I was walking along the coast recently when I came upon this scene. The TV looked in good shape, but why was it there? I heard voices: ‘Nothin’ to look at here. Is there anythin’ on TV?’ ‘Let’s watch that nature show, the one about coastal wildlife.’ ‘I just love looking at that glossy black screen. It’s the best.’
Next time I went out there, the TV was gone.
A few years back, a joint project by the county and kids from local schools, sought to address erosion along the coastline below Upolu Airport. The county laid straw barriers (that looked like long sausages) to control water runoff. The kids put in plants that would help stabilize areas of bare dirt and put up signs identifying these plants. At either end of the area where this project took place, two large signs were erected, with a bit of information about the project and some colorful artwork by the kids.
Within a year, one of the large signs fell down, a victim of high winds and one of the posts breaking. The plant identification signs followed, one by one, for various reasons. Some of the plants began to take hold and the sausages did their bit in reducing runoff, but the project seemed to have lost its impetus.
Last year, it sputtered to life again with a few more signs and some tape asking people not to drive in certain areas. Most of these were gone within weeks.
A couple of weeks ago, as I was walking in the area, I noticed that the remaining large sign had been graffitied (top photo). It seemed like an unfortunate, but somehow fitting epitaph for the project.
A few days later, approaching the graffitied sign from the other direction, I was surprised to notice the kids’ original artwork. It was upside down on the back of the sign (bottom photo). Whoever had graffitied the sign had taken the trouble to unscrew the board, turn it around, and refasten it. This took some thought and planning since the board was held in place by Torx or star screws (photo at right).
The sign is still graffitied and the project still on life support or dead, but this concern for the artwork on the board somehow made me feel that, perhaps not all hope is gone.
Upolu is home the last dairy on the Big Island. It has a large herd of cows, mostly black and white holsteins, but with a few other kinds mixed in. However, this cow is a little different. It’s the only one I’ve seen with a collar or horns.
I get the impression this is somewhat of the dairy’s pet, which is allowed to wander. And lately, it’s been wandering on the road. When I drive by it looks up and then continues munching grass, which grows well by the road.
One quirk of living in Hawaii is that it’s not unusual for people to have to fly for medical treatment. There aren’t a lot of specialists on the Big Island. Typically, they’ll visit once or twice a month. But the bigger issue is that expensive pieces of medical equipment are mostly on Oahu. Need an MRI? You might have to go to Honolulu.
For scheduled appointments, people generally take commercial flights, but some conditions, and most medical emergencies, require a medivac flight.
Upolu Airport, which is basically a runway with few facilities, is used by these medivac aircraft on a regular, if not frequent basis. These photos are of one such plane awaiting a patient, then heading down the runway and into the air, bound for Honolulu.
Near the entrance to Upolu Airport there is a clump of bird of paradise plants. When the plants are in bloom I make a point of checking out the flowers as they are a favorite of the geckos. I’ll often see geckos on the flowers, especially if they have not yet begun to fade.
In this case, I saw this smaller gold dust day gecko licking nectar off a flower. The gecko noticed me after a few moments and fixed me with its gaze. It never took its eyes off me, but neither did it stop feasting on the nectar.
On one of my walks, I noticed this stuffed toy lying on a dirt road. So I dusted it off, set it off to the side, and took this photo. I was happy to see that the toy still looked cheerful despite its ordeal.
The next time I walked that route, the toy was gone, so hopefully someone had retrieved it.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘On the road’ (more responses here), and I thought of this image.
One of my regular walks is a loop around Upolu Airport, at the northern tip of the Big Island. It’s a dirt road and rough in places, but excellent for walking, especially along the coast. There’s a spot where this loop reaches the coast where visitors, en route to Mo’okini Heiau and King Kamehameha’s Birthplace, pause to view the coast and get their bearings.
On this day, I ran into two older men in the car in the photo and they asked me about driving to the heiaus. I said it was possible (I’ve seen a Smart Car out there before), but there were two things to watch out for. The first was clearance. As you can see, their car didn’t have a lot of that and the dirt road is studded with rocks, some of them capable of disemboweling a vehicle. The second thing I mentioned was that the road could have significant mud puddles. I hadn’t been down that way in a while and so didn’t know the state of the large puddles that form when there’s rain. But I said they could drive down past the house and they’d see the first one. I cautioned that if there’s mud I wouldn’t recommend them driving through it. A Jeep would be OK, but not that car. The mud can be quite deep, which is bad enough for a low-clearance car, but that mud can also conceal those disemboweling rocks.
The two men thanked me for the information and drove off. I carried on with my walk.
About 45 minutes later I neared the parking lot and saw their car pulled over on the side of the road. My first thought was that the car looked as if it had been coated with chocolate. The brown layer across the front, top, and back, was perfectly smooth. The sides were more splattered, but it was clear that an impressive amount of mud had somehow been made to coat most of the car.
I had a momentary panic. Had I somehow forgotten to mention the rough road and the mud? Had I said, ‘Don’t worry about the conditions. Just go for it.’ One of the men I’d seen earlier was talking on a phone next to another car. The other was standing besides the muddied car. I walked up to him and before I could say a word he said, “Do you know what the four most satisfying words in the English language are?” I looked blank. “I told you so,” he said. I told him that wasn’t what I was thinking and that was true. I was more curious about what the heck had happened.
He said they’d come to the first mud puddle and his friend, who was driving, said the thing to do was to go through at speed. He’d urged caution, but they zoomed into the mud, disappeared from view, and emerged in a different color car. Oh, and then the car died. They got it going again and somehow coaxed it back to the paved road near where I found them. Quite how they managed this, I don’t know. It meant driving back through the mud and then easing along for another mile to the paved road. They did this very slowly. Once they reached this road, they sped up and the car promptly died again.
I looked into the engine compartment and it was as liberally coated with mud as the exterior. They’d removed the air filter because that was full of mud. Chances were that several other significant engine cavities were similarly choked.
I waited with them until a tow truck arrived and then left. I never learned how bad the car was damaged or how they explained it away. I didn’t really want to know. Instead, I preferred to remember the image of that chocolate-coated car and my image of the magnificent ride that made it that way.
A skydiver heading for a watery landing? It’s all a matter of perspective. Actually, she’s about to take a right and curl down safely to a grass landing at Upolu Airport.
Graham's Island 