Hawaii - October 05, 2003
Perhaps I should talk about the weather before I continue further with this narrative.
As far as I was concerned, the weather during our trip was nearly perfect. The daily temperatures were in the 80's; the nightly temperatures in the 70's. The humidity was higher than what I'm used to at home, but not oppressively so .Every day we were there it was clear in the morning and then clouded up in the afternoon. On a few days the afternoon clouds led to some rain, but rarely. By evening, the clouds would be almost gone. This process repeated itself day in and day out. It was perfect to my mind.
It was on such a typically clear morning that I awoke to discover that last night's sore throat wasn't a reaction to poisonous gases, but the onset of a cold. With my in-laws tired from yesterday's excursion we decided to make today a "down day" and take it easy.
My mother-in-law had been enchanted with the idea of the sunset dinner cruise we had seen our first evening in Kailua-Kona and so Chu-Wan checked the availability with the concierge.The cruise was only available to people over 21, so Chu-Wan would not be able to take Michelle. We decided not to spend the money and go; however, my in-laws could go. Chu-Wan purchased the tickets and we relaxed for the rest of the day.
I spent some time in the pool and finally got a really good look at an animal that I'd been seeing out of the corner of my eye since we arrived. It appeared to be a mongoose. I checked with the front desk and, sure enough, they have a couple living in the area. I later learned that mongooses had been introduced to help control the rat population (also an introduced species, albeit accidentally) but, mongooses hunt during the day and rats are active during the night. Their effectiveness in controlling rats was negligible; however, they love to eat the native bird eggs and have thrived at the birds' expense.
The afternoon clouds rolled in and the problems began.
My mother-in-law no longer wanted to go on the sunset tour. She felt that taking a sunset cruise when she couldn't see the sunset would be a waste of money and she refused to go. Of course, the tickets were non-refundable, so the money was wasted anyway and no amount of arguing and shouting in Chinese (I took no part) seemed able to convince her to go.
Finally my father-in-law decided he'd go on his own and at the last moment my mother-in-law reluctantly agreed to go, but you could tell she had made up her mind to hate it.
A bus picked them up and we were on our own for the evening. I wasn't feeling great, but I was hungry. Near the timeshare is a Wendy's and we stopped there because it had a wonderful view of the sea and sunset (the clouds had, as usual, cleared up by now.)
Chu-Wan took Michelle to get a good seat, and I got in line to place my order. I thought things were going well as there was only one person in front of me and they had apparently ordered already. The problem was, for some reason, they just couldn't agree on what the order was. I'm not saying the person making the order wasn't sure what they wanted, but the counter help seemed almost comically incapable of taking the order accurately and reading it back. Finally the manager had to come do it, even then it took far longer than it should have. Five minutes passed getting the order right, all the while I could see the enormous sun dipping slowly into the ocean for a perfect sunset.
It then came time to take my order. It was just as painful as for the person ahead of me. The sun set completely while getting my order taken. It took them five minutes to take an order but they still cranked out the food before I finished paying.
I ran outside and tried to get a sunset picture, but the sun was gone. I was able to get a picture of the cruise ship that my mother and father-in-law were (presumably) enjoying a full dinner in front of what must have been a perfect sunset from their vantage point.
We headed back into Kailua-Kona to look around the shops and Chu-Wan bought a new hat as she'd lost her old one at the airport leaving Oahu.
Later, when her parents returned, her mother told the tale to Chu-Wan, who eventually told it to me. The sunset was beautiful, but their table was on the wrong side of the boat, the food wasn't very good, there was dancing but the music was too loud. As I said, it had been obvious she had made up her mind not to enjoy the cruise.
Hawaii - Kailua-Kona. View from Wendy's - My vote for the best view AND worst service ever at a Wendy's. The ship in the distance is the cruise my in-laws were on at the time. |
Hawaii - Kailua-Kona - Waves on the shore at night |
