Sitting here in limbo...

...waiting for the plane to come.

Checkout time at the hotel was noon. Our plane leaves tonight at 11:40.  We have booked a hospitality suite from 7-8 p.m. so that we can shower and change clothes before we go to the airport. Some time this afternoon we will probably go see a movie. Apart from that, we're doing a lot of hanging around. It's hot and muggy today. I am trying to appreciate that, because I checked the weather in Nanaimo. High of 5C, low of 0C (freezing). Oy. I think we're in for a shock.

Before we checked out, we went to Don the Beachcomber (the hotel's restaurant) for lunch. I had a rare tuna sandwich on focaccia, (Did I spell that correctly?) which came with sweet potato french fries with a ginger remoulade for dipping. Oh, my.

And...I finished my book about Plath & Hughes, and I've started reading the Ann Patchett book (The Magician's Assistant). I generally figure an author has about fifty pages to draw me into the story. Ann Patchett did it in two sentences. The book begins "PARSIFAL IS DEAD. That is the end of the story." Gotcha. The trick now is to keep from finishing the book before I get home.

I should never have mentioned cockroaches.

Last night, I took my book to bed.  Robin was out in the living room, watching the Federer-Tsonga tennis match. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Something was running along the top of the wall over the open balcony door. Like a good wife, I yelled "ROBIN!" He came running. "WHAT IS THAT?"  He had no idea, but he chased it down and after a few comical moments, he killed the beast. It looked sort of like a cockroach, but it was nearly two inches long. I remember that the ones in Mexico were over an inch long and they were fat. This one wasn't fat, just big. "I didn't know cockroaches could fly," Robin said as he finally squashed the bug. So maybe it wasn't a cockroach. I don't know. Whatever it was, it was big, and it was running around on my hotel room wall, and I was not happy. Maybe that's why I'm so tired today - a night of standing guard, even in my sleep, against the invading hordes.

We tried again today to find Green Sands Beach. Did I tell you about that? We tried the other day to find it. It is on our map, but there are no directions for actually getting there. The last time we tried, we ended up at South Point, ostensibly the southernmost point in the United States. We drove down a twisty road off Highway 11, pulling off several times to let other cars go by in clouds of dust the colour of curry powder. We parked at the end of the road and set off walking along deep ruts in the curry powder. We found a little beach, but it wasn't green. A local man who was there with his family told me that we should have kept going down the highway a little farther, then taken a road that led to the gate, and from there it would be a two-mile walk to Green Sands. It was midday, and we didn't feel up to hiking in the heat, so we settled in at the little beach for a while, then made our way home. As we drove, it started to rain, which was just wonderful. We got out of the car at Safeway to pick up something for dinner, and it was like stepping into a steam bath.

Yesterday, we went north instead, found a very pretty beach at a resort, another one at the big ocean thermal energy conversion plant at Keahole Point. I had fun there, playing in the tide pools and trying to catch a photo of the waves at their peak.

Today, we tried again to find Green Sands Beach. We couldn't find the second road my informant had mentioned, and everyone else we asked told us to go down to the end of the South Point road and take a left - but that's what we had already done. Just now, I went hunting for a website about Green Sands, and I found one that says " To get to this beach, one must either use a four wheel drive or hike six miles from South Point, Ka Lae, the southern most tip of the United States." SIX miles. Whoa. I'm glad we didn't attempt that. A twelve-mile hike in that heat would have done us both in.

And today, when we came home, it rained again. It's an awesome responsibility, being the ones who have to trek to the south end of the island and bring the rain back.

Now, where was I -

before I was so rudely interrupted? The last few days have been interesting, wi-fi-wise. Enough said.

So. Monday. We went south, hunting for Captain Cook's Monument. It's on our maps, but somehow we had gone right past it on the way to the volcano, without seeing the sign. So off we went. I saw on the map that the monument was at something called Kealakekua Bay, so when we saw the sign for that, we turned off the highway. Down and down and down we went, Robin driving, me trying to sit in his lap to keep from falling off the cliff. All that got me through the experience was knowing that on the way back, we would be on the other side of the road. (I can't help wondering whether I was always such a wuss, or whether old age has done that to me. I think there was a time - no. No, actually. I remember being terrified in similar situations when I was a teenager. Control issues. I'm much better if I have the steering wheel!) Eventually, we got to the bottom and found a parking lot. There were several other cars there, along with a big truck full of kayaks. Robin asked the fellows with the kayaks whether they knew how to find Captain Cook's Monument. "Sure," they said. "It's right over there." They pointed along the coast to the monument, which was about a mile away and accessible only by boat. Oy. They were just packing up to leave, because the ocean was a little too lively for the kayaks. So we stood for a few minutes and looked along the coast to the monument. I am hoping that if your computer screen is bigger than mine, you may just be able to discern the white, Jefferson Memorial-shaped object on the distant shore.

On the way down the hill, we had seen a sign pointing toward something called The Painted Church, so on the way back, we detoured up another road to see that. I wish you could have seen my face when we got there. "OMG," I said. "They've painted it white!" Robin's jaw dropped, too. Nonetheless, we

parked the car and went to check the place out. The painting referred to on the sign, we discovered, referred to the inside of the church. There were pillars painted like whimsical barber poles, and the walls were covered with murals.

St. Benedict's (for so it was called) reminded me of a mission church we visited near Tucson, AZ a few years ago.

On Tuesday, we drove over the Saddle Road again (the one we took to get to Mauna Kea.) This time, we went all the way to Hilo. I like Hilo. Dorothy Parker might have said there's some "there" there. I can't say the same for Kailua, by the way. It's rather too much like Disneyland for my liking. Hilo has beautiful parks and neighbourhoods and hostels and cafes, and no doubt rats and cockroaches, but it's real. We spent half an hour or so strolling around in this gorgeous park. An old man stopped to talk to me. He didn't seem to have any agenda. He was just friendly. I could hardly understand him, but I appreciated the gesture.

Aha. I've just looked out the window and seen Robin approaching. That's my cue to finish up here and go get some exercise. Tomorrow, I'll try to catch up on the week.