Sunday morning on the lanai

Annie's sleeping still. Sand in my left eye awakened me to the point that further snoozing was not an option. I got blasted by a couple of killer waves yesterday. Both sent me scraping head over heels along the bottom. I knew then that virtually every orifice on my body had picked up a little sediment.

After two showers, one at the beach, another at the condo, and a thorough washing of hair in the bathroom sink, I thought I'd removed all sand. This morning, however, a deposit in my left eye irritated me so much that my eye was dripping with tears by the time I could get out of bed, head to the bathroom and dig through my bag to find my bottle of eye drops.

It seems to be all right now, but I'm sure there's still a little sediment swimming around in there.

Sand in the eye and iddy biddy ants who gathered around the packages of food we left on the counter yesterday are about the only down sides to this trip so far. The ants seem to be endless. Fortunately, they're too small for my aged, sand-filled eyes to see, but Annie saw 'em, and she went after them with a bottle of Wind-ex.

Later, she saw the sign on the front door to the condo reporting that the exterminator will be coming Dec. 10, the day we leave. So, it sounds like the ants will get to continue to come marching two by two by 40,000 by 40,000 for the next few days. At least, they haven't been crawling over me in bed at night.

We'll also keep our food in safer places. Let's see---I guess it will all go in the refrigerator. Ants don't invade refrigerators, do they?

Today we're hoping to connect with my cousins, Sue and Eddie (and Eddie's wife Mary). They arrived in Maui yesterday, with Sue coming from Sammamish and Eddie from Pasco. Sue's talking about a restaurant called Cheeseburger in Paradise for our meeting.

Oh, yes, while I'm thinking about it, Mary Brown, could you please send me that information about your cousin here. I had it on my laptop that died, so once you send it, we'll give her a call.

We're planning some snorkeling on the beaches south of here today. So far, we haven't done a lot of that; I'm looking forward to seeing all the colorful fishies. Yesterday we watched a couple of sea turtles bouncing around in the big surf northeast of here. You'll note that I don't use a lot of place names; I just can't remember them. So, I'll do my best to describe where we are.

Tomorrow we'll be doing the Road to Hana and a very involved geocache, which includes several waterfalls and some rope climbing. I guess tomorrow could come as close to the Amazing Race as anything we'll experience here. Annie thinks I'm up for it, so we'll see. I remember when she took me on that killer 12-mile hike in New Zealand. I wasn't up for it, but I didn't have a lot of choice.

So, tomorrow could be one of those "if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger" days. I guess this trip has already involved some firsts in my life experiences. I never had actually swum in the ocean before. Had waded but not swum. So, that's a first.

I'd never ridden waves before, and I didn't like it the first night because it was almost dark when we finally got to the beach. Yesterday, however, I took it on, and had a blast for about an hour, until those two biggies sent me spinning through the sand. We'd been at it long enough that we both decided to quit for the night.

I'm sure there will be more firsts before the week's out, and so far I'm enjoying them and staying alive. There was a moment yesterday that had me wondering. When we were driving down the curvy road from the top of that 10,000 foot Haleaka (sp?) volcano, I suddenly felt really car sick.

It came on instantly, and fortunately, we were near the visitor center, so I got out and walked around for a few minutes. It went away as fast as it came, but the thought of it was a bit upsetting since I hadn't been car sick since childhood. Annie said it was the combination of the walking around in high altitude on top and the winding road.

Anyway, I'm glad it didn't last.

Annie's up now, the birds are screaming out here in the lawn/pool area, so I'll sign off for now.

Happy Sunday to all, and do enjoy the photos below. Also, if you want to see REALLY good photos, visit Annie's Flickr account at www.flickr.com/photos/nnlove/
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