7 a.m.---Today is bike ride day! We have ‘em rented for the day, from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Don’t know that we’ll ride all day…that depends on the weather map and road closures. Not afraid to ride in the rain but what we encountered in Hilo yesterday was like a monsoon…don’t want to ride in that kind of wet. When we formulated this idea years back we didn’t stipulate how long we had to ride in each state. So, a ride is a ride and any length of time on a bike will get that checkmark on the Bucket List of Riding.
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The flower with the intoxicating smell that I thought was plumeria might
not be. It doesn’t match up with the
picture of a plumeria flower I found online.
And Google was no help with a “smells like plumeria but isn’t” search.
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7 p.m. Update:
I asked
John, our host, about the pink flower I thought was a plumeria…it’s a hibiscus. And the fragrant flower is gardenia and is
over on the side of the house.
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Today’s 40 Days of Lent Challenge: Take a prayer filled walk
and appreciate the beauty of God’s creation. I substituted taking a ride
for taking a walk, marveled at the very creation of the island I was on and
called it complete.
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Mother Nature ran the gamut of emotions today: Hot, cool, wet, hot again and then windy. Took the road out of Waikoloa to Route 190. It climbed in elevation to more than 2000 ft and the temperature cooled a bit. Rain came as we were descending the mountain; it didn’t last long but, still, it was long enough for my legs to get soaked. I hate it when that happens! When we reached Kona, we intended to follow Route 11 down to Naalehu with a quick stop at the Magic Sands Beach. However, a check of the radar during a stop showed a massive green blob with a yellow center heading in our direction. So, we decided to head north back to the rental, hoping to stay ahead of the blob. Got sprinkled on every so slightly; when we were clear of it and in the sunshine, I looked in the mirror to see an ugly dark sky behind us. Seems our instincts to head north were valid. The last 20 miles or so the wind was incredible. So, it wasn’t an all-day ride but we got ‘er done and that’s what counts. 😎
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Since Moxie and Louie were clever enough to stow-away in our luggage,
they got in on the ride
action today. They
started out on the passenger seats of the bikes…Louie was fine but Moxie couldn’tsit still so I had to put her up by the windshield to keep her safe. She looked funny up there, but it was her own
fault for not sitting still on the back seat.
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We had
to return the bikes with full tanks; there is a gas station near the rental
shop which is in a little resort community.
Gas was $5.79 a gallon for regular, no premium…gas in Kona has been in
the $5.10 range…yesterday in Hilo we filled up for $4.79 a gallon. Ouch!
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Saw a Ghost Bike memorial on our way to
Route 190. The word ‘Surnow’ was painted on the frame and there was also the
date ‘3-2-15’ on the cross bar. After our
ride, a quick search turned up the details on hawaii247.com, an online newspaper. Here is an excerpt:
A Michigan man died early
Sunday (March 1) from a vehicle-bicycle crash in South Kohala. He has been identified as 63-year-old Jeffrey
C. Surnow of West Bloomfield, Michigan.
Police have
determined that Surnow was riding a bicycle east on Waikoloa Road near the
11-mile marker when he was hit by a vehicle driven in the same direction by an
on-duty police officer assigned to the South Kohala District. The officer who
struck Surnow reported the crash around 6:25 a.m. Sunday.
Surnow was
taken to North Kohala Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:25
a.m.
Traffic
Enforcement Unit officers initiated a negligent homicide investigation and
arrested the officer, 30-year-old Jody Buddemeyer, on suspicion of negligent
homicide. He was later released pending further investigation.
Hawaii County has agreed to pay a $15.1
million settlement to the family of a Michigan man who was hit and killed by a
police patrol car, officials said.
Jeffrey Surnow, 63, was riding a bicycle on
the Big Island when he was killed in March 2015, The Hawaii Tribune-Herald
reported Monday.
Officer Jody
Buddemeyer was working his second consecutive eight-hour shift when he struck
the resident of West Bloomfield, Michigan.
Buddemeyer, now
34, was convicted last year of misdemeanor negligent homicide and sentenced to
one year of probation. Buddemeyer no longer works for the police department,
although he is appealing the case, officials said.
The Hawaii County Police Department
previously required officers to work back-to-back shifts, but the department
has ended the policy, officials said.
“In this case, what that policy led to is the officer being awake for more than 26 hours at the time of the accident,” said family attorney Thomas Otake. “All the evidence indicates that he fell asleep.”
Buddemeyer had previously complained about the policy, but he did not pull over and rest when he became fatigued, family attorneys said.
Surnow was a real estate executive who founded a company that manages properties worth hundreds of millions of dollars. His potential earnings would have exceeded the settlement amount, family attorneys said.
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