Day 5 Hawaiian Cruise

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Day 5 Hilo Hawaii October 31,2011
Weather: Chance of Showers High 82 Low 65.
Sunrise 6:22 Sunset 5:44
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This morning started with storm clouds all around the ship. Not overcast, but genuine black clouds. This storm passed us by. We are going to have a brilliant sunny morning.

I brought Sue her breakfast and choice from the buffet, scrambled eggs, bacon, corned beef hash, a baked pear adn 3 rolls with butter.

I took the elevator down to the 5th floor piazza, walking through the art gallery and had what they called an bengue (sp?) a french donut. Its really a small doughnut square filled with blackberry filling., a chocolate glazed rolled doughnut and a custard filled doughnut. Add these to a broad rimmed cup and saucer cappuccino and its almost a perfect breakfast.
I checked the email. Natalie said that Nigel is in the window all day and is happy to eat the treats.

Today is Mom's birthday!

They have a wild display in the piazza lobby. It had some gruesome carved pumpkins (the cooks with the garnish knives on watermelons could accomplish amazing things with pumpkins). Also in the center was a manikin with green eyes, and bloody shirt. My daily internet use is around 20 minutes per day on a 14 day cruise that works out to be around 300 minutes. I bought a plan that would give me more than the minimum 500. So I guess that spend a little more time in facebook. The connection speed was really good as there were only three others in the internet cafe and people started using their regular cell phones as we rolled into US territory in Hawaii.

I called Wanda (mom) to wish her a happy birthday. Dad was chopping on his peach tree.
I text messaged the Brownie Korbs in Colorado and both girls in the Bay Area.

It was neat to see that breakers as we barreled up the coast to our docking port in Hilo. It was clear enough at this point to see all the way up the mountain to the tiny round knobs that had to be the observatory. It was the only time during the entire day that the mountain was visible. The rest of the time grey and black clouds blocked the view.

I was off the boat about a half and hour after we docked for my 2 mile hike. I thought that it would take longer than that with people being on ship for so long. It was an easy off. So the early exucrsions were off on time. We had arrived about a half an hour late. After that many miles at see its a wonder that we were there so close to our planned arrival,

I walked down toward the town and saw car dealerships and big truck warehouses. After I walked a a mile and a half I decided that the additional mile to the town was not worth it. I had failed to put on my hat, and the sun was making it pretty hot.

I headed back and got Sue up to do the run to Walmart. A shuttle runs form port to Walmart and Hilo Hatties was running the some vans and did not want to waste their space with a wheel chair. (This we found out from another wheelchair couple as they waited to get on. Walmart hired a bus to do the runs and everyone including our two wheelchairs were welcome. The walmart bus held 65 people . It pulled up and we climbed on. It dropped us off at Walmart, and the driver gave us a little local color as we traveled. Hilo has 45,000 people.

Sue and I ate McRibs.. yum. I listened to the post high school students talk in their classic "pidgin" What an interesting linguistic soup.

I bought the Steve Jobs biography. Sue fell in love with the quality and depth of Hawaiian material available in the store. Almost everyone was wearing Hawaiian shirts. Shorts were everywhere.

When we were ready to return, we waited for the bus outside of Walmart. It finally came up but it did not have room for us. We could have waited for the next bus. But....
Our excursion started at 2:20 and I was afraid we were going to miss that one. I flagged down a taxi. It was a mini van. The first question the middle aged female taxi driver asked was,"Are you allergic to dogs?" I said no. Sue said, "find out how much it would cost." She guessed it would be about 14 dollars to the port. It was only 12. by meter. I told her to keep the change of the 20. She almost didn't want to keep the change but she did. She did in honor of her little shitzu dog that was her constant companion. Sue sat up in front with the driver and her little dog that had a tiny gold clip to keep her hair out of her eyes. She rode the transmission hump all day with her master.

Back at the port. I took the Walmart purchases up to the cabin while Sue shopped the merchants set up inside the port building. Some of our family members will be the recipients of the fine shopping environments . There were even some lady selling tropical arrangements for your cabin at 10dollars a throw.


The Botanical Excursion

We were gathered up from the huge indoor port building under the sign. We had the tickets supplied by the ship. We traded them for a big gold sticker for our clothes. 9 of us and the manual wheelchair squeezed into the van and off we went. The driver was equipped with a microphone and a headset so that he could narrate the trip and answer questions that people had before getting to the gardens. Our driver took us sight seeing along the way, showing us some of the public parks beside the sea and some of the flora that makes this place different.

We unloaded at the gardens and Sue went diving into the gift shop. She found the only shirt that had a chance of fitting. We also got some postcards of the place. It had some photos of the beautiful flowers and plants that we would see along the slopes of this vertical garden.

Sue got out her camera and took a large number of photos of the things that impressed her. It is situated on a very steep hillside. They got us down to the area that we had a chance at pushing the wheel chair around and more level walking by moving us down using gas powered golf carts. They were also used to drag the wheelchair and us back up the hill.

Sue sat in the front of the van coming and going. I sat with a newlywed couple from our ship from Oregon. She had long gorgeous red hair.

The driver narrated our journey. He answered the "living"questions. Gas was $4.25 a gallon. Currently in the states its $3.65 a gallon. He pointed out the banyon trees and the umbrella trees.

We were all checked thoroughly for identity four times this day just getting into the area that had the ship. Sue was hurting and wiped out. I was just wiped out from what felt like working in a warm sauna all day long.

It took 6 glasses of water at the buffet for me to feel I had caught up with the water I had lost.

Dinner:
Sue: hot dog with extra mustard with cheese and rolls form the buffet.
Pat: Double hamburger with cheese, handful of fries, a scoop of garlic shrimp form the buffet and a desert sampler (for use to share) small slices of pumpkin pie squares, cheesecake, and choc. layer cake

I watched the last quarter of the Monday night game that pitted the San Diego Chargers and the K.C. Chiefs. It was on the big outdoor screen as we headed out of port in the evening headed to Honolulu.

The kids on the ship, all six of them did some trick or treating through the buffet with the Princess mascot.. the pelican. Its the first and probably the only time that I have ever seen the Princess mascot.