Maunawili Loop

Maunawili demonstration trail

The Missus and I went on a hike in Maunawili on Friday morning (8 May 2005), she being off that a.m. and me having (almost, save for a pile of research papers to be graded) finished the spring semester at LCC. We started at the Maunawili Falls trailhead after parking on Kelewina Street. Shoved off around 10:20 a.m. Nice warm day. Blue skies. Very dry trail.

Hiking with Jacque is always an experience because she has an interesting way of looking at things. For instance, as we were hiking along today, she tells me things like, "This place reminds of Shirley Temple singing the song about blue robins" or "I'm expecting to see trolls and ogres somewhere around here." I smile hearing these things because they are so unlike the kinds of thoughts I have.

She also loves colorful flowers, of which there was an abundance that day, all from non-natives like impatiens, African tulips, et al.

So we hiked along, Jacque occasionally expressing her unique view of the world, and me grunting and huffing and puffing and sweating buckets in the sultry environs of Maunawili Valley.

I'm not in the best hiking shape and my malaise is compounded by the continuing saga of my heart problems. Back in November of last year, I had a procedure (cardioversion) done to correct an irregular heartbeat. That went well. However....

Four months later in March, my heart went irregular again, as discovered in a follow-up check at the doc's. According to my heart doc, my options include being on meds for the rest of my life to regulate the beat, doing another cardioversion with no certainty that my beat will stay regular, or trying another procedure called catheter ablation where "the doctor will thread a catheter through a blood vessel from (my) groin into (my) heart and burn away the tissue containing the accessory pathways that cause (my) heart to misfire" (quoted from http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9901/18/heart.ablation/)

Of course, I could also opt to do nothing, of which the outcome could likely be a premature "D" thing. Not quite ready for that, so...

...the ablation procedure is on the docket, probably for sometime this summer.

Meanwhile, hiking will go on. As it did today. Jacque and I had fun, heading up the Falls trail and up the connector to the Maunawili Demo Trail. Took us about an hour from the car. Sweated a lot (me not the Missus, who doesn't sweat hardly at all).

We sat down at the junction for a few minutes, enjoying some cold drinks and the nice view back toward Mount Olomana, where Jacque had her 3rd peak adventure this past December (she has recovered quite nicely from that). BTW, Mel Yoshioka also had an adventure that day, too. Hope he is doing okay.

After the break, the Missus and I ambled along the Demo Trail, moving at a little quicker tempo (flat trail, few inclines). :-)

We ducked or climbed past two significant blowdowns, the first being a fiddlewood tree (aka pest) and the second being a quite large and old koa tree. Poor old fellah.

After about half an hour on the Demo Trail, we then hiked down the connector trail to Lopaka Way. Someone has affixed a ribbon to a tree at the Demo Trail junction and neatly penned "to Lopaka Way" on the marker. Kinda overgrown, the connector was, but not bad enough to impede our progress. Noticed native plants along the trail--akia, ohia, k'ooko'olau. Should mention that I have started a native garden in our yard at home. Species planted include koa, ohia, lama, akia, pawale, loulu, ko'oko'olau, naupaka, and pohinahina. Ken Suzuki would be proud.

We were back at our car on Kelewina Street a little over two hours after we had begun. It was a fun couple of hours for us. Good workout, good time.

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