January 2024 in Hawaii

 The morning started out okay.  There were sirens in the night, but mostly I was able to sleep (we don’t expect that to be as easy tonight).  We had breakfast here — yogurt and bananas. Then Linda reported that she couldn’t find some osteoporosis pills she thought she had brought.  After searching everywhere (there is not a lot we can search here) we contacted Jennifer.  She found them at home and was able to get them in the mail today.  So should be here before the end of next week. Then it was off to the Bishop museum.  We could take a #2 bus across town to a short walk from the museum. I had thought the Bishop museum would be something to do with the Catholic religion, but no.  It is named after Bernice Pauahi Bishop, who was born into the Hawaiian Royal Family.  Her husband set up the Bishop Museum to hold royal heirlooms and has expanded to become the Hawaii State Museum of Natural and Cultural History. The history of Hawaii royalty is v...

 On our second full day in Honolulu, we spent a lot of the time scheduling things.  Linda did much of the scheduling. Things did not start off well.  At about 3:15 AM, I was awakened by loud music and/or singing outside.  I was never certain if it was live or recorded, but it was loud.  We are on the 6th floor, looking out over solar panels over parking garages and apartments.  The room has windows that function like Venetian blinds — slats of glass about 3 inches high and 3 feet long which all slant up or down to open or (almost) close.  Linda likes them partially open to cool the room down.  No screens, so I guess there is no bug problem here.  But with an open window, noise comes in, as well as air. After about a half an hour, the music quit.  It wasn’t until an hour later that the trash trucks came around emptying dumpsters. We started off with an in-room breakfast of yogurt and granola. And bananas.  Then we went out to check o...

 There seemed to be many problems with the room, so I thought we should work on those first.  Linda wanted food stuff and I wanted to fix the problems with the pillows and such.  So we found a market and a Walmart that looked to be within walking distance and took off. Along the way, we saw an IHOP and figured that would be a good breakfast to start the day.  After that we continued walking, and got to Foodland.  Foodland seemed to aspire to be a Whole Foods, so we continued on to Walmart.  We found a night light, some pillow cases, a clothesline, and some foodstuffs.  But Linda was wanting more fresh fruits, so we tried Whole Foods since it was in the neighborhood, where we got some cereal and pineapple pieces. Then it was back to the room.  My watch had decided I must be taking an outdoor walk, and recorded it as being about 5 miles, and about 3 hours. After we rested we went just down the street a bit further in the opposite direction from our ...

 My expectation is that if I stay in Austin over the winter, the cedar trees will pollinate, and I will be miserable.  So I would like to get out town for a significant chunk of the cedar fever season, from the middle of December to the middle of February. Linda and I decided to go to Hawaii for most of January. Like when we went to Barcelona and Florence, we decided to use AirBnB for our rooms.  Southwest had reasonable times and costs for the flights.  We found a place in Honolulu for the first half of the trip and then a place on the Big Island (Hawaii), for the second half.  The final timing was leaving Austin on 28 Dec, flying to Honolulu, staying in Honolulu until 11 Jan and then flying to Kona for the second half.  On 30 Jan, we fly out of Kona, back to Austin. In Honolulu, we will be in a city, so we will try to not rent a car, but use public transportation, or walking. On Hawaii, since we fly in and out of Kona, but our AirBnB place is on the other...