weekend and rain

One of the islands had quite a blackout because of the rains and in Hilo some of the streets were under 5" of rain. When I talked about the rains yesterday I didn't really think that they were that significant, I just assumed all is normal in the tropics, but apparently they were significant and destructive.
Yesterday was not that exciting. Both Kyr and I felt very ill. We hauled ourselves to the bigbox shopping mecca of Kona to gape at the tourists and buy a computer key board. Joop without his computer is like a person without oxygen. The good part of staying in Waimea is that the tourists are not that visible. In Kona they are. Then I end up feeling sorry for the tourists because I think what a dreadful place they have come to and subsisting on. I sure hope they rent cars in order to see the beautiful valleys and mountains of the ranchlands. I have included a view from our lanai so that everyone can experience the pastoral wonder, albeit the chilly wonder. This area was once just one big ranch, the Parker ranch. It came into world because Captain Vancouver gave a present to one of the Hawaiian kings of some long horned cattle. The hawaiian king saw them as sacred beasts and over time without culling they became vicious marauding beasts that were pillaging the flora and fauna and goring the people. The king brought over this cattle expert Parker who was also an exceptional shot and allowed him to start killing the beasts. With his keen eye he saved some that had traits that would lend themselves to domesticity. With marriage to the king's daughter, the gift of much of the north tip of the island and that initial tiny herd Parker ranch grew to be I think one of the largest privately owned ranches in the united states at 225,000 acres.
Our illness and cloud cover precluded any beaching. In fact I lay in bed most the day and read Blink, prequel to Outliers. You have got to love that Gladwell character. Today I feel a bit better, at least I won't be on a steady diet of tylenol. I have instructed the boys to pick one activity from the book that they would like to do so that it won't just be a vacation whereby default we always end up at the same beach. Kyr wants to go to the tropical gardens we have seen before. He is very keen to photograph the flora. Joop wants to go up to the high volcano where they have an observatory. The roads up to it unfortunately are closed with snow and ice. Maybe they will perk up later in the trip. Me, I just want to go back to the captain cook memorial, despite the trial of getting in the kayaks, just because the snorkeling is so beautiful.