Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“Roger dodger, just a quick cup and we'll be off,” I grinned.
We rowed over to where Gavin's Yellow Lemon was parked and climbed in. We had to
laugh; it did look like a fifty dollar car; the yellow paint was peeling off in leaf size flakes,
the doors creaked alarmingly and had to be held for fear of falling off and to close them.
Only the driver's window worked; the others had long since seized, and the seats were
badly torn and lumpy. Liz sat in front. She was the guest of honor as well as the navigator;
Zephyr sat behind with me.
The car was started with a whinnying of the starter motor and a belch of white smoke and
angry grating of gears; the clutch had long since given up the ghost. We lurched off in the
general direction of town. Gavin had forgotten to tell Liz about her funky seat, and she
shot back, almost landing in my lap. As he slowed for an intersection, she shot forward
almost through the windshield. “Hell, neat car Gavin,” she laughed, her knuckles white on
the dashboard, hair all over her face.
The Yellow Lemon ground and blurted its way through the ugly, industrial area of the har-
bor and soon the scene changed to more central town with better looking buildings, lovely,
flowering gardens, and tall trees that straddled the road on this side of town. We were trav-
eling on the old main road, and I was impressed with the original, old, cast-iron street lamp
poles supporting the telephone wires. I had not been out of the Keehi area and was enjoying
the new sights. We could always see the sparkling, blue ocean and the large green muscular
remains of the volcano, Diamond Head, with its land-mark sawn off head. The streets were
surprisingly busy for an early Saturday morning.
We finally made it to the huge Aloha Sports Stadium car park, pulling up with a metallic
grinding of brakes and Liz flying forward, shrieking with laughter. The car park was quite
full, and we followed the general stream of early arrivals who rushed off towards the shanty
town of little stalls and tents hastily erected by members of the public who had items to
sell. It was fascinating; the luring smells of good coffee and greasy doughnuts greeted us
first from a nearby stall. There was a tattooed, old, Vietnam vet, proud of his heritage and
graying crew-cut, who had a variety of guns, knives, bayonets and weapons, all spotlessly
clean, oiled, and laid out on an old canvass ground sheet in military array. We lingered there
for a few minutes wolfing down our doughnuts and coffee, the vet openly eying Liz.
There was an angry squawk right next door, and we saw several large parrot cages, hanging
up by chains, with a variety of colorful parrots within. The woman also had a variety of
smaller beautifully colored birds in little bamboo and wire cages. She had her pet parrot
out on her hand. He was nibbling on a cuttlefish bone and voicing his opinion.
We walked on and saw such a variety of things, too many to mention. We came across
a family selling a large array of black diving flippers, weight belts, scuba gear, and even
