I’m kinda on a roll with these two day blog entries, and why ruin a good thing right? Anyway, this will be my last entry from the lovely islands of Hawaii so enjoy it while it lasts (note: this is not the last entry in the blog, just the last entry from Hawaii. Minnesotan on the Loose will continue as normal from lovely Minneapolis upon my return.). It has been a wonderful trip with lots of ups, downs, and all arounds. I’ll try and wrap it up as best I can.
Yesterday we explored downtown, specifically the Royal Palace (the only one in the United States) and the State Art Museum. We started off by taking the long way into town after a scrumptious breakfast at Anna Millers, definitely one of our favorite places to eat during our visit, and parked at a downtown parking garage. From there we walked up and through the Royal Palace grounds, enjoying a few of the plaques describing its significance and the sights of its walls. It isn’t breathtaking by any imagination, but it is a neat piece of history that was great to see and enjoy. Following that, the fam and I walked over to the highly acclaimed State Art Museum, which features works by native Hawaiians and works portraying/discussing Hawaii.
The works at the museum really are a great collection and proved to be very thought provoking, though not in the way the artists’ obviously intended. As should be expected, many works in the exhibit deal with the takeover of the islands by the United States and the gradual displacement of the Hawaiian population by foreigners. The works describe themselves as expressing a quiet outrage of the indigenous population at the loss of their land and pass heavy judgment against western culture (aka: white people) who have ruined their paradise. While I understand where they are coming from, the whole thing is just a little heavy-handed about it and, at some points, can be downright racist in its presentation. Most of the works are highly enjoyable though, and I would definitely recommend a visit just to get an idea of where the Hawaiian artistic community is going.
In the evening, we went out for dinner with my cousin Nick and his family to Bravo Italiano, an Italian restaurant relatively close to where we have been staying. It was a monumental effort for them to come out with us since one of Nick’s new babies, Jaime, was sick in the afternoon with sinus congestion and had to be taken to the doctor’s office. I can’t describe how grateful I am though that he decided to see us again, considering that this might be one of the only times I ever get to see him and his family. The whole thing was so surreal for me. I mean, I don’t exactly have run-ins with long-lost family all the time, especially ones that are already married, have children, and are leading exciting lives. It’s just wild to think that there is this whole world going on out here that, in a very small way, I am a part of and am related to. Suffice to say that Nick is a great guy, and anytime any of you are in Hawaii, be sure to let me know and I will have you look him up to say hi for me.
Today, I woke up early and headed down to Waikiki with my dad to catch some surfing before I head back to Minneapolis. Surfing was good and I caught 5-6 good rides and 2-3 ok rides before heading in. It is just insane how crowded it gets down there; it really is amazing that people don’t get run over by surf boards and sliced up all the time. After surfing, Dad and I headed back to the house and had some breakfast before running a few last errands. That pretty much brings us up to the present, which sees us backing our bags and cleaning the house getting ready to return to our homeland,: the Twin Cities.
Overall, it’s been a great trip. On the positive side, the scenery of the Hawaiian Islands, especially the less populated ones, really is breathtaking. There are endless things to do and see and it is entirely possible to spend a month thoroughly exploring everything there is to do on every island. For the most part, the people are very nice and friendly and will say hello to strangers walking down the street, which definitely makes it a more enjoyable experience. On the minus side, there is the constant worry while in Hawaii about theft since it is so rampant and heavily advertised (everywhere you go, people/guidebooks warn of possible thugs or thieves), something nobody should have to worry about no matter where they go. Additionally, it is hard to escape the obvious resentment Hawaiians feel toward tourists since they are often rude to them or mistreat them for no apparent reason other than they are not Hawaiian. This makes it hard to enjoy some activities or experiences simply because some, though not many, people make you feel incredibly unwelcome.
My overall recommendation, after visiting, would be to skip Oahu unless you have family and friends to visit or are dying to see the Banzai Pipeline. The islands of Hawaii, Kauai, and Maui all offer much more in terms of adventure and scenery and are far less crowded than Oahu, especially Honolulu and Waikiki. Don’t get me wrong, Oahu is great, but Kauai was spectacular, and I’ve heard that the Big Island and Maui are equally mesmerizing. Thus ends my blog of Hawaii. For the last time, aloha!
Friday, June 24, 2005
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Hawaiian Rollercoaster Ride
Hawaii sure is a crazy place. I mean, it’s an island with a small population that is almost utterly dependant upon tourism to survive, yet crime, especially crime against tourists, is supposedly out of control. How does this make sense? There just aren’t that many people here, especially on smaller islands such as Kauai (right around 100,000 people), which should make it rather easy to find whoever is committing these crimes and take care of them. It’s not like they’re going to hop in a car and drive cross country to avoid being arrested…because they can’t! I would think that the big hotels on the island, who have an interest in tourists feeling safe, would pressure the local government to step up enforcement and crime would come to a screeching halt. That’s one weird thing.
Another is the convoluted road system, especially around Honolulu. Since there is so little room on an island for roadways, city planners have had to be extremely creative with the way they have made highways and local roads intersect. I’m 100% positive that this creativity impresses the hell out of other city planners around the world, but makes driving Honolulu a confusing ordeal for visitors. The funniest part about the road system has to be the three main highways on Oahu; the H1, H2, and, you guessed it, the H3. These roads are all great to drive, especially the H2 and H3, which pass through incredible scenery and are true wonders of engineering. The only thing is, these roads are labeled as “Interstates”… Somebody tell me again exactly which other states these roads intertwine with? The state of confusion? A state of shock? Very confusing stuff.
Things aren’t all doom and gloom here though, and two days ago was a perfect example of that. We headed out early in the morning for Kailua, reputedly the best beach on Oahu and one of the best beaches in the entire United States. My brother and I had arranged to take windsurfing lessons at 9:30 AM with Kailua Kayaks and Sailboards, something I had always wanted to try. Considering that Kailua Beach is one of the top windsurfing spots in the world, especially for beginners, it seemed like a great opportunity to learn. We arrived on time and walked down to the beach to meet with our instructor Aaron, a nice guy and a great windsurfer who originally hails from the Hoosier State of Indiana. The lesson started out with us doing some land work on the “million dollar simulator” – two pieces of wood with a swivel joint and a place to stick a practice sail in. After going through the motions on land and getting the hang of how everything worked and what all the pieces of equipment were (board, sail, boom, mast, universal joint), we hit the water and started sailing! Kinda.
As with any new activity or sport, it was tough going at first. I kept falling off the board, losing my balance, or losing control of my sail, which made it hard to get going in one direction for any length of time. After awhile though, things started to click, and right around 45 minutes into the lesson, I was sailing out to sea never to return! I’m serious about the never returning stuff. You see, it’s easy sailing downwind, which is of course how you start out since it makes sense to start off with the easiest thing first. However, in this case, sailing down wind took me out in the ocean a good ways rather quickly, which then begs the question, how do I get back? Sail upwind of course! Now, we had been taught how to do this, but sailing upwind is much more difficult than sailing downwind and takes longer to get used to. This produced a net effect of me shooting far out into Kailua Bay in about 35-40 seconds and returning to shore after 30 minutes of struggling. Quite the hilarious sight.
Windsurfing is great fun and I’m really glad I learned how to do it. My instructor said I was doing pretty well, since by the end of the lesson, I was tacking back upwind pretty well and reaching my intended destination. Kailua Beach, on a side note, is by far the most beautiful beach I have been to in the United States. The water and sand really remind me of Australian beaches, with soft white sand and sweeping turquoise water. Gorgeous stuff. After Andrew and I were done windsurfing, we hung out at the beach a bit longer then headed back to Nancy’s place, took care of a few quick errands (aka: picked up photos from scuba diving!), ate dinner, and grabbed some rest. Man alive was I tired at the end of that night.
Yesterday we woke up early and headed down to Waikiki Beach for some surfing action. At long last some surfing. After all, what is a trip to Hawaii with out some time on a board? We got down there pretty early, like 9 AM, and the beach was already getting full. The first order of business was securing a board for the day, something we accomplished by going to a rental shop a short ways up the road where the guy working behind the counter didn’t speak English very well, which definitely begs the question “What are you doing running a shop on Waikiki when you don’t speak English?!?!?” Argh! Anyway, I eventually got my point across and got myself a board for some wave riding then headed down to the beach.
The waves on Waikiki were really good, nice long gentle waves, perfect for beginners and advanced beginners (like me!). After a few snafus, I got back in the rhythm of things and caught a few nice rides. It’s amazing how crowded it gets out there though, with right around 40 or 50 surfers waiting on the same break, which is pretty dangerous and means that you have to dodge people as you’re riding in. Oh well, just part of the experience I guess. Andrew and Dad both gave it a go on the board, but came back in shaking their heads muttering “I suck” rather loudly. Haha, oh well, they’ll get better. The sun was really cooking yesterday, and I was very glad that I picked up a rash guard (aka: rashy) since it prevented the sun from burning a hole directly through the center of my back. Great day of surfing action.
A note to all the guys out there: if you want to see gorgeous girls, head to Waikiki. Suffice to say the number of amazing girls there was ridiculous, which you would expect with it being Waikiki and all, but still, pretty amazing to see. Kinda makes you dizzy after awhile.
