It’s Raining, It’s Pouring

Sunday was a rainy, rainy day!

Our Sunday morning was spent at a sweet little branch for Church services in Hanalei.  The visitors out numbered the permanent branch members about 3 to 1.  I am pretty sure that visitors played the organ, led the music, and said a few prayers, including me saying one at the end of Relief Society!  All through church it rained and rained as we enjoyed worshiping there.

Afterwards we drove down to Lihu’e and the airport and headed to The Big Island for the 2nd week of our vacation.  Still it rained and rained and rained.

Arriving on The Big Island was wet!  The Kona airport is an open area airport.  It seriously looks like a tiki hut village, and with the rain walking from hut to hut was a little drippy.  After picking up our luggage it started completely pouring, the wind started blowing harder, and all in all it was a mess. We got our car though, and headed off to our resort.  Oh, and speaking of cars, it was such a huge rainy mess and there were so many people at the car rental place that it was all backed up.  The car rental people had to go get the cars and bring them to the people instead of just handing renters the keys and pointing to which spot in the parking lot they'd find their car.  As we were standing there waiting for our turn to get our car brought to us one of the car rental people said to us that if we wanted to make a run for it we could take the convertible Mustang that was about 50 feet away for the price we already paid for a lower end rental.  Score!  You can't get much better of a ride than to have a convertible in Hawaii!

Along the way we even caught a quick glance of the beautiful Kona temple.  Ahhh, temples!  I love those houses of God.

After arriving at the Mauna Loa resort we unpacked, had some dinner, and watched a little of the Olympics.  Before long Craig's eyes were starting to roll back into his head so we decided to go to bed.  As we got ready for bed we noticed a large thing that looked like a greasy stain on the bedroom ceiling.  Craig got on the bed and started poking at it trying to figure out what it was and we quickly discovered it was a leak!  A leak that began to drip right away!

The front desk moved us to another room and we got back into bed on this dry night (we hope!!!)

Biking along the Coast

Saturday afternoon we rented a couple of bikes and took a ride up and down the coast at Kapaa.  Of course it was beautiful, as everything on this island has been!!! The path we biked on was a nice paved path.  I love biking, and it was fun to look out over the ocean along the way. 

At one point on the biking path we saw a seal on the beach.  There was even a sign near it telling us all about the seal.  As we watched him, he never moved, and I started wondering if he was even a real seal, or just some kind of display they put out for all the tourists.

We biked for about 2 hours, and then I spent some time shopping while Craig spent some time reading.  I keep trying to go shopping, but Craig is tired of it, so he just finds a bench to sit and read while I shop.  He claims it’s the same thing over and over in all the different stores.  That’s probably 75% true, but it’s the 25% different stuff that keeps me going back shop after shop! 😂

Kīlauea Lighthouse

Today we ended up back at the Kīlauea Lighthouse.  We had stopped by there on Mondays, but they aren’t open on Mondays so we didn’t get out to the lighthouse itself.  But today we made it out.  Normally it’s $5/person to go out there, but with President’s Day weekend we got in free, yay!

The lighthouse point is like a bird refuge, with lots of Hawaiian birds flying around.  They seem to love to soar over your head, gliding on the breeze.  

It’s also a great place to look out over the ocean and try to catch site of the whales. We were lucky to see some whale action, although they were far enough out that it was hard to see much.  We mainly saw them spouting. It’s still pretty cool any way!  We might have missed a whale breaching as we were leaving.  We heard a large splashing sound and saw people kind of making a fuss about whatever that splashing sound was, but we didn't see anything so who actually knows!

A zip line is so fine!

Friday we lazed around in the morning and in the afternoon we did an adventure called “Zip N’ Dip”  at the Princeville Ranch.  We got to do 9 ziplines, ranging from a couple hundred feet long to the biggest “King Kong” one at 1200 feet long, as well have lunch and a swimming dip at a hidden waterfall.

As everything on Kauai seems to be, the views on our adventure were breathtaking. One of my favorite zips was the one right before we stopped for lunch as we zipped over a beautiful stream.

Our guides were Derek (originally from Michigan) and Tyler (originally from Kansas).  Derek was a adventurous hippy-like guy who regaled is with tales of his many adventures, including Na Pali coastline hiking and what he did the day that a bomb attack on Hawaii was mistakenly announced (if you want to know that story, he chose to get a bottle of wine and drink it while waiting for imminent death.  He said when they announced a couple of hours later that it was just a mistake he thought, "Oh great, now I'm just a drunk bum at 9 AM!")  Tyler seemed to have a few less adventurous stories to tell, but they were both nice guys who made the day fun.

I didn’t end up taking the dip at the hidden waterfall, there were only 3 of the 7 in our group that did (Craig being one of them), but still enjoyed the peaceful waterfall area and the yummy lunch served there.

The final zip line was a double line one and a race.  Craig gave it a valiant effort, but came in probably milliseconds behind me! 😉  All in all, another great day!

Valentine’s Day—and the lazy day after!

On Valentine’s Day we went exploring west of Princeville towards Hanalei and the Na Pali coast.  The scenery on that part of the island was even more beautiful than the rest of Kauai has been..and the rest of Kauai has been absolutely beautiful!!!  As the oldest of the Hawaiian Islands, Kauai has the nickname of "The Garden Island", and as I mentioned before it is quite Garden of Eden-ish.   It really is an incredibly gorgeous island.  

When we went as far as the road itself went, and then there was no other option but to hike.  We started out on the Kalalau Trail, which is an 11 mile trail that runs along the Na Pali coastline.  

