Valentine breakfast

 We have had several guests who are foodies. Natasha and Oleg are unique. Natasha made cottage cheese from scratch for breakfast  

New Color

 I walk for exercise and tend to use the same route each day. I have a route here that is nearly 2 miles in length so that is about right. I like to listen to podcasts when I walk as this input provides the diversion via audio that I need and I tend to pay less attention to what I can see. 

Earlier I wrote that the visual dimension of walks I take here change even when I take the same path every time. I noticed this new blast of color today. I tried the new identification feature of Apple Photos. It  offered Rhododendron or Bougainvillea as options. I am going with the second but I am not going to try to spell it again.

Fresh Eyes

We have a number of guests coming in different groups to stay with us. It is interesting to watch their reactions as all visit from different locations and different climates. Planes seem to land after dark so the trip back to the condo does not allow much of a view. The new day kind of provides an "in your face" exposure to a very different place. Watching reactions offers the opportunity to revisit familiar scenes with fresh eyes, Existing the condo and looking over the cliff I probably included in one of my first posts is there again.

Our newest visitors are Oleg and Natasha from Colorado City by way of Russia. We have traveled with them many times after Cindy first met Natasha when spending time in Russia.

 

Save your photography budget for getting there

 I do enjoy taking and curating photos. I wish I still had the many photos I took before digital photography became possible. I even wish I had done a better job organizing and stories the images I took with my first expensive digital camera. Oh well.

I have come to focus almost exclusively on the images I take with my iPhone. Yes, an iPhone is an expensive device costly nearly what some of the cameras and lenses I own costs, but you also can't surf the web with any of my cameras. You can turn one of them into an Internet server so you can download the pictures, but that doesn't count. 

As a whole, I think the photos I take with the iPhone are superior to the photos I take with my more traditional cameras. The one setting my some telephoto shots. The iPhone has such great intelligence that framing the shot is nearly always all that is necessary. There are ways you can override this intelligence if you want to limit yourself to your own control of certain details but why bother. Story first. 

If you enjoy setting the settings and hauling around the lenses and tripod, good on you. I do throw in my camera equipment when I use my care for a trip. My general advice would be - save your photography budget for getting to where you can find interesting things to shoot. Bring you iPhone.

The Great Puka Dog

Before our guests Laura and Greg returned stateside, we had to find and consume a Puka Dog. I admit that my previous trips to Hawaii had not included eating a puka dog, but evidently this is on one of those lists you must complete so it was a task that must be done. 

The puka dog seems to me pretty much a brat in a bun that has not been sliced. This is not to be confused with a corn dog as the bun in this case is like a regular brat bun, but unsliced. The process, in pictures, follows.

Sign proving our experience was authentic

Ordering - type of meat, sauce, relish, mustard. Polish is the only way to go. Mild sauce when inexperienced. I skipped the relishes. Mustard.

Special bun preparation equipment, The buns are first impaled on these heated spikes (the puka) and warmed from the inside.

The puka master injects the sauce, relish, and mustard according to the specifics of your order.

The finished product.

I had to add the following picture Laura was willing to share. It captures the great uncertainty and the related courage it requires to take on a new culinary challenge. Foodies forge ahead.

I spent some additional time researching Puka Dogs so I would be able to offer an informed perspective. First, Puka Dogs are called Hula Dogs in some locations. I have no idea which came first. In reading about the Hula Dog, I did learn that they are made with a puka (the heated spike or the hole I am not certain). The location we visited for our Puka experience has a video offering a more complete experience than I could provide. You can evidently prepare a Puka Dog at home. I tried Amazon to find the necessary equipment, but this must be an item too  specialized even for Amazon.