Its been two weeks in the Hawiian countryside.

For the place I ended up at, a month was too long to stay. I wanted to find out what was a reasonable amount of time, so that was a success. A week is good if you want to sample a place. Two weeks is doable as well. I would stop there for a sight-unseen environment. In the right place, a month is easy, but you have to be there to know if its the right place.

I thought there would be multiple levels of safety nets that made this place a decent risk. From the map, I was looking at blocks to the coast. Maybe 6 blocks south and 6 west. It turns out blocks here are gigantic! A single block can be a mile long! Its 6 miles from the place to the coast and thats not the only obstacle. The larger obstacle is the 'hobby' of owning large, defensive dogs. Every yard has a fence and a Beward of Dog sign and every third yard actually has a dog rushing to the fence barking agressively. Walking down any given road is playing roulette with who-left-the-fence-open today. The homeowner told me they dont go for walks either. Its too bad.

That leaves cycling, which would get me to the beach but wouldnt get me anywhere else of interest. The distances are rather great - my brother is 60 miles away for example. Also I'd need to figure out what to do with the bike at the end of the trip. I could leave it with substack. I saw spiderfarm and that was fun for an afternoon, but in his part of the neighborhood there are not only dogs but unleashed ones. Even though they bark and cause me great concern, they have been nicer than the ones in a fence. Its kept me from exploring the area.

I thought where I was would have something, a little main street, but that was nieve. Plenty of neighborhoods in Portland are simply houses with nothing of note. This is the same way. Mercifully its an 8 minute walk to the highway where I can get a bus to some kind of town. The bus makes 4 or 5 trips a day during the week and nothing on Sunday.

The cottage thing itself is very nice. Wood paneling and a big sliding glass door and a beautiful outdoor kitchen. Also its dark at night, so dark, the darkest I've ever seen. I wonder how much that is due to the telescopes on the island. Its great for sleeping though a refridgerator and a deepfreezer in earshot keep things from being really quiet. I would say to myself that I want to be in a country house in oregon for the summer, to get out of the city. Well I've got that kind of experience now so I appreciate it as such.

My routine is wake up between 7 and 8, make coffee, make yogurt+granola, hack, shower, hack, catch the bus into town, lunch, cafe hack, bus back, walk home, hack, dinner, relax/read, sleep. I've seen Greg once and hope to again in the next few days. I've got one week left.