Anyway, after surfing our brains out for like 5 hours, we returned the board and decided to hike up Diamond Head, the crater/cliff on the eastern end of Honolulu. It was a good hike up, no where near as intense as the hikes we did on Kauai, but still strenuous. The view from the top was pretty neat as it overlooks all of Waikiki and Honolulu as well as the suburbs to the north and east. After hiking back down, we settled on a place to eat, La Cucaracha (I know, how cheesy!), and headed back into Waikiki to locate it. It was a long walk to the restaurant, but it was well worth it, as the food was excellent (dare I say the best Mexican I have ever had???) and reasonably priced. It’s important to note the context of this restaurant experience to get an idea of what a find it was. Most of the restaurants in the vicinity of Waikiki are extremely touristy and overpriced, or in other words, serve average to mediocre American food for $15-25. La Cucaracha on the other hand was great Mexican food in an uncrowded atmosphere for around $10-15 per person. Great stuff.
Day over, we headed back home, had a few beers, and crashed. *Whew*, that was a long post to get through. Only two more days left in paradise, then back to Minneosta and my lovely girl, who will be returning from Venezuela. Hope everybody has enjoyed reading her posts as much as I have. Thats all for now, aloha!
Another is the convoluted road system, especially around Honolulu. Since there is so little room on an island for roadways, city planners have had to be extremely creative with the way they have made highways and local roads intersect. I’m 100% positive that this creativity impresses the hell out of other city planners around the world, but makes driving Honolulu a confusing ordeal for visitors. The funniest part about the road system has to be the three main highways on Oahu; the H1, H2, and, you guessed it, the H3. These roads are all great to drive, especially the H2 and H3, which pass through incredible scenery and are true wonders of engineering. The only thing is, these roads are labeled as “Interstates”… Somebody tell me again exactly which other states these roads intertwine with? The state of confusion? A state of shock? Very confusing stuff.
Things aren’t all doom and gloom here though, and two days ago was a perfect example of that. We headed out early in the morning for Kailua, reputedly the best beach on Oahu and one of the best beaches in the entire United States. My brother and I had arranged to take windsurfing lessons at 9:30 AM with Kailua Kayaks and Sailboards, something I had always wanted to try. Considering that Kailua Beach is one of the top windsurfing spots in the world, especially for beginners, it seemed like a great opportunity to learn. We arrived on time and walked down to the beach to meet with our instructor Aaron, a nice guy and a great windsurfer who originally hails from the Hoosier State of Indiana. The lesson started out with us doing some land work on the “million dollar simulator” – two pieces of wood with a swivel joint and a place to stick a practice sail in. After going through the motions on land and getting the hang of how everything worked and what all the pieces of equipment were (board, sail, boom, mast, universal joint), we hit the water and started sailing! Kinda.
As with any new activity or sport, it was tough going at first. I kept falling off the board, losing my balance, or losing control of my sail, which made it hard to get going in one direction for any length of time. After awhile though, things started to click, and right around 45 minutes into the lesson, I was sailing out to sea never to return! I’m serious about the never returning stuff. You see, it’s easy sailing downwind, which is of course how you start out since it makes sense to start off with the easiest thing first. However, in this case, sailing down wind took me out in the ocean a good ways rather quickly, which then begs the question, how do I get back? Sail upwind of course! Now, we had been taught how to do this, but sailing upwind is much more difficult than sailing downwind and takes longer to get used to. This produced a net effect of me shooting far out into Kailua Bay in about 35-40 seconds and returning to shore after 30 minutes of struggling. Quite the hilarious sight.
Windsurfing is great fun and I’m really glad I learned how to do it. My instructor said I was doing pretty well, since by the end of the lesson, I was tacking back upwind pretty well and reaching my intended destination. Kailua Beach, on a side note, is by far the most beautiful beach I have been to in the United States. The water and sand really remind me of Australian beaches, with soft white sand and sweeping turquoise water. Gorgeous stuff. After Andrew and I were done windsurfing, we hung out at the beach a bit longer then headed back to Nancy’s place, took care of a few quick errands (aka: picked up photos from scuba diving!), ate dinner, and grabbed some rest. Man alive was I tired at the end of that night.
Yesterday we woke up early and headed down to Waikiki Beach for some surfing action. At long last some surfing. After all, what is a trip to Hawaii with out some time on a board? We got down there pretty early, like 9 AM, and the beach was already getting full. The first order of business was securing a board for the day, something we accomplished by going to a rental shop a short ways up the road where the guy working behind the counter didn’t speak English very well, which definitely begs the question “What are you doing running a shop on Waikiki when you don’t speak English?!?!?” Argh! Anyway, I eventually got my point across and got myself a board for some wave riding then headed down to the beach.
The waves on Waikiki were really good, nice long gentle waves, perfect for beginners and advanced beginners (like me!). After a few snafus, I got back in the rhythm of things and caught a few nice rides. It’s amazing how crowded it gets out there though, with right around 40 or 50 surfers waiting on the same break, which is pretty dangerous and means that you have to dodge people as you’re riding in. Oh well, just part of the experience I guess. Andrew and Dad both gave it a go on the board, but came back in shaking their heads muttering “I suck” rather loudly. Haha, oh well, they’ll get better. The sun was really cooking yesterday, and I was very glad that I picked up a rash guard (aka: rashy) since it prevented the sun from burning a hole directly through the center of my back. Great day of surfing action.
A note to all the guys out there: if you want to see gorgeous girls, head to Waikiki. Suffice to say the number of amazing girls there was ridiculous, which you would expect with it being Waikiki and all, but still, pretty amazing to see. Kinda makes you dizzy after awhile.
Anyway, after surfing our brains out for like 5 hours, we returned the board and decided to hike up Diamond Head, the crater/cliff on the eastern end of Honolulu. It was a good hike up, no where near as intense as the hikes we did on Kauai, but still strenuous. The view from the top was pretty neat as it overlooks all of Waikiki and Honolulu as well as the suburbs to the north and east. After hiking back down, we settled on a place to eat, La Cucaracha (I know, how cheesy!), and headed back into Waikiki to locate it. It was a long walk to the restaurant, but it was well worth it, as the food was excellent (dare I say the best Mexican I have ever had???) and reasonably priced. It’s important to note the context of this restaurant experience to get an idea of what a find it was. Most of the restaurants in the vicinity of Waikiki are extremely touristy and overpriced, or in other words, serve average to mediocre American food for $15-25. La Cucaracha on the other hand was great Mexican food in an uncrowded atmosphere for around $10-15 per person. Great stuff.
Day over, we headed back home, had a few beers, and crashed. *Whew*, that was a long post to get through. Only two more days left in paradise, then back to Minneosta and my lovely girl, who will be returning from Venezuela. Hope everybody has enjoyed reading her posts as much as I have. Thats all for now, aloha!
Monday, June 20, 2005
Today Two Days
I’m sure everybody is gasping in shock that I didn’t update my blog yesterday. Sorry about that, but I didn’t get home till late and didn’t have a good opportunity to write anything down. I’ll try and make up for it today as best I can.
Yesterday was another low-key day around Honolulu. I talked for a bit on the phone with Megs, who is nearing the end of her stay in Venezuela and has really enjoyed her trip down there. It’s always funny talking to somebody that has or is studying abroad to me as its always interesting to hear what they enjoyed, what they’ve missed, and what they’re most looking forward to seeing/doing. Sure will be good to have her back in Minnesota when I return.
Anyway, like I was saying, yesterday was relatively low-key, mostly because it was raining most of the day, which made it hard to get out and enjoy the outdoors. We made an early grocery run and I dropped off the film from our scuba adventure to have it developed, which I will hopefully have tomorrow to share with people. The big excitement for the day was visiting with my long lost cousins Nick and Noah, two family members I have only met one other time in my conscious life and people I think about quite often. At around 4:30 PM we drove over to the west side of the island to Nick’s place and met up with our cousins and their families. I’m sure anybody that has had a family reunion with distant relatives (in my case geographical distance rather than distant relation) can relate to, things started out a little awkwardly for everybody, both because everybody was trying very hard and because nobody really knows how to act around people that they should know well, but don’t. After some lengthy discussion though, we all ended up getting along just fine and the evening progressed along very nicely.
Nick and Noah are always an interesting subject to me, primarily because of the fact that they are native Hawaiians, something that seems to undeniably separate them from the rest of us. This has always been rather puzzling to me, mostly because, when I think about it, they are as closely related to me as any of my other cousins, all of which I know very will and have spent considerable time with while I was growing up. It has always been a sore point with me that I don’t know them as well as my other cousins, both because I have been unable (until now) to really visit them as an adult and because, quite bluntly, I have always been uncertain whether or not they would even want to meet me if I did make the effort. It always feels as if they have turned their backs on the Wambach portion of their heritage and don’t want much to do with us, even though I sincerely doubt that’s the case and have absolutely no reason to think that. Just a vibe I get when they come up in conversation. The bottom line is that they are just as family as any of my other relatives and I am very glad to have finally seen them at a time when it meant something to me.
