HAWAII: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

PART ONE

While Hawaii is a beautiful state, a paradise actually, like everywhere else, it does have its downfalls.
For example, climbing out of bed early one morning, I headed for the shower. I reached in, turned the water on, pulled the shower curtain closed and stepped in. Suddenly there was a cane spider running right at me.
The EEEK that came out of my mouth was loud enough to wake Randy up, but since he didn't hear anything else, he didn't know what woke him up. So here I am, a huge spider coming right at me. I jumped out of the shower now knowing what to do, but the spider kept coming toward me. I grabbed the shower hose off the wall and began spraying the spider away from me, to the back of the shower. The spider got all soggy looking, so thinking it was dead I quit spraying it. Instantly it jumped up and came at me again! The stupid thing! Why couldn't it stay dead? I sprayed it some more, but every time I quit spraying, it would come back to life. Then a great idea popped into my head. Hot water! Mine was only warm, so I reached in while still spraying the spider of course, and cranked the water onto the hottest it would go. Five minutes later, that sucker was finally dead. Just to be sure, I grabbed a shampoo bottle (Randy's, since I didn't want spider gunk on mine), and ground that huge brown thing into the drain. I was terrified during my shower, thinking that the spider was going to reattach it's legs and come after me again. I kept my eyes on that drain for the whole shower and for the next, and the next....


Cane spiders are usually the size of a can of tuna fish and will often find their way into houses. They are beneficial in the home and it is not recommended to kill them (either let them live in your home, or let it outside).
Yeah right! Like I'm going to let this monster live in my house. And who's going to catch it and put it outside, when it's only interest seems to be in chasing you???

Next comes the centipede. These are NOT for the faint hearted! These things look like Doberman Pinchers! They're huge, and very mean looking! And a bite can leave you in excruciating pain for several hours to a few days! They can grow to ten inches in length, and are said to only attack people when they feel threatened. I'm not sure if I agree with that though, since people have told me that they've been bitten an night, while sleeping in their beds.
Randy and I have had several in our house and they are hard to kill, but luckily none of us have been bitten.


Vog is another nuisance which can cause several medical conditions. The only good thing that I have found with vog, is that on heavy vog days, it blocks the sun rays, making for a cooler day.
It is so much prettier here on vog-free days. Vog is created when volcanic gasses react with sunlight, oxygen and moisture. In Hawaii, vog mostly affects the Kona coast on the west side of the Island of Hawaii. The long-term health effects of vog are unknown.

ANTS:
Ants are a huge problem in Hawaii. We have problems with sugar ants, but even worse than sugar ants are these tiny little ants that I think are called Pharaoh ants. They are so tiny that they are hard to see and they get into EVERYTHING! They like greasy foods and sweet foods alike.
Randy had an unfortunante run-in with them one day. He got out a pair of bike shorts that he hadn't worn in several months, put them on, only to find out that there was a nest of the ants in the shorts. There were hundreds of ants and eggs. If you've ever wondered what it feels like to have 'ants in your pants' just ask Randy.



I almost hesitate to put this next cute little critter on my page, but it really is a nightmare for those unfortunate enough to be infested by these pests. Although we have Coqui frogs at our house, we don't have enough to bother us, but some areas of the Big Island are so infested with them that people have problems sleeping. The noise is said to be so loud, that you can't even carry on a conversation in your own house. The noise levels have been measured at up to 80-90 decibels, comparable to that produced by a lawnmower.


The dreaded cockroach:
I know that Hawaii isn't the only place with cockroach problems, and Randy and I have been very lucky to not have a problem with them. I really really hate them. I have people at work that say that the roaches in their homes are so bad that they get on their toothbrushes, in their food, they even will eat the paste on envelopes.


There are a lot more creepy, gross, ugly, scary things here, but to list them all would take me hours, and would use up too much space on my blog, so I'm stopping here.

Stay tuned for part two. Hawaii: the good...