So as you have seen my morning on that saturday started out peaceful at the Haiku Gardens after an adventurous ride through the mountains and a stroll along those meditative grounds I decided I needed nourishment.
Wherever to go, someplace local, someplace authentic, someplace unique, someplace I cannot get at home- that's right you guessed it- International House of Pancakes.
Hotty flirty waitress MerKete served me too much coffee (i have not been drinking hardly any coffee, Maybe like 4 cups a week) so that morning it gave me a little case of the caffeine Freak out ya know what I mean.
Well after I ate like half my meal consisting of a couple sunny sides, grilled ham and a small order of the buttermilk pancakes I ended up catching up with a few friends via the phone.
Hard to try to explain, that Whitey is outnumbered here and that surprisingly there is some extremely large people here. Don't want to be loud when Somoan's are around.
Was asked what was liked the best part of living here. I had to say it's those few time a day that something somewhere in nature makes you just stop in your tracks...The natural beauty demands your attention. It reminds you gently yet abruptly. You breath, you try to take it all in, you make a mental note a memory, take a pic if you can and then you go about your now much much merrier peaceful way....
Side note, last 3 days have been utterly perfect in terms of weather.
but back to the story.
So I head to make next dense Vegetation patch.
The Hoomalhuia Botanical Gardens, Hawaii's largest.
It consists of native Hawaiian plants, trees, some flowers and then is divided into many many lawns which are subdivided by regions - I could only get through the americas' with quite a cool collection of central and south american specimens.
Lipstick tree, Gumbo Limbo, Cuachilote SP?, Cacao (chocolate to those who don't know), soapberry (which is a natural soap), monkey pod, ficus (fig tree with huge extensive roots), Allspice (ants love the allspice by the way) Para rubber tree (the piranhas feed off the nuts),
So I trudged around there for about as long as I could handle nice deep breaths and learn of the creation of such a place- after the construction of a large dam to protect the town of Kaneohe from flood waters...
there is a small lookout point and in back one can witness some of the military installations no longer in use behind fences. The lookout gives some impressive views of the KOOalha mountain range and the Pali, as well as bright blue Kaneohe bay.
So I get back to my scooter and try to at least measure the full distant of the ground s via the road that weaves through adn around the sections of massive lawns.
oh by the way I saw the imfamous ACAI Berry Palm. It's a big Palm tree with large hanging blue fruit clustered almost like giganto grapes.
So I drive around on their terrible surface which is that ripped up shredded cement, designed to like slow you down, as well as a large speed bump every few feet......
well my friends by the time I left the dam place, I could barely steer my vehicle, I thought it was just the road-it was not. I had a flat tire, miles away from a gas station....I stayed towards the back tire and went slow and as far as I could go before pushing the scooter like an oxen cart. So I get it to a gas station almost fill the tire up with water because they have a similar hose next to the air, but instead it squirts a powerful blast of water, Lucky I tested it.
So I fill it to the brim.....and a loud clearly audible through traffic surrounding me sound of air rushing out.....fuck.
As you know I have already taken the hwy over the Pali somewhat far from home. I was already thinking not to go back the same route in hopes of extending my young adult life. So I was going to take the long scenic safer route around the mountains, so I'm kinda screwed, I can't just hope it makes it, plus when the tires go flat it becomes impossible to control that sucker.
Reading every can of fix a flat in a store, they all say the same thing....DO NOT USE ON BICYCLE OR MOTORCYCLE. well I finally find a brand Air Up which does not make such a statement.
I feel up the tire with the gunnk and I think it works....I find a motorcycle repair shop who take about 3 hours to fix and patch the tire for permanent use. I support a local church charity and have some of their Grill Huli Huli chicken, covered some sweet and salty soy sauce concoction. I hang out their awhile, I walking like forever just waiting to try to get back on the road before nightfalls- they will come out at night and I fear the long drive over the curvy mountains at night with the scooter.
Luckily I manage to make it back just in time to catch a nice sunset along the last stretch of the scenic route....except I break my nice sunglasses....another casualty of the day...I'm exhausted and I check in early.
Another adventure.
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