You Never know where you'll find a Stove Shop....

[Gooserider]

I had a big surprise the other week... My GF and I just had a wonderful trip to the state of Hawaii - it was her mother's 80th birthday and she flew the extended family out for vacation... We hit several islands and had all sorts of wonderful experiences. I highly reccomend it for a place to visit....

But you are probably like most people, and wonder what this would have to do with wood burning - I mean when you see the word Hawaii you think "tropical island paradise, grass skirts (which are actually more Tahitian), palm trees, hula dancers, surfing, coconut brassieres, loud shirts, etc...

But what did I see next in the shopping strip next to the beach in Hilo (on the Big Island)?

 

[fossil]

Interesting. I've actually had three different Mothers-in-Law, and not a one of them would have ever thought of giving me a trip to Hawaii, regardless of who I might have been travelling with. %-P Thanks to the good ol' Navy, though, I've been there many times. Never saw a stove shop, wouldn't have even thought to look for one. Grills & spas, sure...but stoves? Sounds like you had a great trip. Welcome home. Rick

EDIT: Come to think of it, I went up to the top of Haleakala one morning to watch the sunrise...damned sure could've used a stove up there!

 

[Gooserider]

Yes, thats right, a STOVE shop!! :bug: I could hardly believe my eyes, so I had to stop and check it out - note the recursive shot of the hairy fellow with the camera in the third photo above...

I went in and introduced myself, and told them about Hearth.com - The lady behind the counter said they actually sold quite a few stoves, fireplaces, etc as it got quite chilly (defined as getting down into the 40's %-P ) in the winter for those homes near the tops of some of the volcanoes (at least when they aren't erupting... We saw the one that's been erupting and dumping lava into the sea for the last several years, MAJORLY impressive...)

Looking at what they were carrying, it seemed like a pretty good selection, although possibly tilted a bit towards the smaller size stoves - however they appeared to have a pretty good choice of the major brands, including Hearthstone, Jotul and VC, although she said that it was getting pretty busy and several brands were heavily back-ordered....

She said wood was a problem for those who didn't own their own - there were some places that did cut and split on the islands, but it was expensive. They did a lot with both cordwood and LP models, she didn't say anything about pellets, and I didn't think to ask, but I didn't notice any pellet stoves, and I'd expect that pellets would be VERY expensive as they'd need to be shipped from the mainland. (Anything shipped from the mainland tends to be very expensive in HI, as you'd expect.)

I told her about Hearth.com, and she pulled up the site, and seemed to be pretty impressed with it - I don't think she'd ever seen it before.

Gooserider

 

[Gooserider]

And one last shot - from inside the shop, looking out past the stoves at the palm trees and ocean... - oops - I guess not, I keep getting an error "Error Message: The file you are attempting to upload has invalid content for its MIME type." This is strange, as it was taken at the same time as the rest, with the same camera, and resized the same way, using the same software as the other shots - I don't know what is wrong. (I guess you'll have to take my word for it, that it's a nice picture.... :coolhmm: )

Gooserider

 

[HearthKB]

Interesting. I've actually had three different Mothers-in-Law, and not a one of them would have ever thought of giving me a trip to Hawaii, regardless of who I might have been travelling with.

LOL.... I would never expect ANYTHING like that from my mother-in-law either. As a matter of fact, I have to pay her $85 per day to watch my kids!! How's that for a crappy mother-in-law!!

Gooserider....consider yourself lucky to have a mother-in-law like that. Wish I did!

 

[Todd]

I heard they even get snow there on top of those Mountains, so it must get cold enough for wood stoves.What kind of wood do they burn? What's the BTU's per lb for palm trees? :lol:

 

[Gooserider]

I definitely consider myself lucky, especially considering that they aren't really my in-laws... The G-F and I made a very deliberate decision many years back not to invite Uncle Sam into our bedroom, and have therefore been happily UN-married to each other for many years now...

Mostly it doesn't make a lot of difference socially - everyone assumes we are married even though we NEVER say so... Legally it gets to be a tad bit of a problem - I only recently got health insurance, thanks to her new employer offering "opposite sex domestic partner" coverage... If we rent a car, only one of us can drive unless we pay extra - which means we have to do a bit of extra planning to figure out who does, and stuff like that... It's worth it though.

Gooserider