Plantation Days Parade

One of our local towns celebrates a week of Plantation Days every summer. The history of the island community is remembered with nature walks, outdoor movies, a rodeo, and family events. The biggest to-do is the culminating Plantation Days Parade which marches through the old part of town. The whole community comes out into the Saturday sunshine. Truck beds and trailers are decorated as make-shift floats with ti leaves and flowers. Shiny old cars are showcased all in a line. And of course, there are a lot of horses, recalling the old days of the paniolo, or Hawaiian cowboy. Times have changed here in Hawaii. The days of the plantations are over, replaced with the overpowering growth of tourism. People here like to remember the simpler days, when the sugar plantations were still running, when the world didn't have any stoplights. 

the veterans were driving these tiny cars for no apparent reason...

barefoot is rather trendy here...

gecko!

apparently, this is supposed to recall an image of Captain Cook...

Hawaiian Italian...

a grass skirt has to be the most uncomfortable outfit for riding...

ATV tours take you back into the rugged "wilderness"

always respect to the firefighters...

I'm curious as to how long this sign has been here. The bridge itself seems about to collapse.

an ancient Ford...

Are You a Fan of Delicious Color?

Summer is slapping me in the face today. I'm sitting here between two breezeless windows, eating mint chocolate chip ice cream and listening to the Decemberists (ironically). I realize that for most of you on the mainland, summer has been slapping you a great deal harder, so I'll stop complaining. 

I have very exciting news though...

In my last post, I shared my article on How to Survive a Vacation in Hawaii in the hopes that I might get to the next round in the HubPages Share and Share A Like Contest. Surprisingly enough, a different hub, Fun Summer Activities with Sidewalk Chalk, was nominated for the Fan Faves round! If you want to help me win, you can vote right here on Facebook. It was fun putting this together and sharing a little of my love for sidewalk chalk (it's not just for kids). Some of my friends and I decorated the sidewalk at the beach park recently - yes, we felt like kids and yes, we had a great time. It was fun just adding a little more color to the world. Chalk art goes way beyond the neighborhood sidewalk though. Professional chalk artists create amazing 3-D paintings - talk about optical illusions! Some cities put together chalk festivals and Sidewalk Chalk Floods where the whole community colors the sidewalks of the city - it would be so much fun to go to one of those! 

So forgive me for this little self-serving post! I hope your summer is bright and colorful and full of sunshine! I was going to share my waterfall discovery with you, but I think I'll save it till next time....

photo courtesy Steve Johnson via Flickr

I'm Back!

Hello again, lovely blog followers! Though there are few of you, you make my ramblings seem almost worthwhile. So I'll be around a bit longer if that's okay with you.

Summer has been quite an adventure, but it has come to a definite close despite the everlasting sunshine out my window. For I think of summer as more than just weather: it is freedom and watermelons and camping and cute shoes (the two latter, I'm afraid, don't work together very well). My summer also included twice-lost luggage, red ant bites, and food poisoning, but all of it is over and the chains are tightened once again. (Please read this last as an exaggeration. I live on a tropical island with an ocean out my window; the chains are merely metaphorical.) What I mean to say is, I must readjust my life, open up my calendar, and get back to work. But part of that work is rambling on a blog, so it can't all be bad.

My first morning back, I woke up (in a fit of airplane lag) unnecessarily early. The good part was I got to see an amazing sunrise:

So with a new dawn comes a new day.