We loaded up the grand kid and both daughters then headed to the park to "try again."
To our surprise, no one was walking. The path was clean, the grass was freshly mowed and much of the weeding was finished. Our sweet friend had worked hard between yesterday and today to manicure our "special place." We were excited to make some "real" progress today because there was no one around and we could really get some laps under our belts.
The wind was blowing and our view of the ocean was so delightful. It is hard to count this as exercise when the shower trees are releasing a blanket of yellow and orange blooms on the ground and the fragrance-filled breezes contain a hint of ginger, plumeria and gardenia. Ocean views are awesome with their various shades of deep blue, aquamarine and turquoise that denote ocean depths. However, the mountains too were also arranged in splendid shades of green. The high peaks make me wish I was a mountain climber so I could see the views from the great heights above. Never the less, today we are walking our path and I am enjoy every step.
As we rounded the bend for the third time, we noticed two young boys coming from the direction of the elementary school, just up the road from the park. The schools are on summer break but sometimes kids hang out at school during the summer. We approached and almost crossed paths with the boys. We noticed that they were taking a path, off to the side, behind our park. This is curious because there are some homeless people that take that path too. My daughter, who is an elementary school teacher became instantly alerted to the youngsters as is her habit. we continued our walk around the oval path. On the next go-around, we saw a car emerge from the dirt path where the boys walked. The car was leaving the area and the boys were coming out of that area back to the park. As we got closer, we realized that they were lying across the path. We were walking nearer to them and I wondered if they would scoot over so we could walk by? Thankfully, they started to moved as we got closer. We thanked them and then I asked them if they went to the school, up the hill? They replied yes. My daughter passed them last but exchanged pleasantries with them as well.
My daughter actually did some student teaching at that school so always looks out for her former students. We came around the other end of the park and saw a young man who looked homeless and had a 40 ounce bottle of beer in one hand and a puppy in the other. He was headed in the direction of the young boys so we slowed our pace just to see if there was an exchange. As the man got closer to the boys, they got up, talked to the man and went with the man on the other path behind the park. We became concerned, " who is this man? does he know the boys? where are they going?" Questions were flowing through our minds as we came around another bend on the path that was near, where the boys went. We were listening for voices but heard nothing. We remembered that there was a side path down to a man made water-way near the park. We thought that if we went up that path, we could maybe see the boys and check on their well-being. The path was also in an open area that was visible to the main highway with cars traveling constantly. It seemed like a safe path. We found the way onto the path and followed it up to near, where the boys went on the other side. We didn't see anyone. We walked until the brush got so thick, we couldn't follow the path anymore. We prayed that the boys were safe and proceeded back up the path to the park. It seemed that they knew that person. We tried to comfort each other with our assumptions. Homelessness is a major problem in Hawaii and there are many homeless in the park areas. There are many children among them.
Mystery not solved.
By the time we returned to the car, we had walked almost an hour. This was a very different walk.
Progress: Almost one hour of walking and a
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