So that was yesterday. Today we decided to circumnavigate the island, something Tony, Nick and Noah’s father, recommended we do. To start with, we drove up the west (referred to here as “leeward”) side of the island, which is an area few tourists visit, and you can see why. There is very little to do on this portion of the island, a portion that is primarily dry and poor for the most part, which means, quite unsurprisingly, that it is the side of the island that houses the greatest number of Hawaiians. It sure does seem that everywhere we go, we have a way of turning the current occupants into second class citizens in a real hurry and without much mercy. Anyway, much of the land on the leeward side is controlled by the US military, which uses the lush, picturesque valleys of the area for bombing drills and war games, loudly proclaiming to all that drive by that admission is not allowed and that people should beware of explosives. Seems rather odd to be using a part of paradise to be doing this kind of activity. Isn’t there a chunk of North Dakota that could be blown to smithereens without anybody but the cattle noticing?
After making it to the end of the road on the leeward side, we headed back to Nancy’s to get some lunch and cold water before heading over to the east or “windward” side of the island to visit the Byodo-In, a Buddhist temple modeled after a 900 year old temple in Uji, Japan. To get there, we took the H3 east through the valley, passing through some cool tunnels and torrential downpours. The temple was really a sight to behold, nestled in against the cliff face shrouded in cloud and mist, a blazing red challenge to the somber countryside. We walked around the grounds for a good while, snapped a bunch of photos, then set off in the Honda Civic again, this time for the much famed North Shore. For those that don’t know, the North Shore of Oahu is the most famous surfing destination in the world, home of Waimea Beach, Sunset Beach, and the Banzai Pipeline, some of the most famous surfing breaks in the world. Unfortunately, it’s summer, which means that these winter surf bears are currently hibernating under the guise of serene snorkeling beaches.
The drive was pleasant though, hugging the coast all the way north, ducking through small towns and villas bursting with people at the beach. We rented some snorkel gear at a surf shop near Pupukea Beach and dived into the cove for a short bout of snorkeling before heading home. Snorkeling at Pupukea was great, with beautiful fish darting all about and interesting coral formations dotting the bottom. Finally, we headed for home, showered up, ate some dinner, and otherwise unwound from the day. Tomorrow I’m going windsurfing for the first time in my life, something I’m really looking forward to. Until tomorrow, aloha!
Yesterday was another low-key day around Honolulu. I talked for a bit on the phone with Megs, who is nearing the end of her stay in Venezuela and has really enjoyed her trip down there. It’s always funny talking to somebody that has or is studying abroad to me as its always interesting to hear what they enjoyed, what they’ve missed, and what they’re most looking forward to seeing/doing. Sure will be good to have her back in Minnesota when I return.
Anyway, like I was saying, yesterday was relatively low-key, mostly because it was raining most of the day, which made it hard to get out and enjoy the outdoors. We made an early grocery run and I dropped off the film from our scuba adventure to have it developed, which I will hopefully have tomorrow to share with people. The big excitement for the day was visiting with my long lost cousins Nick and Noah, two family members I have only met one other time in my conscious life and people I think about quite often. At around 4:30 PM we drove over to the west side of the island to Nick’s place and met up with our cousins and their families. I’m sure anybody that has had a family reunion with distant relatives (in my case geographical distance rather than distant relation) can relate to, things started out a little awkwardly for everybody, both because everybody was trying very hard and because nobody really knows how to act around people that they should know well, but don’t. After some lengthy discussion though, we all ended up getting along just fine and the evening progressed along very nicely.
Nick and Noah are always an interesting subject to me, primarily because of the fact that they are native Hawaiians, something that seems to undeniably separate them from the rest of us. This has always been rather puzzling to me, mostly because, when I think about it, they are as closely related to me as any of my other cousins, all of which I know very will and have spent considerable time with while I was growing up. It has always been a sore point with me that I don’t know them as well as my other cousins, both because I have been unable (until now) to really visit them as an adult and because, quite bluntly, I have always been uncertain whether or not they would even want to meet me if I did make the effort. It always feels as if they have turned their backs on the Wambach portion of their heritage and don’t want much to do with us, even though I sincerely doubt that’s the case and have absolutely no reason to think that. Just a vibe I get when they come up in conversation. The bottom line is that they are just as family as any of my other relatives and I am very glad to have finally seen them at a time when it meant something to me.
So that was yesterday. Today we decided to circumnavigate the island, something Tony, Nick and Noah’s father, recommended we do. To start with, we drove up the west (referred to here as “leeward”) side of the island, which is an area few tourists visit, and you can see why. There is very little to do on this portion of the island, a portion that is primarily dry and poor for the most part, which means, quite unsurprisingly, that it is the side of the island that houses the greatest number of Hawaiians. It sure does seem that everywhere we go, we have a way of turning the current occupants into second class citizens in a real hurry and without much mercy. Anyway, much of the land on the leeward side is controlled by the US military, which uses the lush, picturesque valleys of the area for bombing drills and war games, loudly proclaiming to all that drive by that admission is not allowed and that people should beware of explosives. Seems rather odd to be using a part of paradise to be doing this kind of activity. Isn’t there a chunk of North Dakota that could be blown to smithereens without anybody but the cattle noticing?
After making it to the end of the road on the leeward side, we headed back to Nancy’s to get some lunch and cold water before heading over to the east or “windward” side of the island to visit the Byodo-In, a Buddhist temple modeled after a 900 year old temple in Uji, Japan. To get there, we took the H3 east through the valley, passing through some cool tunnels and torrential downpours. The temple was really a sight to behold, nestled in against the cliff face shrouded in cloud and mist, a blazing red challenge to the somber countryside. We walked around the grounds for a good while, snapped a bunch of photos, then set off in the Honda Civic again, this time for the much famed North Shore. For those that don’t know, the North Shore of Oahu is the most famous surfing destination in the world, home of Waimea Beach, Sunset Beach, and the Banzai Pipeline, some of the most famous surfing breaks in the world. Unfortunately, it’s summer, which means that these winter surf bears are currently hibernating under the guise of serene snorkeling beaches.
The drive was pleasant though, hugging the coast all the way north, ducking through small towns and villas bursting with people at the beach. We rented some snorkel gear at a surf shop near Pupukea Beach and dived into the cove for a short bout of snorkeling before heading home. Snorkeling at Pupukea was great, with beautiful fish darting all about and interesting coral formations dotting the bottom. Finally, we headed for home, showered up, ate some dinner, and otherwise unwound from the day. Tomorrow I’m going windsurfing for the first time in my life, something I’m really looking forward to. Until tomorrow, aloha!
Saturday, June 18, 2005
I'm Goin Back to Honolulu, Back to Where I Started From...
Well, after the maelstrom of activity we have had over the past few days, today was a relatively calm, sane day here in Hawaii. I started the day off by waking up just before sunset and walking over to the orchid garden in our resort to snap some photos while the light was good and managed to get a few neat shots. Pictures taken, I headed back to the room for some food and coffee where we made a few plans for the coming day.
We decided to start off the day by taking care of a little light shopping then visiting the National Botanical Gardens just down the street from the resort. There we walked around the visitor center and viewed the demonstration gardens though we didn’t take either of the tours available, mostly because they would take a long time and were really expensive ($30 per person). Anyway, after spending a bit of time in the garden, we drove up out of Poipu, through Lihue, and on to Wailua Falls, our second waterfall viewing of the week. Wailua Falls are a much more mainstream tourist attraction on Kauai since there is no hiking necessary to view the cascading water, only a short drive with easy parking directly across the street from the falls. It’s a spectacular sight, but bad weather has eroded the path down to the base of the falls, meaning that it can only be enjoyed from the one view provided from the road. After snapping a few photos we declared the falls seen and headed back into town for some lunch.
For lunch we decided to visit Kilohana Plantation, an old sugar plantation that has been converted into a series of shops selling various trinkets, art, and jewelry created on Kauai. The building itself is the most expensive house ever built on Kauai and is a palatial estate, sitting on 26,000 acres of land with a 15,000 square foot house. After lunch, we toured around the shops a bit, but didn’t find anything we really liked and headed back out to enjoy the rest of the day. Back in Lihue, we decided to visit the Kauai Museum, a great little museum with exhibits detailing Kauai’s creation, its early inhabitants, and modern history. The museum was really old school with a few musty dioramas and lots of typos in all the descriptions, but had some otherwise good information. We all agreed, however, that the museum would have been a much better attraction upon first coming to the island since the information it presents isn’t stuff you generally care about much on the way out. Oh well, it was still fun.
Following the museum, we headed to the airport to drop off the car and catch our flight back to Oahu. At the desk, the lady helping us bumped us up a flight so that we wouldn’t have to wait so long in the airport lobby, moving us from 5:50 to 4:45 PM, cutting almost an hour out our wait time. This turned out to be a fairly pointless move since the plane we boarded at 4:45 experienced mechanical failures that prevented it from taking off, forcing us to grab all our stuff off the plane, head back into the terminal, and board a different plane to Oahu. The crew was incredibly friendly and apologetic about the whole ordeal, which was nice but kind of unnecessary since I’m sure everybody would rather have them get a different plane than fly a broken one over the ocean.
