Reflections of My Travel

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Today we confirmed that there’s really not much to see on the Big Island other than the live volcano and the trails in the park around it. We drove the north loop back around to Kona and then drove almost all the way back to Hilo on the Saddle Road, between the volcanos. We went up as far as the visitor’s center, where the pavement ends, on Mauna Kea but it was so cloudy it was not worth trying to get our minivan up the steep-grade, gravel road to the summit since they said there was next to no visibility up there either. We drove back down to Kona and decided to try something new to make our camping more interesting. Turns out our minivan had a DVD player so we ran into WalMart and bought a DVD. We need one of those in our XTerra. It was very neat to lay there watching a movie. And it was great surround sound, the whole van shook with bass when anything big happened. Made for a much more entertaining evening of camping (which usually consists of going straight to sleep).

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We got up bright and early this morning to get to the airport for our flight to Kauai. When we got there and got our van, we immediately started driving up to Waimea Canyon. They call this the Grand Canyon of the Pacific and we were really excited about seeing it. It was every bit as pretty as they say. It was so green and the rocks were so red. Beautiful. And we saw more wildlife than we’ve seen on all the islands combine. By wildlife, I mean wild chickens. They were all over the place up there on top of the canyon! We drove along the canyon, pulling out at picturesque stops, and turned around once we had hit and walked around the Napali Coast a bit. I think I expected this Island to be fairly primitive since they say it is the least developed and visited of the islands. I was surprised to see that it seemed to have more and nicer towns and neighborhoods all around the coast than the other islands we’ve been to. For the most part, what little development there was on Maui was rundown and shackish. We had planned on hiking around in the canyon some but we were both a little zapped for energy so after spending the whole morning and part of the afternoon driving around and appreciating it, we went back down to the coast. We stopped at Spouting Horn Beach and watched a very nice blowhole for quite some time. It was really one of the better ones I’ve seen. or heard for that matter. And yes, there were chickens all over the beach. It makes sense, we had already been informed at the first of our trip that Kauai was the only island that the mongoose had not been introduced to so the bird population was much healthier there. I guess I just hadn’t expected the bird population to be so largely comprised of cluckers/crowers. They were everywhere and we had to watch for them when driving so as to not hit one crossing the street (why? to get to the beach, of course!). As evening approached we went back to town to get some dinner and to find a place to camp. We stopped at WalMart and there were chickens all over the parking lot. As Randal accidentally dropped some peanuts that had fallen down into one of our bags, they came flocking from all over. It was a little scary. We have found our camping spot and we are getting ready to watch another movie on our very nifty vehicle DVD player before we go to sleep.

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THAT STUPID ROOSTER!!! (just for you, cousin). It was a less-than-restful night. The roosters around here were apparently never fully informed about their job description. They seem to be unaware that their job begins just before daylight and ends just after daylight. They crow all day and all night. And about an hour or so before daylight, one of them was kind enough to make his way over to the car, sit right next to the tire, and crow his flippin’head off. Ah, such fond memories. After getting up, we stopped by the KFC to take some pictures of the chickens walking around the KFC (freshest food on the island!). We then made our way to Poipu beach, which we had heard was the best snorkeling on Kauai. We got in the water and snorkeled around for maybe an hour before we agreed that it just was not good snorkeling. There were way too many waves and much too strong a current for it to be enjoyable. It was a continuous struggle just to keep from getting washed up on the corral that watching of fishes just wasn’t an option, let alone photographing them with which Randal grew very frustrated. When we got out of the water, we sat on the beach with the chickens watching surfers and drying out. Then we headed down the beach to the next bay over where there were lots of boogie boarders. Randal wanted to try the sport so he got out there and let the waves rough him up a bit. I think he about decided that he should start out on some smaller waves but it looked like he was having fun anyhow. He lost one of his fins but, luckily enough, the waves were so strong and constant that they would let it get sucked out and it kept beating at the shore until Randal was finally able to grab it. From there, we drove to our hotel and checked in before driving up the north coast for a while. We stopped at Opaekaa Falls along the way and then our GPS told us the way to another waterfall just slightly outside of Lihue. Wailua Falls was incredible. We got there just before dusk so we were very lucky to see it. The pics came out pretty decent but still just do not do it justice. When we got back to the hotel and got everything in the room to be organized and packed, we headed down to the jacuzzi for a little relaxation. We had a great time talking with the other people in there, especially another young couple from Holland. We enjoyed talking about our trip there and they talked about their trips here (the guy had already been to 42 states) and it was just really fun to compare cultural differences as seen from the travelers’ eye. We just got back to the room and Randal has us just about packed up. Time to catch a few hours of sleep.