It is Christmas Eve Day. Hard to believe. I read that New Mexico is getting hit with lots of snow. However I am here in paradise for the time being and will handle that aspect of my life after the 1st of the year.

Where we are staying, it has been very windy - warm - but windy...

White caps on the fish pond, over the reefs and out in the ocean...as I have mentioned before, we face Maui, which can be seen across the waves. I woke up last night thinking we were having a major gale, but realized that, even though it WAS gale force winds, the sound was made even stronger by the wave action and the palm trees, lined up like soldiers in front of our building...

Every day there is a little rain, and of course rainbows. How lucky are we?

A couple of days ago we drove east for about ten miles, thinking to go to Halwava Valley, but because of needing gas, we did not go down the steep road into it. We will do that Monday or Tuesday. However we did get some beautiful pictures..

The rock behind Marty is called Turtle Rock, and if you look closely, you just barely see its head from this vantage point. Further along the road to Halawa Valley, the head is much more prominent.

We went back to Kanakakai, and gassed up. Then that day or the next (time doesn't matter here) we drove out to the West End of the island, first to Mauna Loa Town, where The Kite Shop is. The resort here was closed up tight as a tick five or six years ago, because the owners wanted to build mutli-million dollar homes on Lau'au Point, which is a sacred place, and fortunately the residents of Molokai were able to block it from becoming a reality. So, like a pouting child, they (the Corporation which owns The Ranch) closed up everything, including the only movie theater on the island, and three or four restaurants. There are people living around the area, but the center of the town is vacant buildings with the exception of The Kite Shop, the Post Office, and a small general store. Needless to say, a lot of jobs were lost in this process. "The Ranch" is a very sore subject on Molokai, for a number of reasons, which I will not go into at this point.

The Kite Shop makes their own kites, as well as imports others. There is also a wonderful gift shop connected to it. The Blue Monkey Shop, at Coffees of Hawaii, also a quality gift shop, and is owned by the same family - husband, wife and son.

While Marty was going over to the General Store in Mauna Loa Town, I was looking around and noticed three trees out on the curb, in front of The Kite Shop. I looked at them and smiled...

...No doubt about which way the wind blows!!!

We drove back to the road taking us to the West end beaches, first looking at a couple of houses, and then one of the The Ranch-owned Condominium Resorts still going. The other one, at least the main hotel, has closed its doors. Then we drove to the furthest most beach, Dixie Maru, named for a ship that went down there. I had never been to it, and it is a nice secluded beach, safe to swim in because of the outer reefs protecting the little harbor...

Marty came up to where I was and pointed to the edge of the beach, where there were two Monk Seals playing in the water. She said that a woman told her that they were endangered and asked that we not go close to them. There are only 1200 Monk Seals left in the world, and 200 of them live around the Hawaiian Islands. The woman must have been a park ranger as she was asking the beach goers to respect the seals, which is really a good thing to do, as there were people in the water and on the beach. I didn't have any idea that they were endangered.

I took a bunch of pictures of the seals, but it was hard to catch either one of them out of the water, so I was glad I at least got a head!!! I could have stayed there the rest of the afternoon and watched them play. Apparently the monk seals are seen along the beaches, basking in the sun. What fun!

We walked back to the car and drove back along the road to the Papohaku Beach where I had been last year and the year before. On the road we saw two different flocks of birds, with about 15 to 20 birds each. We were told they were turkeys, which are very common all over the West End, but if they were turkeys, there wasn't a gobbler in sight! They may have ganged up on him, and told him to take a hike!

When we pulled into the beach parking lot, there were loads of red-crested cardinals on the ground. They are beautiful birds. I believe they came from New Zealand or Australia at some point...

The beautiful white sand beach is two to three miles long. Marty went ahead, as I walk slowly with my walking stick. And I do not do well in sand - kinda get tippy, if you know what I mean! And the walking stick doesn't do a damned bit of good in sand anyway! It began to drizzle slightly, and then all of a sudden it just started pouring. I was soaked even under a tree, as the wind was blowing straight towards me. Marty came up from the beach and we just stood there in the rain. Haven't done that in a long time. I used to wash my hair in the rain when there was a good downpour. Especially at Camp Lake Hubert. The rain was like having conditioner added to the shampoo. Of course in this day and age, and in some parts of the world, with the acid rain, your hair might fall out...!

Anyway, we were going to start back to the car, when what to our wondering eyes should appear, but a...

Did I tell you that I just love Molokai? Mo bettah in Molokai!

Last night we went to The Cookhouse for dinner. It is near Coffees and has very good food. Both of us had fresh fish - Marty had "ono" and I had "ahi". Marty's was very much like haddock, a firm white fish, with liliquoy(?) sauce on it. Liliquoy is a Hawaiian fruit. "Ahi" is tuna. Both were absolutely delicious and we were served so much, that we each brought doggie bags home with us to enjoy tonight. Don't the Italians always have fish on New Year's Eve?

Today we are taking it easy. Reading, doing crosswords, painting (Marty), on the computer, blogging (Sally), and being lazy. Marty brought with her the cutest little round water color set and a small art pad, and she has been painting the flowers around us...

I am not going to ask you what this is...

I am going to tell you - it is a pomolo, and is one of my favorite fruits. I have never seen them in stateside markets, although I am sure they may be in some of the California stores. I put the Kleenex box next to it, to indicate how big it is. It is about two or three times the size of a grapefruit. The peeling has to be taken off with a knife. The skin of each section is really inedible, but with a break in the skin by a knife, it peels off easily, and there are the sections, which can broken into little pieces, or eaten in hunks, which ever you wish. This is our second pomolo ...we get them from a street vendor who sells fresh fruit and veggies every day in Kanakakai. And, they do belong to the citrus family, obviously.

Here is our little Christmas area...our tree so to speak...we just lit the bayberry candle, and will let it burn down to the nub for good luck, good cheer, and wealth in the new year. I also do that on New Year's Eve. It is a family tradition passed down from our parents...

...and I heard him exclaim as he rose out of sight, "Mele Kalikimaka" and to all a good night."

Life is good.
A hui hou,
I love you all,
Sally