Time for another annual tradition, a collection of all the Instagram cat photos I took over the past year. These are heavily weighted toward the beginning of the year because I was trying to do a "post a photo every day" thing, which lasted until about Valentines Day, at which point work took over my life again as it seems to do every so often. Which is also why I've had a record low number of posts here this year, and why Tumblr has completely fallen by the wayside. I did manage to meet the one-post-per-month-for-the-last-14-years bare minimum at least; you might notice that the sidebar shows two posts for September and zero for August, but that's going by Portland time, and it was still before midnight on August 31st in Maui when I posted that first "September" post, which totally counts.
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Sunday, December 15, 2019
Koko Crater Trail
The city's position is that this is an unofficial and unmaintained trail, no matter how popular it is, so anything that falls into disrepair is going to stay that way. They've also gotten tired of rescuing tourists on the trail (according to a 2014 article) & they tried closing it to the public at least once, but soon relented due to public outcry. The trail's probably only become even more popular since then, since it was briefly in the national news in December 2015 when the Obama family hiked it. I occasionally point out that this is not a blog about politics, but I can't imagine the current White House occupant doing this, even if he could find Hawaii on a globe. As far as I know he only goes outside to cheat at golf on courses he owns.
Anyway, a few possibly-helpful tips for this adventure:
- As always, bring more water than you think you need, because you might need it. The only caveat here is that a backpack full of water can kind of tug you backwards and put you off balance, so be mindful of that.
- On a related note, keep an eye on people uphill of you if you can, so you can get out of the way if someone slips & starts tumbling toward you. I didn't see this happen but have seen news accounts of it happening.
- It gets hot, so go early if you can. When I say this, I always mean you should go earlier than I did, since I'm kind of hobbled by not being much of a morning person.
- Once you're done, you will probably be in the mood for a cold beer or two (or so). And you're in luck: A few blocks from here, at the Koko Marina Center minimall, there's a Kona Brewing brewpub, with a range of beers on tap and a fairly standard brewpub menu with burgers and so forth. Overall it's not my absolute favorite among all local breweries, but you can't beat the location.
