The day in
Hilo started with a bang in a couple of ways!
As soon as I woke up and saw the island off our side of the ship, I
turned on my phone and found a voicemail message from our neighbors saying that
there was a water break at our house and there was lots of water in our
driveway….great! I called our friend,
Tom, who was on the road and unable to respond so I then called Guy who said
he’d be glad to check. There was only
one problem…..Guy thought I said ‘wasps’ so he went to the house to find flying
bugs!!!
Meanwhile,
I checked my email and found out that Connie and Fred had gotten a call from
the first neighbors and they had gone over to find a break in one of the
sprinklers and had shut off the water to the irrigation system!! Yay!!
Guy, in the meantime, is puzzled because he’s not having any success
troubleshooting the water once we got on the same page with wasp v.
water!!! All I can say is “thank God” for
such great neighbors!! You are all the
BEST!! XOXOXO
While all
this is going on the Commodore is taking his shower and then comes out of the
bathroom choking and coughing! Now what???
Well, he
went to wash down his mouthful of medications with some bottled water and
…………wait for it………….yep! GIN!!!! He will tell you that is NOT FUN at 7am and
being totally unexpected pretty much ruined the taste of his morning
coffee!! Sorry, I think it’s freaking
hysterical! Can you all see now that
there aren’t many dull moments around here?
Once that
morning fun was resolved we disembarked to ‘follow our noses’ and decided that
we would find someone on the pier to give us ‘a three hour tour’ of Hilo. Easier said than done since we were in the
middle of the worst rush off the ship!
We did prevail and found a guy named Mario who was free to give us the
tour we were looking for. It actually
was perfect for him since he had another group in the afternoon. He was terrific and very proud of his city and
island and was a great guide. We saw the
Akaka Falls and then the Rainbow Falls, the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut farm and
shop and he just gave us a great tour of the shoreline and parks. After two weeks of nearly continuous rain,
Hilo was dry and sunny today and the temperatures in the 70’s!
At the end
of our tour Betty and I decided to stop by Walmart so we asked Mario to drop us
off before he took Don and the Commodore back to the ship. Betty and I planned to take the Walmart or
Hilo Hattie shuttle back to the ship. We
were only in the store about 20 minutes and came back out to wait for the
shuttle bus when Mario appears!! He said
he felt we were going to have to wait too long for the shuttle so he came back
for us and took us to the pier.
See? I told you he was a nice
guy! Those kinds of heartwarming moments
really restore some of my faith in people!
We had a
bit of a rest before it was ‘gin and tonic’ time (well, whatever gin was left
after the morning slug!). Betty and I
opened a nice bottle red! We enjoyed
ourselves on the balcony watching Hilo disappear. Tonight’s dinner was in the Sterling
Steakhouse where we were again spoiled rotten by delicious food.
Casino
opened again and we made our usual deposit. L
The next
few days are all at sea and the Captain assures us that it will be pretty
comfortable with moderate seas. Those
are the best kind to rock you to sleep!
Lots of
love,
XOXOXOXO
M
Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry for Dad but I sure had a great laugh about the gin/water mix up! My goodness, that was bound to happen!!
ReplyDeleteAnd, I know you don't need commending, but I think it's so great that you're adventurous enough to find your own guide, and find your own way out of Walmart. I'm always a little nervous about going outside of the cruise excursions. Of course, I might not feel that way if I was in the US.