Back in Oahu, we grabbed Nancy, my aunt’s, car from the parking lot and set off in search of some much needed dinner. I suggested that we try a small Italian place near the college called Auntie Pastos, something everybody agreed to readily and we found with fairly little difficulty. The food was good, dessert was awesome, and we headed back home for some rest. That brings us up to about now, with me finishing up my blog for the day and signing off for some sleep. Adios y buenos noches everybody.
We decided to start off the day by taking care of a little light shopping then visiting the National Botanical Gardens just down the street from the resort. There we walked around the visitor center and viewed the demonstration gardens though we didn’t take either of the tours available, mostly because they would take a long time and were really expensive ($30 per person). Anyway, after spending a bit of time in the garden, we drove up out of Poipu, through Lihue, and on to Wailua Falls, our second waterfall viewing of the week. Wailua Falls are a much more mainstream tourist attraction on Kauai since there is no hiking necessary to view the cascading water, only a short drive with easy parking directly across the street from the falls. It’s a spectacular sight, but bad weather has eroded the path down to the base of the falls, meaning that it can only be enjoyed from the one view provided from the road. After snapping a few photos we declared the falls seen and headed back into town for some lunch.
For lunch we decided to visit Kilohana Plantation, an old sugar plantation that has been converted into a series of shops selling various trinkets, art, and jewelry created on Kauai. The building itself is the most expensive house ever built on Kauai and is a palatial estate, sitting on 26,000 acres of land with a 15,000 square foot house. After lunch, we toured around the shops a bit, but didn’t find anything we really liked and headed back out to enjoy the rest of the day. Back in Lihue, we decided to visit the Kauai Museum, a great little museum with exhibits detailing Kauai’s creation, its early inhabitants, and modern history. The museum was really old school with a few musty dioramas and lots of typos in all the descriptions, but had some otherwise good information. We all agreed, however, that the museum would have been a much better attraction upon first coming to the island since the information it presents isn’t stuff you generally care about much on the way out. Oh well, it was still fun.
Following the museum, we headed to the airport to drop off the car and catch our flight back to Oahu. At the desk, the lady helping us bumped us up a flight so that we wouldn’t have to wait so long in the airport lobby, moving us from 5:50 to 4:45 PM, cutting almost an hour out our wait time. This turned out to be a fairly pointless move since the plane we boarded at 4:45 experienced mechanical failures that prevented it from taking off, forcing us to grab all our stuff off the plane, head back into the terminal, and board a different plane to Oahu. The crew was incredibly friendly and apologetic about the whole ordeal, which was nice but kind of unnecessary since I’m sure everybody would rather have them get a different plane than fly a broken one over the ocean.
Back in Oahu, we grabbed Nancy, my aunt’s, car from the parking lot and set off in search of some much needed dinner. I suggested that we try a small Italian place near the college called Auntie Pastos, something everybody agreed to readily and we found with fairly little difficulty. The food was good, dessert was awesome, and we headed back home for some rest. That brings us up to about now, with me finishing up my blog for the day and signing off for some sleep. Adios y buenos noches everybody.
Friday, June 17, 2005
Somewhere, Beyond the Sea
The great thing about islands is the incredible variety of activities that are available to keep an individual entertained. While yesterday focused on the land based activity of hiking, today centered squarely on the aquatic pastime of scuba diving, one of the most unique ways of viewing the world to be found anywhere. The great thing about scuba diving is, though it requires a fair amount of knowledge concerning equipment and a good level of comfort around water, it is an incredibly easy activity from a physical perspective, making it the perfect way to recover from our grueling hike yesterday. Or so it seemed…
To start the day, Andrew and my dad had to meet the instructors for an introductory lesson and pool dive at 9:45 down the road at the dive shop. Mom and I dropped them off then headed back to the resort to take care of a few things around the room, most notably a load of laundry and a few emails. Shortly after dropping the two compadres off at the dive shop, we received a call at the room from them notifying us that Andrew had left his swimsuit at home and would need it to be delivered for the pool dive portion of his lesson. I frantically searched the room to find my room key, finally locating it beneath my journal, and headed out to make my delivery to the Hyatt Regency. Unfortunately for me, the pool lesson was not being given at the Hyatt Regency but the Embassy Suites, something I only figured out after extensively searching the seemingly endless pools of the Hyatt and failing to locate even one scuba diver. Honestly, what hotel needs 12 pools?!?!
Eventually I realized my mistake and found the scuba divers in training in time for their pool dive. From there I headed back to the room, finished my email writing, and left to pick up the guys after their lesson. We grabbed a few burritos from a small taco stand, snarfed them down quick, and got ourselves ready for some sweet diving action! At 12:45, we met back up at the dive shop and went through a few pre-dive briefings before getting on the boat and heading out for our first of two dives.
The first dive we made was to a location known as Stone House, a relatively flat boat dive around 45-50 feet deep. Visibility on the day was incredibly, ranging anywhere from 80 to 90 feet of visibility with water temps right around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. As a small comparison, when I did my open water dives, the instructors were ecstatic that we had 20 feet of visibility and 65 degree surface temps, considering it one of the best days of diving they had ever seen on Perch Lake. Anyway, suffice to say the dive was spectacular with great views of colorful coral and unique endemic fish species such as the Millet Seed Butterfly, Frog Fish, Anemone Crabs, Hawaiian Cleaner Ras, and a cool little Octopus. After our first dive, we boated over to our second dive spot for the day, Sheraton Caverns, reputedly the best dives spot in all of Kauai. It was an amazing dive through lava tubes and archways with cool tunnels that opened into hidden underwater crevices. The coolest thing about the dive was the numerous Green Sea Turtles swimming about the area resting and other unique species such as Wire Coral Gobies and Ornate Butterflies.
Dad and Drew did very well on their first dives today, thoroughly enjoying their first experience underwater. Andrew got a little sea sick on the boat and generously donated his burrito to the fish, but the rest of the dive went off without a hitch and I have to say that it was one of the best dive operations I have experienced so far. After the dives, we headed back to the resort, showered up, and went to dinner at Brenekes down the street, savoring the delicious Mahi Mahi and other tasty seafood dishes. It’s been three great days of adventure in a row now, which has been nothing but wonderful to experience. Tomorrow we will do a few cleanup things such as Wailua Falls and some light shopping before heading back to Oahu in the evening and continuing our escapades in full force. Ciao ya’ll.
To start the day, Andrew and my dad had to meet the instructors for an introductory lesson and pool dive at 9:45 down the road at the dive shop. Mom and I dropped them off then headed back to the resort to take care of a few things around the room, most notably a load of laundry and a few emails. Shortly after dropping the two compadres off at the dive shop, we received a call at the room from them notifying us that Andrew had left his swimsuit at home and would need it to be delivered for the pool dive portion of his lesson. I frantically searched the room to find my room key, finally locating it beneath my journal, and headed out to make my delivery to the Hyatt Regency. Unfortunately for me, the pool lesson was not being given at the Hyatt Regency but the Embassy Suites, something I only figured out after extensively searching the seemingly endless pools of the Hyatt and failing to locate even one scuba diver. Honestly, what hotel needs 12 pools?!?!
Eventually I realized my mistake and found the scuba divers in training in time for their pool dive. From there I headed back to the room, finished my email writing, and left to pick up the guys after their lesson. We grabbed a few burritos from a small taco stand, snarfed them down quick, and got ourselves ready for some sweet diving action! At 12:45, we met back up at the dive shop and went through a few pre-dive briefings before getting on the boat and heading out for our first of two dives.
The first dive we made was to a location known as Stone House, a relatively flat boat dive around 45-50 feet deep. Visibility on the day was incredibly, ranging anywhere from 80 to 90 feet of visibility with water temps right around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. As a small comparison, when I did my open water dives, the instructors were ecstatic that we had 20 feet of visibility and 65 degree surface temps, considering it one of the best days of diving they had ever seen on Perch Lake. Anyway, suffice to say the dive was spectacular with great views of colorful coral and unique endemic fish species such as the Millet Seed Butterfly, Frog Fish, Anemone Crabs, Hawaiian Cleaner Ras, and a cool little Octopus. After our first dive, we boated over to our second dive spot for the day, Sheraton Caverns, reputedly the best dives spot in all of Kauai. It was an amazing dive through lava tubes and archways with cool tunnels that opened into hidden underwater crevices. The coolest thing about the dive was the numerous Green Sea Turtles swimming about the area resting and other unique species such as Wire Coral Gobies and Ornate Butterflies.
Dad and Drew did very well on their first dives today, thoroughly enjoying their first experience underwater. Andrew got a little sea sick on the boat and generously donated his burrito to the fish, but the rest of the dive went off without a hitch and I have to say that it was one of the best dive operations I have experienced so far. After the dives, we headed back to the resort, showered up, and went to dinner at Brenekes down the street, savoring the delicious Mahi Mahi and other tasty seafood dishes. It’s been three great days of adventure in a row now, which has been nothing but wonderful to experience. Tomorrow we will do a few cleanup things such as Wailua Falls and some light shopping before heading back to Oahu in the evening and continuing our escapades in full force. Ciao ya’ll.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
You say Na Pali, I say No Problem
What an unbelievable island.
