Our winter retreat to Kauai has come to end. A great year. First time I had no visits to an emergency room or physician. This was the year for those who could form our family to join us. A few intense storms. Time to go back to Richfield and start my plants.
I am adding a link to KONG radio in case I miss Ron Wiley and the songs from KONG All Day Long.
It rains often here and occasionally it rains a lot. There is a unique meteorological phenomenon called a Kona Low we have experienced several times this visit. Always reminds me of the Alberta Clippers we used to experience in North Dakota, but that was snow and high winds. A Kona Low brings high winds with gusts to 60mph, but rain. Lots of rain at rates of several inches an hour. Some of the other islands had 20 inches plus and that leads to flooding and mud slides.
We had heavy rains here list night and phones were sounding the alarm every few minutes warning those in low lying areas to be aware and everyone to stay off the roads. I have written before about one-lane bridges on roads that uniquely allow access to parts of the island. I see today that the bridge I described was closed and because this is the only road to get to and from certain places, people were caught on the wrong side. The weather is fine right now, but this is projected to turn again soon.
You see orchids here that have been added to many areas in which gardeners have done their work and offered for sale by retailers. I know some grow orchids in their homes and the retailers are allowed to ship to those who are interested. I always wonder how orchids grow in the wild because I only see them tied into the crook of trees by someone and not growing without human assistance. Most orchids (I think) are epiphytes and collect water and nutrients from their roots which are just hanging there and not in soil (see image below).
We are reaching the end of this trip to Hawaii with the last group of visitors (Todd, Jess, Porter) just arriving. We have made multiple visits to farmers' markets throughout the island, but I thought I could offer something unique about this trip.
We had quite an adventure getting Todd, Jess, and Porter home from the airport. We were driving back and found the road closed, so we had to take a detour. We found out today that there had been a fatality of a moped driver on the main road, and as a consequence, the road was closed for several hours. We guessed that an accident had occurred, as the detour seemed poorly planned and took us over a very narrow, partly gravel road unsuited to the volume of traffic it had to handle. A mile or so short of getting back to the highway, everything in both directions stopped. The road had become very rough, and a car had become stuck in a series of deep potholes. Hundreds of cars are in the middle of nowhere in the dark. Eventually, the car was extricated and one-way movement was initiated. This is not an easy process without direction, and everyone just sat for quite a time. We were only a couple of cars from the trouble spot and someone in the other lane finally stopped so that some cars from our lane could proceed.
There was a full moon so I tried to take some photos as we waited.