You can hike up to 2 miles on the trail without a permit, but past the two mile mark you need a permit to continue on.  We actually didn’t even make it the full 2 miles in. We only went about 3/4 of a mile as I was starting to get a bit panicky about the return trip!  The trail is up, up, up; rocky, wet, and somewhat slippery!  I was really worried I would be too scared on the way down this rocky, wet, slippery trail to get back down! Now that it's all said and done, I will admit that going down was not as bad as I imagined, so in the end we probably could have gone farther.  However, by the time we got down from as far as we went Craig said he was feeling lightheaded (probably from not having much for breakfast), so in the end it was probably best we came down when we did before Craig fainted and tumbled off the cliff into the ocean or something horrible like that!

The hike’s views really were amazing though, and I am definitely glad we went.  It’s probably wishful thinking, as Kauai overall has a high rainfall average, but I would love to be able to do the hike when it’s dry, that would definitely help alleviate my fear of slip-sliding off the muddy, slippery trail.

Our second activity for Valentine’s Day was to go to a luau and Polynesian dance show.  The luau was the Smith Family Garden luau.  We got a short tour through the gardens by a train, and then we had a few minutes to look around, but we didn’t really look around much since it was raining.  At the luau we were seated next to a Grandmother, Mom and little girl named Ada who became my best buddy within the first few minutes (look in the pictures for the little girl in the pink dress on the right side of the picture at the imu

ceremony!)  We also sat across from Paul and Sue from Indiana who were celebrating their 28th Wedding Anniversary.  The luau was wonderful, a buffet luau with so much delicious food: numerous salads, breads, meats (kalua pig, sweet and sour mahi mahi, adobo chicken, and teriyaki beef), mashed potatoes and poi, fruit, lomi lomi, and coconut cake and rice pudding for dessert.

Afterwards there was a Polynesian dance performance, mixed with the history of Kauai.  It was fun to see the different dances from the various peoples of the Island.  All in all it was a fun and delicious evening!

Thursday itself was pretty relaxing overall, with nothing too terribly thrilling like a big hike or helicopter ride, haha!  We swam in the pool, wandered through a few shops, got a shaved ice, and had dinner at an open air restaurant.  It was a great day, as I am finding all these days in Hawaii to be!

The Other Side of the Island

Today we ventured over to the other side of the Island.  Our first stop was a cool natural phenomenon called Spouting Horn.  Lava rock on the shore had a hole worn into it from the tide.  When the tide came crashing in this hole became a spouting horn, with a geyser like spray and a horn like sound!  It was very cool to see!

The next stop of the day was at Poipu Beach, where we rented snorkel gear and were then able to see some great views of the local fish.  We also saw a few seals frolicking around close to shore.  No turtles though! (The guy who rented us the snorkel gear said there might be some out there.) 

It was delightful at the beach, but I was sadly fooled by the overcast day and didn’t even think about sunscreen, so now I am pretty toasted! After lounging around for awhile Craig and I headed out for some lunch.  Julie P had highly recommended a place close by called Puka Dogs so we went there.  We had Polish/smoked sausage dogs with Hawaiian mustard, relish, jalapeño flavoring, and a mango sauce.  We also had fresh squeezed lemonade and chips to round out the meal.  It was actually quite delicious!

The next activity for the day was window shopping. We cruised around the Poipu shopping center that had the Puka Dog restaurant as well as a bunch of other shops.  We did grab some toffee chocolate macadamia nuts for a treat and afterwards we hit the next shopping area called Old Kaloa Town.  Again just window shopping, with no purchases.

After that we hit the 9 hole disc golf course in the area.  It was a wide open field for quite a few of the holes, but probably 3 or 4 of then were tucked into the jungle-like area surrounding the field.  It was fun, but after the last hole Craig and I were throwing our discs when mine disappeared!  We searched and searched and searched for it, but to no avail...my favorite disc was gone!

Critters—The Kilauea Lighthouse—And other beautiful scenes

There are all sorts of little critters around here.  From the feral chickens who wander everywhere around the island to the little gecko/lizard buddies that hang ouside our door or flap their colorful double chin at us from the trees.  It’s not a critter, but I have to add that we saw the most interesting palm tree today, although technically it’s not a palm tree at all!  It’s a tree called a Ravenala and the leaves fan out in a circular shape.. You can’t see the base because of the shrub in front of it, but the base of the leaves (but above the trunk) reminds me of a braid. And those two spiky things on it are the flowers supposedly!   It’s a very cool tree!

We tried to stop by the lighthouse today but it is closed on Mondays.  We did get a good view of it from a lookout spot.  There were a lot of people there at the overlook, and I heard some of them talking about seeing whales, but I never saw any.  As we were heading back to the main road we came upon a cool tiny church that looked like it was made from lava rock.

The beach is beautiful as well, we made a quick stop at one on our way to the Helicopter flight.  Maybe next time we’ll have our swimsuits on and can frolic in the surf!

All in all I have found Kauai to be a most beautiful place!  I told Craig it makes me think of the Garden of Eden.  One thing we read on a sign at the Mini Golf Botanical Garden mentioned that in the early days of Hawaii before humans came there were no predators so plants didn’t have thorns or poisons.  Maybe it really was the Garden of Eden! 😊

Our front door buddies

Little gecko/lizard guy

Now he's flapping his double chin at us!

Lava Rock Church.  This picture is an example of why pictures are never as good as the actual view!  I didn't realize those power lines were there in person as I just was focusing on the church.

The Kilauea Lighthouse on the left