Stone Soul Picnic, Recycled CroMo

Oh yeah!
Surrey down.
I actually have no idea what that song is all about.
Oh, and here's something new that I found. The Music of The Flat Tire can be found here.
Seeing how that song is from the sixties, I can sort of guess what they are singing about, but really I'm not sure.
I have absolutely positively no experience what so ever in anything like that.
I mean I don't remember.
Anyways, I was thinking of that song for today was picnic day!
Yay!
I rode over to my Dad's place to catch a ride to the park:



I would have ridden all the way to the park but I dropped off some food I bought and I ended up running a bit late so I wimped out.
Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden is one of five botanical gardens on Oahu. I should say state run gardens, for I'm sure there are others. It's about ten miles North from Flat Tire Central over in Kaneohe. My brother probably lives about a mile away.
The gardens were built I think in the seventies when a reservoir was created to prevent flooding in the area below.
Ho'omaluhia means "make a place of tranquility" and that's just what the thirty two acre reservoir did.
The park is large; there are six large areas with bathrooms and benches and camp grounds. The park sits just under the windward side of the Koolau Mountain range:



Here's Top Chef Master, my brother The Punisher doing his thing:



I have to admit, he does it pretty well:



Well okay, maybe except for the poor steak in the middle.
So anyways, we ate, chatted a bit and then I was off!
I was riding my bike back and I wanted to explore the park before I left.
Well, there wasn't really anything to see; unless you like plants that is. The gardens are separated into different areas such as tropical plants, Polynesian plants, African plants, etc.
Plants and more plants. The nice thing is a lot of them are labeled so you know where the came from and what they are called.
I wanted to get a picture of the reservoir up close, but to tell you the truth, I couldn't find it!
There are trails that weave all through the park and the foliage is so thick you can't really see through it. Think tropical rain forest with overhead canopy.
So I sort of gave up looking for like the park is built on rolling ground. Seriously rolling ground.
My sister, kind soul that she is, had to choose the picnic area the furthest from the entrance.
Climb up the hill, coast down the hill, climb up the hill, coast down the hill.
Well I had just about enough of that!
Time to head on home.
Halfway to headquarters, I decided to stop in on my friend Marc from school. We both had the run of the studio in school so we were sort of partners in crime.
Not that we did anything criminal don't you know.
I hadn't seen him since graduation so I was bit hesitant to just pop in.
I'm glad I did.
Not just to see him, but he also unloaded this on me:



Just what I was looking for!
Okay, not really, but pretty close!
I climbed the Hill of Self Destruction and headed home, got my car and went back to pick it up.
I have to mention that going back I felt really lame for there was this dude climbing up the Hill of Destruction on a single speed beach cruiser!
I hung my head in shame.
Anyways, I got my summer project.
Everything on the bike is pretty much toast, but I got some stuff I took off the Barn Door so it should be pretty easy to get it going.
CroMo Rockhopper!
Stone soul!
Whatever that means.