-armed, paranoid psychopath.

Here, the dangers include man-o-wars, sharp coral, slippery rocks, sudden drop-off, dangerous shorebreak, high surf, and strong current. Oh, and there’s no lifeguard on duty. Well, no wonder, they’d have to be crazy to enter the water there.

Signs: Donkey crossings

A few miles north of Kona Airport is a stretch of highway where these signs can be seen – the written warning in the foreground and a handy image in background for those who don’t know what a donkey looks like. Not that they’re going to find out here. There are no donkeys.

The signs hark back to when there were a number of wild donkeys roaming the island and this was, apparently a place where they crossed the road on a regular basis. But donkeys crossing a major road travelled by many speeding vehicles is not a tale that ends well, for the donkey or the vehicle. So the donkeys were all rounded up and put out to pasture, as it were, in domestic situations. Only the signs remain.

Except … I’ve been told that not all of them were captured. Unaccountable braying has been heard, though no donkeys have been seen, but do you want to take that chance speeding past these signs only to see, too late …

Signs: Blind man driving

I was driving home from work when I slowed to a halt behind a van waiting in line at a junction. My attention was immediately drawn to the line above. It was only then that I took in the rest of the vehicle and saw how apropos the line was.

Signs: Practice makes perfect

I was hiking in Kalopa Native Forest State Park when I came across the trail sign above. Nothing too remarkable about that, but I happened to notice the back side of the sign (middle), which showed that getting the sign right took a bit of practice.

On a subsequent visit, I noticed that the back of sign at the other end of the trail (bottom) had also seen a rejected first effort.