Today we hiked the Kualolo trail along the Na Pali coast of Kauai’s north shore, easily regarded as the best hike to be found in the Hawaiian Islands and regarded as a strenuous walk even for experienced hikers. Starting off at our usual hour of 6:30 AM, we headed from Poipu (south side) to the Lihue (east side) to garner ourselves a few park permits. Officially, visitors to the Na Pali coast are required to have hiking permits, but from the sounds of it, very few people actually come and get them before heading out on the trails. During the discussion of whether or not to get a permit, my dad pointed out the kind of luck he has had in situations like this which convinced the rest of us, rather quickly actually, that playing it safe and getting a permit was going to be infinitely preferable to getting stopped along the way and forced back just because we don’t have a stinkin piece of paper.
Arriving at the office for the Division of State Parks, I bounded into the building and up the stairs to scope out the situation. The people who work in this particular Hawaiian government office have got to be the least helpful, slowest employees I have ever seen. It took me a good 10 minutes just to get somebody to tell me that I needed my ID to get a permit and that my family needed to be there too. Once we were all there, it was another 10 minutes to get somebody to talk to us again (bear in mind, wee were the only non-employees in the whole place) and begin processing our request. All in all, it took us a little over 35 minutes to get a free permit and a map, literally 30 seconds worth of work on a laser printer and a quick wrist motion to open a drawer and grab a map. Unreal.
Unnecessary permits procured, we struck out north in search of mountains and high adventure. Along the way, we drove through endless scenic towns including Wailua, Kilauea, and Princeville. The most enjoyable town along the way, hands down, was the small town of Hanalei, a scenic valley town situated on a sweeping beach with pictureseque rivers and taro fields around the southeast side of the town. Hanalei has a unique characteristic that makes it instantly endearing, a charm that oozes out its buildings, into the street, and straight to your heart in a way that is hard to describe as anything but magical. One of the unique things about Hanalei is that it is connected to the rest of the island through a series of one-lane bridges, bridges where the etiquette is to allow an entire line of cars to pass before the other side gets to cross (as opposed to alternating crossings on each side, which is much more common).
Just outside of Hanalei, we drove through the towns of Wainha and Haena, the last specs of civilization on our journey, and arrived at Kee Beach or, “the beach at the end of the road,” the starting point for the Kalalau Trail. Once there, we parked the car, used the beach’s bathroom, and geared up for the long hike ahead. Our path for the day was to be a two mile hike from Kee Beach to Hanakapiai Valley, the first and easiest leg of the Kalalau Trail, followed by a second two mile journey from Hanakapiai Valley to Hanakapiai Falls. Dad, Drew, and I were committed to making the entire 8 mile round trip hike, while Mom was going to hike the first leg of the journey to the valley and see how she felt. The first portion of the trip was a fairly steep incline at first over relatively rocky terrain, hiking conditions that are unquestionably my favorite since you get to basically bound up the mountain leaping from boulder to boulder, which really gets the blood pumping. Andrew and I, like yesterdays hike, quickly distanced ourselves from the folks, which was just fine since they wanted to go slow and we wanted to go fast (it wasn’t like ditching, more like you go your pace, I’ll go mine sorta thing).
We met up at Hanakapiai Beach, which has this super scary sign just above it tallying up the number of visitors killed by the dangerous waves and currents that can be found at this beach. The tally’s current count is 84, which pretty effectively communicates the signs message: STAY OUT OF THE FREAKIN WATER!!! Anyway, down at the beach, Mom decided to turn around and head back to the car, assuring all of us that she would be fine and that continuing on without her would not be the end of the world. Parting ways, we headed off to find the falls and immediately encountered the sweet aromas of wild ginger growing along the path. The path wound up and through the valley along a river, passing through different types of flora including some rather spectacular patches of bamboo and rich patches of ferns. Eventually we came to a series of rather difficult river crossings requiring good sized leaps from rock to rock over rushing water. Fun stuff. I should note that along our way we encountered many people that had already reached the falls and described it as breathtaking, which encouraged us to continue on despite the difficulties of the trail.
Hanakapiai Falls truly is an amazing site; 800 feet of waterfall dropping off into a deep, cool pool set in a deep valley with incredibly green, lush sides. After a quick snack and drink, the three of us dove in the pool and swam under the falls, enjoying the brisk, cool water after our difficult hike. Having enjoyed the waterfall and its invigorating pool, we headed back for the beach 4 miles away. It was a tough hike back, but fun because of all the views and the terrain. During the return trip, I met two people from the Park Rapids (Minnesota) area, the part of the state our cabin is located in, and talked with them at great length about Hawaii and the hike we had just completed. Just another example of what a small world it can be sometimes.
Hike finished, we took a quick swim at Kee Beach to cool off and wash some of the trail grime away. From there, we headed back down the highway to a small burger joint, Char Ono Burger, and had a few hamburgers and brews before viewing the Kilauea Lighthouse and the view from Hanalei Overlook, a great view of the valley floor. Seeing as how it was right around 7 PM by this time, we decided to head for home and get some much needed rest. Tomorrow will feature Dad and Andrew’s first attempts at scuba diving and my first unassisted dive as a certified diver. Pretty exciting. Hopefully I’ll have some more good updates to add tomorrow! Aloha!
Today we hiked the Kualolo trail along the Na Pali coast of Kauai’s north shore, easily regarded as the best hike to be found in the Hawaiian Islands and regarded as a strenuous walk even for experienced hikers. Starting off at our usual hour of 6:30 AM, we headed from Poipu (south side) to the Lihue (east side) to garner ourselves a few park permits. Officially, visitors to the Na Pali coast are required to have hiking permits, but from the sounds of it, very few people actually come and get them before heading out on the trails. During the discussion of whether or not to get a permit, my dad pointed out the kind of luck he has had in situations like this which convinced the rest of us, rather quickly actually, that playing it safe and getting a permit was going to be infinitely preferable to getting stopped along the way and forced back just because we don’t have a stinkin piece of paper.
Arriving at the office for the Division of State Parks, I bounded into the building and up the stairs to scope out the situation. The people who work in this particular Hawaiian government office have got to be the least helpful, slowest employees I have ever seen. It took me a good 10 minutes just to get somebody to tell me that I needed my ID to get a permit and that my family needed to be there too. Once we were all there, it was another 10 minutes to get somebody to talk to us again (bear in mind, wee were the only non-employees in the whole place) and begin processing our request. All in all, it took us a little over 35 minutes to get a free permit and a map, literally 30 seconds worth of work on a laser printer and a quick wrist motion to open a drawer and grab a map. Unreal.
Unnecessary permits procured, we struck out north in search of mountains and high adventure. Along the way, we drove through endless scenic towns including Wailua, Kilauea, and Princeville. The most enjoyable town along the way, hands down, was the small town of Hanalei, a scenic valley town situated on a sweeping beach with pictureseque rivers and taro fields around the southeast side of the town. Hanalei has a unique characteristic that makes it instantly endearing, a charm that oozes out its buildings, into the street, and straight to your heart in a way that is hard to describe as anything but magical. One of the unique things about Hanalei is that it is connected to the rest of the island through a series of one-lane bridges, bridges where the etiquette is to allow an entire line of cars to pass before the other side gets to cross (as opposed to alternating crossings on each side, which is much more common).
Just outside of Hanalei, we drove through the towns of Wainha and Haena, the last specs of civilization on our journey, and arrived at Kee Beach or, “the beach at the end of the road,” the starting point for the Kalalau Trail. Once there, we parked the car, used the beach’s bathroom, and geared up for the long hike ahead. Our path for the day was to be a two mile hike from Kee Beach to Hanakapiai Valley, the first and easiest leg of the Kalalau Trail, followed by a second two mile journey from Hanakapiai Valley to Hanakapiai Falls. Dad, Drew, and I were committed to making the entire 8 mile round trip hike, while Mom was going to hike the first leg of the journey to the valley and see how she felt. The first portion of the trip was a fairly steep incline at first over relatively rocky terrain, hiking conditions that are unquestionably my favorite since you get to basically bound up the mountain leaping from boulder to boulder, which really gets the blood pumping. Andrew and I, like yesterdays hike, quickly distanced ourselves from the folks, which was just fine since they wanted to go slow and we wanted to go fast (it wasn’t like ditching, more like you go your pace, I’ll go mine sorta thing).
We met up at Hanakapiai Beach, which has this super scary sign just above it tallying up the number of visitors killed by the dangerous waves and currents that can be found at this beach. The tally’s current count is 84, which pretty effectively communicates the signs message: STAY OUT OF THE FREAKIN WATER!!! Anyway, down at the beach, Mom decided to turn around and head back to the car, assuring all of us that she would be fine and that continuing on without her would not be the end of the world. Parting ways, we headed off to find the falls and immediately encountered the sweet aromas of wild ginger growing along the path. The path wound up and through the valley along a river, passing through different types of flora including some rather spectacular patches of bamboo and rich patches of ferns. Eventually we came to a series of rather difficult river crossings requiring good sized leaps from rock to rock over rushing water. Fun stuff. I should note that along our way we encountered many people that had already reached the falls and described it as breathtaking, which encouraged us to continue on despite the difficulties of the trail.
