Col: Kalaupapa Overlook (where you can see the town that served as the colony for the unfortunate souls with leprosy - and Father Damien. There is no road to the town - riding down switchbacks on mules is the most common way of getting there - and the remaining residents, who have chosen to stay there, prohibit anyone under age 16 from visiting... so no trip to the former leper colony for us). Mags took some of these pictures!
Also, there's another trail at the Kalaupapa Lookout that leads to THE MOST MAGNIFICENT PHALLIC ROCK IN HAWAII - because there are so many. Kind of like the largest ball of twine in Kansas. I do believe that Molokai also boasts the largest lined reservoir in Hawaii - or the US - or maybe the world. Oahu may have Waikiki and Pearl Harbor. But they don't have the phallic rock. (Anyway, I don't for a minute doubt the power of the thing, so I'm hoping the fact that Mags is only 4 means we don't have to worry about becoming grandparents just yet.)
We also went to Purdy's Macadamia Nut Farm today, but I'm going to let Jay write about the nut farm. He needs to get it all out as therapy. Let's just say that I don't think it's coincidence that the word most associated with the guy who runs the macadamia farm is "NUTS."
Jay: what a bummer. I know the guy who owns and runs the place must mean well or else he wouldn't open the place to tourists for free (god knows nothing else in Hawaii is free). But really, you have to be a little less . . . oppressive. Great, it's all natural and we get to see the nut in its natural environment. It's wonderful to know that the nuts are harvested 12 months out of the year (or is it just 11 like the flier says?). But if we don't have any deeply insightful questions about macademia nuts, don't keep harping on about the need to ask questions. Especially when we are trying to herd our two children, who don't give a shit about your nuts. And don't you visitors dare ask any questions about a topic he may have already addressed. And god forbid you make a light comment about being around later in the week if you experience some divine inspiration and come up with a question after you leave. Because you are visiting a working farm and they don't have time. Except if they are taking the time to try to educate the stupid haole. If there are so many interesting questions to ask about the nuts, wouldn't they have been asked (and answered) a million times already, thereby giving you the ability to preemptively give us the information? I should have asked that question. I thought I had gotten past this experience. But here I am writing this 36 hours after we returned to The Prairie and here I am as vitriolic as ever. Gotta relax.
Col: Did I mention that a GIANT FUCKING CENTIPEDE SCARED THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF ME? I saw him slither across the floor as I snuck out of bed to see who got booted from Dancing with the Stars (and because I still had to take my medicine - Note to drug developers: Can't we do better than a ten day course of penicillin for strep throat?) Of course, he went right under the TV and into the stack of kids' toys and books. I immediately went into a cold sweat, unbarred the sliding door and tried to dislodge him from his hiding place with the giant PVC pipe that we use to wedge the door closed. He was nowhere to be found, and my family was asleep. I tried to wake up Jay to get him to agree that it was scary and then to tell me that we were in no actual danger. He was kind of less than responsive. Then, I saw the fucker again on the wall of our bedroom - he was heading east, apparently. I grabbed Jay with a death grip on the left ankle and demanded that he rise up and kill the beast. He said, "It's just a gecko." I hissed, "That is NO fucking gecko." It looked all psychedelic colored and like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland except not all trippy and much more sinister. Jay grabbed the waste basket from the bathroom and somehow, with the delicacy of a black lab sent to retrieve a fallen bird, he plucked it from the wall, lowered it into the waste basket with a wisp of toilet paper and handed me the trash. "Put it outside." And with that he was back to sleep. I am not kidding when I say I about passed out trying to carry the STILL VERY ALIVE (for some reason) centipede out to the wilds to release it. I flung open the sliding door and cast out the be-legged varmint along with the toilet paper (which I reasoned was biodegradable, after all). Now I am afraid to walk in the back yard for fear of running into the big guy. Needless to say, I did not pause to take a photograph. But, he was at least five inches long and MEAN. (Here's someone else's photo/story - (Ours was bigger than 5 inches, or my name's not Mama.)
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