The one year anniversary is quickly nearing. March 1 to be precise. 2018 was full of surprises. One of them was needing to delay this very trip due to passport issues.

While it is terrific to be here and all, first and foremost this kind of traveling is not a repeatable event for financial reasons. E.g,, per night we are spending triple digits; the car, while not super costly, for sure isn’t free; and pineapples are $6 each.

Clearly people do live here who don’t possess multimillion dollar endowments or equivalent situations. On a former trip to the big island some years ago, some locals said you either support tourists or are in construction. Perhaps for the same tourists.

A while back we talked about moving to Hawaii actually. For a while, like maybe a year. Once you get to that length of a lease, the rates are better, especially in more out of the way places. Otherwise, though, you’re competing with our high salaried former crowd.

Back to the rental car, which as said is not very costly from a vacationer’s perspective, is something we’d never buy due to the number of diesel school bus engines we could have otherwise purchased. In fact, using the unit of measure Brad Van, coined by M J post purchase of Brad’s van for $500, it’s out of the ballpark folks. In case you’re wondering, other than non functional wipers, that van got M J and me plus our singles to and from New Orleans for some winter rowing and loads of fun.

Back here on the North Shore, right now is high season due to the top shelf waves. An extensive menu of big time competitions book up the beaches with date range exclusivity, and calls are made and flights booked when the big ones come.

We get to see some tomorrow it turns out: 11-15 footers are expected and we are super excited. Big badda boom!

Tonight’s supper, same cost of yesterday’s lunch with three times the food and no less scrumptious, was in house made chicken sandwiches with pesto. Here is the sublime pesto recipe, inspired by the $16 bottle of organic olive oil not purchased.

Pipeline Pesto

Mix in nutra bullet the following:

• Waimea Valley farmer market basil
• Half passion fruit
• Stoneground mustard
• 5 Brasil nuts
• Coconut oil from the cupboard
• Hunk Asiago cheese

We both swam and hit pipeline twice to revel in those stunning waves. Getting around on those clunkers has been a blast.