Hanakapiai Falls truly is an amazing site; 800 feet of waterfall dropping off into a deep, cool pool set in a deep valley with incredibly green, lush sides. After a quick snack and drink, the three of us dove in the pool and swam under the falls, enjoying the brisk, cool water after our difficult hike. Having enjoyed the waterfall and its invigorating pool, we headed back for the beach 4 miles away. It was a tough hike back, but fun because of all the views and the terrain. During the return trip, I met two people from the Park Rapids (Minnesota) area, the part of the state our cabin is located in, and talked with them at great length about Hawaii and the hike we had just completed. Just another example of what a small world it can be sometimes.
Hike finished, we took a quick swim at Kee Beach to cool off and wash some of the trail grime away. From there, we headed back down the highway to a small burger joint, Char Ono Burger, and had a few hamburgers and brews before viewing the Kilauea Lighthouse and the view from Hanalei Overlook, a great view of the valley floor. Seeing as how it was right around 7 PM by this time, we decided to head for home and get some much needed rest. Tomorrow will feature Dad and Andrew’s first attempts at scuba diving and my first unassisted dive as a certified diver. Pretty exciting. Hopefully I’ll have some more good updates to add tomorrow! Aloha!
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Kokee State Park and Waimea Canyon
Whoa baby what a day. Let’s start from the beginning…
Today began by waking up, scarfing some raison bran, and downing some delicious Hawaiian coffee. Kauai is known for its Kona coffee, a particularly delicious bean that my folks and I have been enjoying tremendously on our trip thus far. Anyway, coffee consumed, we set out for our day of high adventure in the Kauai countryside.
Our destination for the day was Kokee State Park located on the western side of the island just north of Waimea, the largest development on Kauai’s west side. The main attraction of the park is Waimea Canyon, a dramatic red-rock canyon commonly referred to as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific that offers significant eye-candy to those that are lucky enough to visit the area and excellent hiking trails. We began the day formally by stopping for a warm-up hike on the small Iliau nature loop, a short little walk to a good vista that we figured would be great for getting the blood pumping. After finishing our short “leg appetizer,” we headed north in search of bigger game and more exciting trails, planning to stop at the Kokee Museum to procure maps and water for the days hikes. We made it to the Museum just as it was opening, the rosey hour of 9:45 AM, talked with the creepy lady that worked at the place, got a few maps and postcards, and set off for the trails.
Yesterday I convinced everybody to try doing a trail known as the Awaawapuhi trail, which forms a loop with the Nualolo trail of approximately 10 miles and offers unmatched views of various valley’s of Kauai’s Na Pali region (it’s a pretty small island and you can see a looooong way on it). The Awaawapuhi trail, from start to finish, was stated as being approximately 3.25 miles from top to bottom covering a decent of 1600 feet, something that sounded reasonable to me and like something we all should be capable of doing without a great deal of difficulty. Ha.
We started out our hike at right around 10:15 AM and proceeded down the declining trail at a good clip. Andrew and myself immediately began to distance ourselves from the folks, but we waited up occasionally and tried not to get too far ahead. Eventually though, Dad gave us the go ahead to not check our pace and go as fast as we wanted to, turning us loose to our own devices and releasing us from our miserly rate of progress. The two of us, Andrew and I, picked up walking sticks and began to make good progress, counting off the mile markers in quick succession and encountering very little difficulty along the trail. Right around the 2.25-mile marker, while stopping to enjoy a good view, the two of us were quite surprised to have our Dad appear behind us slightly winded (slightly). He had been running down the trail to let us know that he and Mother were turning back, concerned that the trail was becoming too steep and that they would find it too difficult to get back to the top. We thought that sounded like a smart decision and arranged a time that we would try to be back at the top by with the understanding that we really didn’t know what time we would be back, so they would have to be patient and wait for us to complete our hike.
Andrew and I finished the rest of the descent without much difficulty and proceeded to the vistas down a separate path at the end. The views into the valley below were simply breathtaking; sheer cliffs dropping away to valley floors with meandering rivers, all shrouded with thick vegetation and a haziness in the air that reflected the fact we were 3200 feet above sea level. Pictures from this view can be seen on my Flickr page, and I would highly encourage everybody to the check them out. Simply awesome.
On the way back up, Andrew and I made a small detour to see Nualolo Stream, but the stream was dry (its been really hot and dry here lately), so we turned around and began the long ascent to the top. It was a really difficult ascent with several sections that were very steep and difficult, especially for two guys that don’t do much hiking on an everyday basis. But, though things looked grim at times, we made it to the top unscathed, if a little thirsty, and grabbed lunch at Kokee Lodge. It was a decent little place, though the waitress wouldn’t bring us any water because the place had lead in its water pipes. Ah just the thing to hit the spot after 6.5 miles of hiking, a few heavy metals and a pork sandwich!
After lunch, we checked out a few more views along Waimea Canyon road and headed back down the road to Waimea. In Waimea, we turned down a small side street and found a pre-western Aqueduct constructed by the Menehunes, the legendary “little people” of Kauai. The duct still carries water to taro fields and has a plaque showing it has been a national treasure since 1929. Definitely one of those cool things not everybody gets to see and really adds to the experience.
Back at the resort, I wandered down to the office in search of some wireless internet and found the resorts provided network. After sending out a few emails and catching up on current events, I headed back to the room, ate dinner, and watched a couple episodes of Lost with the folks. Tomorrow we will be hiking the Na Pali coast, reputedly Hawaii’s best hiking trails. Super pumped for that. That’s about all for the time being, better get some rest if I’m going to do any hiking tomorrow. Aloha ladies and gents!
Today began by waking up, scarfing some raison bran, and downing some delicious Hawaiian coffee. Kauai is known for its Kona coffee, a particularly delicious bean that my folks and I have been enjoying tremendously on our trip thus far. Anyway, coffee consumed, we set out for our day of high adventure in the Kauai countryside.
Our destination for the day was Kokee State Park located on the western side of the island just north of Waimea, the largest development on Kauai’s west side. The main attraction of the park is Waimea Canyon, a dramatic red-rock canyon commonly referred to as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific that offers significant eye-candy to those that are lucky enough to visit the area and excellent hiking trails. We began the day formally by stopping for a warm-up hike on the small Iliau nature loop, a short little walk to a good vista that we figured would be great for getting the blood pumping. After finishing our short “leg appetizer,” we headed north in search of bigger game and more exciting trails, planning to stop at the Kokee Museum to procure maps and water for the days hikes. We made it to the Museum just as it was opening, the rosey hour of 9:45 AM, talked with the creepy lady that worked at the place, got a few maps and postcards, and set off for the trails.
Yesterday I convinced everybody to try doing a trail known as the Awaawapuhi trail, which forms a loop with the Nualolo trail of approximately 10 miles and offers unmatched views of various valley’s of Kauai’s Na Pali region (it’s a pretty small island and you can see a looooong way on it). The Awaawapuhi trail, from start to finish, was stated as being approximately 3.25 miles from top to bottom covering a decent of 1600 feet, something that sounded reasonable to me and like something we all should be capable of doing without a great deal of difficulty. Ha.
We started out our hike at right around 10:15 AM and proceeded down the declining trail at a good clip. Andrew and myself immediately began to distance ourselves from the folks, but we waited up occasionally and tried not to get too far ahead. Eventually though, Dad gave us the go ahead to not check our pace and go as fast as we wanted to, turning us loose to our own devices and releasing us from our miserly rate of progress. The two of us, Andrew and I, picked up walking sticks and began to make good progress, counting off the mile markers in quick succession and encountering very little difficulty along the trail. Right around the 2.25-mile marker, while stopping to enjoy a good view, the two of us were quite surprised to have our Dad appear behind us slightly winded (slightly). He had been running down the trail to let us know that he and Mother were turning back, concerned that the trail was becoming too steep and that they would find it too difficult to get back to the top. We thought that sounded like a smart decision and arranged a time that we would try to be back at the top by with the understanding that we really didn’t know what time we would be back, so they would have to be patient and wait for us to complete our hike.
Andrew and I finished the rest of the descent without much difficulty and proceeded to the vistas down a separate path at the end. The views into the valley below were simply breathtaking; sheer cliffs dropping away to valley floors with meandering rivers, all shrouded with thick vegetation and a haziness in the air that reflected the fact we were 3200 feet above sea level. Pictures from this view can be seen on my Flickr page, and I would highly encourage everybody to the check them out. Simply awesome.
On the way back up, Andrew and I made a small detour to see Nualolo Stream, but the stream was dry (its been really hot and dry here lately), so we turned around and began the long ascent to the top. It was a really difficult ascent with several sections that were very steep and difficult, especially for two guys that don’t do much hiking on an everyday basis. But, though things looked grim at times, we made it to the top unscathed, if a little thirsty, and grabbed lunch at Kokee Lodge. It was a decent little place, though the waitress wouldn’t bring us any water because the place had lead in its water pipes. Ah just the thing to hit the spot after 6.5 miles of hiking, a few heavy metals and a pork sandwich!
