RICO'S BIG ISLAND: Hakalau Market and Island travel

Most Hakalau market days some of us attend more for the 'jam' than for the food. Pictured at right are Art on mouth harp, Barbara on guitar, Myrna on ukulele, Scott on guitar and myself on tub bass. Others join in for some songs. Last week we had another guitar, and another ukulele so Scott played mandolin. In the event of rain the market is held on the street-side lanai in front of Akiko's Bed and Breakfast and the Jam is just inside the entryway to the great room. We are actually easier to hear there under the protection of the building from the breeze. Market attendance has been growing to where I think we may have hit 100 if you count the many children running about and rolling on the grass. One couple has been bringing fresh fish that they catch at South Point. Two vendors have held cooking demonstrations to educate us on how to use their ethnic produce.
One of the things that indicates a lot about the nature of the people in our neighborhood (and the price of gas) is that about half of the cars (not counting the pickups that many drive) are hybrids. Today I drove our THINK electric car to the post office to get a package. At that moment 2/3's of the cars at the post office were electrics because Tom arrived in his Leaf at the same time I was there. By the way, the THINK has not been without a glitch. One morning when Myrna was starting to drive to work it stopped completely as she was adjusting her mirror. After a couple hours of troubleshooting I learned that adjusting either mirror would blow a fuse which in turn tripped a relay killing the engine. I talked to a factory tech eventually who agreed that the most likely fix would be a new switch but when that arrived we still had the same problem. It could be the hot wire from the switch to the mirrors but in the meantime, at least, we've adjusted the mirrors for Myrna and will leave them there.

Last week our son from Oregon visited for the first time. We hoped he and his lady would want to move here but although she loved it Zeno seemed unimpressed. Of course I understand not wanting to move anywhere but Myrna just made me an offer I couldn't refuse! Myrna took the occasion of visitors to use some time off so we could tour them about the Island together. They did look at a couple real estate listings they had seen on Craig's list that were very inexpensive because Hawaiian Acres has terrible roads. In the picture to the left Brittany is walking up the lane in Hawaiian Acres. There are still some foreclosures auctions happening also but they take a lot of time to check out to discover possible encumbrances. We also looked at a piece of ag land 10 miles up the coast from us which was 2/3's in sweet potatoes and will be auctioned in October.
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The unemployment rate has dropped faster than the national average here since Americans with the money for Hawaiian vacations were less affected by the recession and also because middle class Chinese are starting to take Hawaiian vacations. The Japanese tourists resumed their travel this year and there is often a help wanted ad for Japanese speaking tour guides. The Imiloa Planetarium even has a once a day Japanese program. This week there are 3 cruise ships stopping at Hilo instead of the usual 1.

It is very easy here to find Ocean shoreline (not beaches) with no people in sight. This one is just North of Kapoho.

Here Zeno is inside a lava tree mold at LAVA TREE STATE PARK.

This tree mold looks like a face.

Tree molds are formed when moving lava is cooled around a wet tree enough to solidify before the tree catches fire and then the rest of the lava drains away from around it. Over the years what remains of the tree rots and washes out so we are left with a hollow tube of rock.