Mahalo!

Whilst* up on the Road to Hana, maybe about halfway up, our travelling party stopped at a rest stop. Actually, it was what qualifies as a rest stop on the Road to Hana. It's a couple of benches with some basic, but nice, roofs over them.

It's where we stopped to eat the sandwiches we picked up at the Quick-E-Mart at the entryway to the Road. It's also where we met Mahalo.

As you can see, Mahalo is a cool black cat with green eyes. He was just hanging out near the benches...probably thinking that some weary tourist would give him handouts. Some probably do, but Ms. Yr Fthfl Blggr politely but emphatically insisted that we do not. So we didn't.

But my guess is Mahalo gets plenty to eat, although he was a bit on the skinny side. Maybe he was/is someone's cat who lives locally in one of the small villages.

After he sussed out the fact that we were not giving him any Quick-E-Mart food, he took a nap on the rocks.

A couple of notes are in order here. First, I am a 'dog person' although I love most animals in general, including cats. You may wonder, then, why I have pictures of cats on the 'Animals' part of this blog. It's because they seem to wander across my path on a semi-regular basis. Don't know why.

But that brings me to my second point, which is: these pictures of Mahalo made me think of an early Who song, one written by Pete Townshend when he was clearly still getting his writing 'voice' together. I believe in fact, it's on the very first 'oo LP...the song is "Run Run Run" and the excerpt that comes to mind is:

You better better take my advice
A black cat crossed your path twice
The moon came out next to the sun
You opened your umbrella in a room
Run run run
You better run run run






*I once used this word in an English Literature class essay and was scolded by my professor who wrote "archaic!" on my paper. I've come to find out that modern English people including Gordon Ramsay and Billy Bragg use this in conversation. So archaic, it is not.