After lunch, we checked out a few more views along Waimea Canyon road and headed back down the road to Waimea. In Waimea, we turned down a small side street and found a pre-western Aqueduct constructed by the Menehunes, the legendary “little people” of Kauai. The duct still carries water to taro fields and has a plaque showing it has been a national treasure since 1929. Definitely one of those cool things not everybody gets to see and really adds to the experience.
Back at the resort, I wandered down to the office in search of some wireless internet and found the resorts provided network. After sending out a few emails and catching up on current events, I headed back to the room, ate dinner, and watched a couple episodes of Lost with the folks. Tomorrow we will be hiking the Na Pali coast, reputedly Hawaii’s best hiking trails. Super pumped for that. That’s about all for the time being, better get some rest if I’m going to do any hiking tomorrow. Aloha ladies and gents!
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
First Day in Kauai
Today the fam and I flew to the garden isle of Kauai, the oldest of the Hawaiian Islands. Rising at a rosey six AM, we drove down to the airport, parked the car, hopped a shuttle to the airport, and caught our flight to Kauai. The flight was ridiculously short, something like 35 minutes, and, unlike our last flight, everything ran super smoothly (prompt takeoff, great flight attendants, and no unhappy little ones), making it a rather enjoyable trip. At the airport, we grabbed our car rental from Dollar Rent-a-car, a brand spankin new vanilla Dodge Magnum. Talk about a beast! This thing has got a hood that just doesn’t stop, making it rather difficult to drive, but its got lots of space to stow our gear, which is a rather good thing. Anyway, we navigated through the capital of Kauai, Lihue, and made our way to the resort town of Pihue, which (gasp!) is the location of our resort.
Once in Lihue, we attempted to check in to the resort, the Kiahuna Plantation Resort, but were told that the room would not be ready until right around 3:00 PM. It was 11:45 AM. So, we did what any sensible people would do: got Mexican food! After some sopping wet burritos from this little hole in the wall place up the road, we checked out the surfing scene and discovered that the entire southern side of the island is reef break, making it rather dangerous to surf for beginners (Andrew and Dad) and rusty intermediates (yours truly). Abandoning our impulses to grab boards and run for the surf like 7 year old boys for first base, we decided to occupy a small portion of beach near our resort and work on improving our complexions from their ghostly white state. During our time on the beach, I rented a foamy (foam surf board) and paddled around a bit in the break water, but things were pretty flat by the time I was out there and I only caught a few odd waves (all of which I stalled or crashed on). Additionally, our time in the sun managed to turn every one of us into crispy morsels for pitying eyes to feast upon. In particular, Andrew and Dad burned their backs rather spectacularly, though I did my very best to keep up with their attempts at a whole body blush.
After the beach, we checked into our room and cleaned up a bit for some late afternoon adventuring. The place we are staying is absolutely spectacular, with views down to the ocean, gorgeous landscaping, and a rich history as a former sugar plantation and noted garden. A bit farther down from our resort, we visited Spouting Horn Beach Park, a lava tube that, when struck by approaching waves, produces great geysers of water and a fantastic whooshing sounds. Around the park were various craft dealers selling their wares and a few dozen wild chickens. For those that don’t know, Kauai is the last Hawaiian island where you can still find wild chickens in great numbers since it is the only island that has remained free of the Mongoose, an introduced predator that feeds on ground nesting bird eggs. Anyway, on the way back, we stopped by the grocery store and picked up some supplies then grabbed dinner at Plantation Gardens, the spectacular restaurant located within our resort. The restaurant is built within Moir Gardens, an amazing cactus and orchid garden that is simply stunning to walk through. Dinner was amazing with fancy plates of fish and prime rib being served in delicious sauces to an ocean view. Ah Hawaii. Good day overall. Tomorrow we’re going to do a bit of hiking in Kokee State Park, I’ll be sure the let everybody know how it goes. As for now, aloha.
Once in Lihue, we attempted to check in to the resort, the Kiahuna Plantation Resort, but were told that the room would not be ready until right around 3:00 PM. It was 11:45 AM. So, we did what any sensible people would do: got Mexican food! After some sopping wet burritos from this little hole in the wall place up the road, we checked out the surfing scene and discovered that the entire southern side of the island is reef break, making it rather dangerous to surf for beginners (Andrew and Dad) and rusty intermediates (yours truly). Abandoning our impulses to grab boards and run for the surf like 7 year old boys for first base, we decided to occupy a small portion of beach near our resort and work on improving our complexions from their ghostly white state. During our time on the beach, I rented a foamy (foam surf board) and paddled around a bit in the break water, but things were pretty flat by the time I was out there and I only caught a few odd waves (all of which I stalled or crashed on). Additionally, our time in the sun managed to turn every one of us into crispy morsels for pitying eyes to feast upon. In particular, Andrew and Dad burned their backs rather spectacularly, though I did my very best to keep up with their attempts at a whole body blush.
After the beach, we checked into our room and cleaned up a bit for some late afternoon adventuring. The place we are staying is absolutely spectacular, with views down to the ocean, gorgeous landscaping, and a rich history as a former sugar plantation and noted garden. A bit farther down from our resort, we visited Spouting Horn Beach Park, a lava tube that, when struck by approaching waves, produces great geysers of water and a fantastic whooshing sounds. Around the park were various craft dealers selling their wares and a few dozen wild chickens. For those that don’t know, Kauai is the last Hawaiian island where you can still find wild chickens in great numbers since it is the only island that has remained free of the Mongoose, an introduced predator that feeds on ground nesting bird eggs. Anyway, on the way back, we stopped by the grocery store and picked up some supplies then grabbed dinner at Plantation Gardens, the spectacular restaurant located within our resort. The restaurant is built within Moir Gardens, an amazing cactus and orchid garden that is simply stunning to walk through. Dinner was amazing with fancy plates of fish and prime rib being served in delicious sauces to an ocean view. Ah Hawaii. Good day overall. Tomorrow we’re going to do a bit of hiking in Kokee State Park, I’ll be sure the let everybody know how it goes. As for now, aloha.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Well Alooooha!
Aloha from the Hawaiian Islands! For the next two weeks, my blogs will be coming from these isolated islands of intrigue and adventure and hopefully I can provide some interesting things to read about. Anyway, on with the show!
Backstory: Around a year ago, my Dad began talking to his sister Nancy (my aunt and commonly called Nan for short) about the possibility of trading houses for a period of time this summer. Nan expressed an interest in being in Minnesota for an extended period to visit with family and friends and see sights she hadn't seen in a long while. We all promptly threw our hands in the air, screamed "WOOPEE!", and began plotting ways to make this experiment in short term real estate swapping a reality. Sufffice to say it worked out, which means that at this very moment, Nan and her significant other Chuck are currently occupying our palace in Brooklyn Park while I digitally scribble my thoughts from a slightly more exotic locale.
Yesterday the fam (Dad, Mom, and Andrew) left Minneapolis at around 3:15 PM for the island of Oahu, approximately an eight hour plane flight on a Northwest DC-10. The flight was one of the more miserable flights I have had, settling right behind my flight to Michigan last fall (2 hour delay with a SCREAMING baby) and my return flight from Las Vegas when I was 16 (hot pot of coffee dumped on my head, then offered my choice of red or white wine as retribution). It took off late, had crabby flight attendants who didn't feed us, poor storage, and a crying baby (though not screaming, thank goodness). As advertised, the flight took right around eight hours to get to Oahu and touched down with one of the smoothest landings I can remember experiencing. We grabbed our bags and hopped into a taxi to get to Nancy's house, which turned into a rather exciting in unexpected adventure since the cab driver found a way to violate just about every traffic law ever enacted. Oh well, we survived.
After settling in a bit, we consulted my trusty Lonely Planet guide for a place to eat. For those that don't know, I'm something of a Lonely Planet junky, especially after my trip to Oz, and consider their advice gospel. The fam and I decided on a small Sichuan place called Maple Garden that sounded excellent and set off to navigate the mean streets of Honolulu in my aunt's fast and furious Honda Civic. I was elected driver since I was considered the calmest of the available candidates and I got us to our destination with only a few minor snafus. Dinner was good, came home, watched some Lost (greatest show EVER!), wrote in the journal, thought about Megs for a bit, and hit the hay. Not bad for a first day.
Today we went to breakfast at this little place called Anna Millers which had good pancakes and great coffee (Kona, mmm). After that, we went to the Pearl Harbor memorials, most notably the USS Arizona Memorial. This is the battleship that was sunk during the surprise attack on December 7th and still leaks oil to the surface. It's one of the more impressive war memorials I have seen and has great information all around. We took a ton of pictures at the ajoining submarine park, but skipped the actual tour of the sub ($10 each was just a little too steep to walk around a cramped compartment with a bunch of buttons we couldn't touch). All in all, Pearl Harbor was fairly impressive, but the boat ride out to the Arizona, the main attraction, was quite ironically the most disappointing part of the whole thing. It's a cool concept to be sure, but the fact remains that there just isn't that much to be seen out there and the glare from the water makes what is there difficult to see. The rest of the day we chilled out and made our plans for tomorrow's trip to Kauai and the ensuing four day excursion we will be making on that particular organic oasis. kauai should be a great time and I'm really stoked to do a bunch of the different hikes on the island.
