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The fire continues to burn up on Haleakala. The first picture shows the mountain from just behind my house. The second one shows where the fire is generally located. The third is a blow-up of that area and the fourth is a ridicules blow-up of what I could see last night.




Here are the Maui News stories
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Actually, I am posting this prior to the Saturday "online" edition of Maui news being published. That link should bring up the latest edition about 10am my time (UTC-10).

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I made it back for a full shift of driving and dispatching. Really didn't want to be there but life's demands forced my hand. It never really got busy and I was so out of it that all I did was focus on what I needed to do. When day shift checked in, I relaxed enough to realize that I had done 18 runs and metered well over $200. Other than the functual parts of my job, the only other thing I did was casually "watch the clock." 8 hours to go. 6 hours to go. Excetera. The two longest runs of the night were Prince to OGG and north Kihei to MMMC (Maui Memorial Medical Center). The two best tips were both $25 and "keep the change" on a $10.10 and a $6.20. Oh, and the OGG gave me $70 on a $60.40 meter.

Found a country to whom the concept of "tipping" is totally alien. Three times after 2:00am I stumbled across small groups of Argentinians walking down Kihei Road, over a one hour period. Each group was headed to the same location. At the end of each fare, they would combine funds to pay the exact amount of the meter. Not a penny more or less. And each group commented on how high our taxi fares were. As far as I can tell, they are the highest non-negotiated (fixed) rate in the world. Of course, few places in the world have a cost-of-living so high that a person earning less than $40,000 a year is considered impoverished.

Paradise has its problems and every silver lining must have a dark cloud.

Our weather forecast indicates that we may have unsettled conditions starting this weekend and continuing through most of next week and possibly beyond. That link also has some pics of the pre-fire Polipoli area. The fire started as a small 25 acre blaze and has expanded to over 600 acres. If the weather change brings us some rain, that will assist the firefighters. If it doesn't, then conditions will worsen with the 180^o wind shift from "trade" to "Kona".

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THE PICTURE GALLERY

THE BIG ISLAND

Pu'uhonua o Honaunau
"City of Refuge"

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"Let's all be careful out there!"