Western Deserts and Staying To Da Max Foeva

Westward Ho! Looking down from the air, a person with tunnel vision couldn't be faulted for mistaking western Molokai for parts of Nevada. It definitely looks like a desert. Surprisingly, if it received just a few less inches of rain per year, it would actually be a desert! This half of the island is also the part where somebody obviously had big plans that fell through. Lots of vacant lots, paved roads, and perfectly spaced fire hydrants indicate that something big was going to happen. A couple of the condo developments were made, and there's a few houses here and there, but that is about it. When the whole thing fell through, it left an odd scene behind. A large resort, restaurants, and a tri-plex movie theater all shuttered. A golf course, fully abandoned and overgrown, something we last saw in Beira, Mozambique. Since it's a desert, overgrown isn't the best description. Brown and mostly dead is better. Eerie. But kind of cool. One stroll along any of the numerous west side beaches and you can see why people thought there was so much potential. Alas, the locals weren't into it, and they scared the developers away. They also scared away the people that wanted to build a wind farm. If our time on Molokai was any indication, a wind farm would be a lucrative venture.

Deserted golf course scenes:




We did see one guy on a golf cart cruising the abandoned course.



A true American, he was walking his dog!

Perhaps the Molokaians need a Molokai Permanent Dividend Fund, modeled on Alaska's, but based on tourist and wind power revenue. As it stands, they are happily the island with the highest unemployment rate. Monsanto is the largest employer, with their tropical plant research division. (Pritchard should consider a tour of duty there!) In some ways it seems strange that they are so vociferously opposed to various schemes to make money on their island. But in other ways, their desire to avoid an onslaught of tourists is understandable.

The four awesome beaches we visited on the west side were Dixie Maru, our personal favorite;



Papohaku, which is a really long awesome one with some serious crashing waves. We didn't take any pictures of that one, but it's great.

Make Horse, where we spent most of our time with the crabbies in the tidal pool. Nako, of course. You can't really tell from this picture, but every few seconds a huge wave would crash into the tidal pool. It was exciting.




Kephui Beach surfing scene.




And the 45 minute hike north of the abandoned golf course to an awesome secret beach.





There was a road, but it was definitely 4X4 only. The Dodge Charger probably wouldn't have made it. According to Boodah, the Monster Van could've made it no problem. The way in was much easier than the way out! Especially once the kiddos decided they were done with the whole hiking in the desert thing.



There are numerous other little beaches that we didn't explore.

The one place that survived it all has been the Big Wind Kite Factory. It's a cool little kite factory/artist haven with lots of neat stuff.





After our long days exploring the coast, we always came back home to inspiration from the good book, Hawaiian style.





John 3:16 "God wen get so plenny love an aloha for da peopo inside da world, dat he wen send me, his one an ony Boy, so dat everybody dat trus me no get cut off from God, but get da real kine life dat stay to da max foeva. You know, God neva send me, his Boy, inside da world for punish da peopo. He wen send me fo take da peopo outta da bad kine stuff dey doing."

Everything sounds cool in Hawaiian pidgin. Even the New Testament. Who could pass up da real kine life dat stay to da max foeva? Not us, that's for sure.

The Friendly Isle

We toured the self-proclaimed friendliest Hawaiian island. Aloha required to enter. All in all, it seemed like a pretty friendly place. The librarians were certainly amongst the most friendly librarians we've ever encountered anywhere. They gave the kiddos books (for keeps), let them feed the library fish, and weren't even annoyed when the kiddos were their natural loud selves! There was a lot of aloha in that library! Thank you, nice Molokai librarians!

We first arrived to our Molokai house after dark. At roughly 3 AM the following morning, we discovered that we would not be missing Uncle Regan's baka-bakas on this trip. From the sound of things, our house was actually situated within a large Molokai chicken ranch, or possibly cock-fighting breeding compound. As it turns out, our first perception was mistaken. There were just a dozen or so chickens next door, roosting mere feet from our wide open (of course!) windows.

The kids were pumped! For the most part, we all slept through it. One of the mama hens had a few chicks in tow, keeping Pax and Stokes highly entertained.

We started our first day with a trip to the coffee shop at the coffee plantation, followed by a walk in the woods on top of the island.

The walk is rewarded by a great view of the former Leper Colony.

Leprosy is now known as Hanson's Disease, and it is super easy to cure. But they still don't let anybody under 16 visit the colony. This is because they were super mean to people with leprosy back before they figured out how to cure it.

The other neat thing in the woods is the turtle rock.

Yeah, it looks like a turtle. Amongst other things.

Fay-lick rock, as we heard it described by some good ol' suth'n folks who were also visiting. The kids called it weiner rock. Supposedly, the ancient Hawaiians would hike all the way up here and rub it for magical fertility powers. I think it worked on Genevieve. Lately, Stokely's telling us he is having a baby too, so it may have worked on him as well. Time will tell.

After the ancient Fay-Lick rock, we headed East, to sandy beach and Halawa Bay.

Sandy Beach was a lovely little sliver of beach, with big waves to romp about in. We had it all to ourselves most of the time. That's Maui in the distance.

Halawa Bay.

Getting out there is quite a fun drive down a single lane, very windy road.

Like Kodiak, Halawa was completely destroyed by a tsunami. It wasn't really rebuilt.

Not much is there any more, but there is a neat tiny little church, and lots and lots of aloha-free KEEP OUT and NO TRESPASSING and PISS OFF AND DIE signs all over the place.

Just joking about the last one. We didn't see anything like that. It's not a stretch to think the sentiment might be kind of implied, though. The Woodie Guthrie in us is kind of sensitive to those type of signs. After Halawa, we wandered home to enjoy a glorious sunset. All told, a pretty awesome first day in paradise.

Tropic Escape

But first, a stop at Chuck E. Cheese for a dual Uncle Regs Paxson Revel good fun bad pizza showdown! Aunt Nami is in Japan, so Regs and Musashi are running a bachelor pad full of hot chicks. Here they are, heading down the hill to feed them. As it turns out, hot chicks love popcorn.

Here's the hot chick shack. The B-52s might call it a Love Shack.

Baka-bakas, Stoko Loco calls them. Unfortunately, there's one rooster that seems to attack Stokes every time he sees him. Fortunately, these attacks haven't diminished Stoko's love for the baka-bakas.

Stoko's nemesis. This is .05 seconds prior to attack.

Already recovered, and gathering the fresh eggs. Team WilYo's happy chickens are producing about a dozen happy chicken eggs per day!

It's a sad world we live in when Chuck E. Cheese has to man the entry and exit with two full time guards. Thank goodness they don't have those new TSA scanners.

Here's some good old fashioned Chuck E.Cheese fun. And by old fashioned, I mean 1980's video games. Up to 30% of them are fully functional! None of those old 1970's video games here! The best thing about having a 4 year old and a one year old, of course, is they seem not to notice if the video game actually works. Or if it is even on. Makes for a great value! (Older people are more likely to notice, and possibly complain.)

6 short surly stewardess laden hours on a 737, two bus rides,

one Priceline ocean-view hotel room, (the ocean view is a bit like Find Waldo, go ahead, look hard, you can see it) and one Cessna Caravan ride

(Alaska bush style!)

later... here is our new house!

What's the first thing we do? Weiner rock, of course! More on that later.

Here's something from our neck of the woods. The Damon Minotaur IV was launched from the rocket complex Friday afternoon. We could see it clearly. It was pretty awesome. A little slice of Cape Canaveral right here on Kodiak! This link has a serious of really nice photos. Out of respect, we'll only pirate one.