Alright, that's enough for now. Aloha.
Backstory: Around a year ago, my Dad began talking to his sister Nancy (my aunt and commonly called Nan for short) about the possibility of trading houses for a period of time this summer. Nan expressed an interest in being in Minnesota for an extended period to visit with family and friends and see sights she hadn't seen in a long while. We all promptly threw our hands in the air, screamed "WOOPEE!", and began plotting ways to make this experiment in short term real estate swapping a reality. Sufffice to say it worked out, which means that at this very moment, Nan and her significant other Chuck are currently occupying our palace in Brooklyn Park while I digitally scribble my thoughts from a slightly more exotic locale.
Yesterday the fam (Dad, Mom, and Andrew) left Minneapolis at around 3:15 PM for the island of Oahu, approximately an eight hour plane flight on a Northwest DC-10. The flight was one of the more miserable flights I have had, settling right behind my flight to Michigan last fall (2 hour delay with a SCREAMING baby) and my return flight from Las Vegas when I was 16 (hot pot of coffee dumped on my head, then offered my choice of red or white wine as retribution). It took off late, had crabby flight attendants who didn't feed us, poor storage, and a crying baby (though not screaming, thank goodness). As advertised, the flight took right around eight hours to get to Oahu and touched down with one of the smoothest landings I can remember experiencing. We grabbed our bags and hopped into a taxi to get to Nancy's house, which turned into a rather exciting in unexpected adventure since the cab driver found a way to violate just about every traffic law ever enacted. Oh well, we survived.
After settling in a bit, we consulted my trusty Lonely Planet guide for a place to eat. For those that don't know, I'm something of a Lonely Planet junky, especially after my trip to Oz, and consider their advice gospel. The fam and I decided on a small Sichuan place called Maple Garden that sounded excellent and set off to navigate the mean streets of Honolulu in my aunt's fast and furious Honda Civic. I was elected driver since I was considered the calmest of the available candidates and I got us to our destination with only a few minor snafus. Dinner was good, came home, watched some Lost (greatest show EVER!), wrote in the journal, thought about Megs for a bit, and hit the hay. Not bad for a first day.
Today we went to breakfast at this little place called Anna Millers which had good pancakes and great coffee (Kona, mmm). After that, we went to the Pearl Harbor memorials, most notably the USS Arizona Memorial. This is the battleship that was sunk during the surprise attack on December 7th and still leaks oil to the surface. It's one of the more impressive war memorials I have seen and has great information all around. We took a ton of pictures at the ajoining submarine park, but skipped the actual tour of the sub ($10 each was just a little too steep to walk around a cramped compartment with a bunch of buttons we couldn't touch). All in all, Pearl Harbor was fairly impressive, but the boat ride out to the Arizona, the main attraction, was quite ironically the most disappointing part of the whole thing. It's a cool concept to be sure, but the fact remains that there just isn't that much to be seen out there and the glare from the water makes what is there difficult to see. The rest of the day we chilled out and made our plans for tomorrow's trip to Kauai and the ensuing four day excursion we will be making on that particular organic oasis. kauai should be a great time and I'm really stoked to do a bunch of the different hikes on the island.
Alright, that's enough for now. Aloha.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Crazy Two Weeks
Man, talk about your busy times. The past 2 weeks have been absolutely insane in Frankland (you know, the imaginary little world I seem to occupy continuously). Lets start at the beginning...
The biggest thing during this maelstrom of activity has undoubtedly been the preparation for Fusion Dance's Spring Performance. Extra rehersals, costume work, stage prep, and dress rehersals all lead to some busy dance teachers. Last night we had our first of two shows and, overall, everything went very very well. My mom, dad, grandma, and brother all came down to watch the show along with Kristen (Andrew's girlfriend) and Pete, Andrew and myself's roomate. Everybody said they were very impressed by the show and that all of the dances were enjoyable to watch, which is actually a fairly difficult thing to accomplish (aka: no clunker dances). Laura and I had our reunion duet performance which went quite well, no heart attacks, broken bones, or black eyes. Anyway, one performance done, one to go tonight, then my year long stint with Fusion will be over and along with it, my dance teaching career. It sure will be a sad day when I'm done teaching those kids, they all work so hard and are so enjoyable to work with.
Next on the list of big events has been our move from Berry Place to the house in Falcon Heights. Finally, we're done with that place and the creepy ladies that run it (think really intense with bug eyes, *shudder*). The new house is really nice and everybody needs to come visit us, its got enough space for everybody AND everybody's friends, so undoubtedly we will be having a few get togethers for some chips, soda, and some late night streaking. Pete has been working hard to wire the place up and has successfully installed internet into our office downstairs and Andrew's bedroom next door (the house, previously, was not wired for internet). It's so great to have an office where we can keep our computer crap seperate from the rest of our stuff, and it makes for great video game playin'!
Another big thing going on, though not as big (yet) as the first two things, is preparation for our trip to Hawaii! Thats right, Hawaii. The fam and I are leaving for Hawaii tomorrow afternoon, the 12th, until the 25th. We are going to two islands, Oahu and Kauai, of which I am definatly more excited to see Kauai. I'm going to try and keep this blog updated while I'm there, though probably not on a daily basis. I'll also try and keep my Flickr photo page updated so you can see some of the rad scenary of the Hawaiian Islands.
Other misc. stuff that has gone on has been trying to keep in touch with Megs (who recently updated her blog which should be checked out by all), getting my scuba diving liscence, and trying to get a full time job (two interviews and an online assesment). Anyway, gotta bunch of stuff to get done today, so this is the formal end to this long post. Ciao.
The biggest thing during this maelstrom of activity has undoubtedly been the preparation for Fusion Dance's Spring Performance. Extra rehersals, costume work, stage prep, and dress rehersals all lead to some busy dance teachers. Last night we had our first of two shows and, overall, everything went very very well. My mom, dad, grandma, and brother all came down to watch the show along with Kristen (Andrew's girlfriend) and Pete, Andrew and myself's roomate. Everybody said they were very impressed by the show and that all of the dances were enjoyable to watch, which is actually a fairly difficult thing to accomplish (aka: no clunker dances). Laura and I had our reunion duet performance which went quite well, no heart attacks, broken bones, or black eyes. Anyway, one performance done, one to go tonight, then my year long stint with Fusion will be over and along with it, my dance teaching career. It sure will be a sad day when I'm done teaching those kids, they all work so hard and are so enjoyable to work with.
Next on the list of big events has been our move from Berry Place to the house in Falcon Heights. Finally, we're done with that place and the creepy ladies that run it (think really intense with bug eyes, *shudder*). The new house is really nice and everybody needs to come visit us, its got enough space for everybody AND everybody's friends, so undoubtedly we will be having a few get togethers for some chips, soda, and some late night streaking. Pete has been working hard to wire the place up and has successfully installed internet into our office downstairs and Andrew's bedroom next door (the house, previously, was not wired for internet). It's so great to have an office where we can keep our computer crap seperate from the rest of our stuff, and it makes for great video game playin'!
Another big thing going on, though not as big (yet) as the first two things, is preparation for our trip to Hawaii! Thats right, Hawaii. The fam and I are leaving for Hawaii tomorrow afternoon, the 12th, until the 25th. We are going to two islands, Oahu and Kauai, of which I am definatly more excited to see Kauai. I'm going to try and keep this blog updated while I'm there, though probably not on a daily basis. I'll also try and keep my Flickr photo page updated so you can see some of the rad scenary of the Hawaiian Islands.
Other misc. stuff that has gone on has been trying to keep in touch with Megs (who recently updated her blog which should be checked out by all), getting my scuba diving liscence, and trying to get a full time job (two interviews and an online assesment). Anyway, gotta bunch of stuff to get done today, so this is the formal end to this long post. Ciao.
Monday, June 06, 2005
Diving, Moving
This is a post I actually meant to write yesterday, June 5th, but I got distracted. Imagine that; me, getting destracted, how unexpected. Haha.
Anyway, yesterday I received my Scuba diving certification after completing my open water dives. Now I can travel the world and spend lots of money looking at a bunch of coral and fish. Yeah, even when I try to disparage it, scuba diving still sounds pretty cool. Let me tell ya though, diving in a lake in this part of the world during this season is a COLD endeavor. Up until about 13 feet or so, its pretty nice. After that, it starts getting cold real quick.
Today is going to be moving day for Andrew and I. We are leaving Berry Place in favor of expanded grazing areas present at the new house. Sure will be nice to have my own room.
Alright, I'm putting this pointless blog out of its misery. Adios.
Anyway, yesterday I received my Scuba diving certification after completing my open water dives. Now I can travel the world and spend lots of money looking at a bunch of coral and fish. Yeah, even when I try to disparage it, scuba diving still sounds pretty cool. Let me tell ya though, diving in a lake in this part of the world during this season is a COLD endeavor. Up until about 13 feet or so, its pretty nice. After that, it starts getting cold real quick.
Today is going to be moving day for Andrew and I. We are leaving Berry Place in favor of expanded grazing areas present at the new house. Sure will be nice to have my own room.
Alright, I'm putting this pointless blog out of its misery. Adios.
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