2005 Hawaii

Hawaii 2005

Saturday, January 8
It turns out that airplane smoke alarms can be scary things. Not so much when they go off whilst still on the ground as they did there in Minneapolis. No, they’re scary when they go off again, in the air, after the problem was “fixed”. We were a might concerned – especially since it was a little hard to breathe. They announced that we would head back to the Twin Cities, but you don’t just turn a DC-10 around all that fast. By the time we dumped our fuel and were met by the three or four fire engines on the ground, an hour had passed. By the time we got going again (on a new plane, thank you), several hours had passed, causing us to miss our connecting flight from Honolulu to Kauai, causing us to overnight in a junky Honolulu Hotel. And we thought that once we got off the ground (late) in that Cleveland snowstorm, everything would be fine. But at least we were in a junky hotel in Hawaii.

Sunday, January 9
Kauai isn’t really all that hot in January. Not that we’re complaining about 70’s during the day and low 60’s at night. They had recently had some terrific flooding from a storm that brought 14 inches of rain. We’re lucky to have missed that one.

We picked up a copy of “Kauai Revealed” by Doughty and Friedman. It calls itself the “Ultimate Kauai Guidebook” and it really is. Although it’s best to use it as a reference, it’s interesting enough to read from cover to cover. Everybody is walking around with these things, and bookstores stopped bothering to carry any other guidebooks.

Our resort is pretty swanky. We’ve got our own huge bay (Nawiliwili) and beach (Kalapacki) mostly to ourselves. Too bad we can’t swim at the beach. The rains caused bacteria to wash into the nearby river and into the ocean, making swimming unsafe. I thought that only happened in Cleveland.

After driving up to Wailua Falls (the one you see on Fantasy Island), we had a nice champagne brunch without champagne at our hotel. Note to self: always ask price before feeding face. We should’ve remembered that one from our 1985 “Ice Swan and Caviar” incident here in Kauai. The price for the 2005 buffet was in the neighborhood of $37 or so. Each.

Monday, January 10
Kauai is incredibly beautiful. Each and every square inch of it. It’s exactly what you think of when you conjure up a picture of a tropical paradise. By the way, chickens are to Kauai as geese are to northern Ohio. Except they’re noisier, but don’t seem to poop quite as much. Apparently several bantam chickens got loose during a hurricane a decade or two ago. Since then, they’ve taken over the island. From their perspective, it’s “Chickens in Paradise!”

I now have the Kalalau Trail out of my system. At least for another 20 years. In 1985 we hiked the two miles (seemed like 20) along this coastal trail to a beach along the way. We then explored a bit and turned back. Since then, I’ve been wanting to hike the entire 11 miles of the trail, even though Debbie doesn’t want to backpack, which is the only way the whole 22-mile out and back thing can be done. I had this brilliant idea that we could have a boat take us to the end of it so that we could walk back. Unfortunately, we learned that boats are not allowed to land at the end of the trail in the Kalalau valley. So in 2005, we just hiked in and then back out again. We didn’t even make it as far as we did 20 years ago. After a couple hours of climbing rocks and slipping through mud, we’d had enough. As before, however, the views along the way are spectacular – especially the lookout about a ½ hour in. So maybe it was worth it. We’ll see how it’s changed when we tackle it in 2025.

We stopped in Hanalei on the way back. We were again disappointed to learn that the Magic Dragon was out for the day.

Tuesday, January 11
We thought about taking a boat, including a snorkel trip, to the “forbidden” isle of Niihau, the only inhabited Hawaiian Island that we haven’t set foot on. But then we thought again. It turns out that you can’t even get off the boat to go ashore there. Why, you ask? Because it’s forbidden.

Wednesday, January 12
Now I have hiking in general out of my system. The Honopu Ridge Trail came highly recommended by our guidebook. But with the mud, hills and thick jungle, it was at least as tough as the Kalalau Trail. After over two hours of slithering through 2 miles and over 1000 vertical feet of that stuff (recall the mudslide in Romancing the Stone), we wound up on one of the narrow ridges of the Na Pali Cliffs, with huge deep valleys on both sides. (Incidentally, Na Pali means “cliff” so I’m being a bit redundant here, but then, anyone who’s seen these cliffs understands why.) We were treated to truly magnificent views. We made it back with one or two un-muddy spots, and one or two unscratched areas on my legs. Debbie had been smart enough to wear pants.

Although it’s a totally different valley, I must say that the Honopu Valley looks an awful lot like the Kalalau Valley, which you can just drive right up to. But then, the Joy is in the Journey. Isn’t it?

Dinner was at Dukes. We had some good Mahi Mahi.

Thursday, January 13
Liquid sunshine spoiled our day at the beach. With Kalapacki Beach off limits, we drove, snorkel gear in tow, down to good old Poipu Beach for the day. I’ve never seen so much rain and sun, at the same time for so long. We might have still gone into the water, but the wind had kicked up some big waves too. We consoled ourselves with a nice lunch at familiar Brennecke’s. Just another shitty day in paradise.

Friday, January 14
We drove up north again to take a self-guided walking tour of Limihule National Botanical Garden. They had excellent examples of all of the original and endangered native Hawaiian plants, as well as those bad ones introduced by the Polynesians and Europeans. I say bad because they’re choking out the original native stuff. Why is that important, you ask? Because once the native stuff is gone, it’s gone forever – lots of it grows here and nowhere else. Besides the interesting plants, another attraction was the location: Limahule Valley is stunningly spectacular – it’s where the Na Pali cliffs begin. Too bad the skeeters were spectacular as well.

On the way back we stopped at the Guava Plantation. Then we had good Italian food at Café Portofino.

Saturday, January 15
Whereas Kauai is awesomely beautiful, the Big Island of Hawaii is just awesome. Whereas every square inch of Kauai is utterly gorgeous, there are plenty of places on the Big Island that are just plain ugly. This is mostly because of the ubiquitous lava. With the flows so recent in the geological past, nature hasn’t had so much of a chance to turn the whole place into a paradise. Yet. The lava flows, covering miles and miles of the island, are especially prominent on the drier west side (the Kona side where we were) because water and plant life have not had as much of an opportunity to work. This is not to say that the place isn’t awe-inspiring; it is. Sweeping views over vast distances, including multiple volcanoes see to that. And some parts of the island are extremely pretty.

Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, the two tallest mountains, were snow-capped. At dusk we drove up to the Mauna Kea visitor center at the 9300-foot level. We wondered why so much traffic was headed down as we were headed up. We later learned that they were skiers (some bringing back pickup loads of snow!) coming down from the summit. At the visitor center we did some stargazing using some telescoped provided by the University of Hawaii and an astronomy organization. The BIG telescopes (best on the planet) are 4500 feet higher at the summit. We looked at Saturn, the moon and the pleides and orion nebulae. It never got too cold – only 49F. That was better than the summit, where it was 31.

Sunday, January 16
We walked down to some ancient Hawaiian petroglyphs near our hotel, and spent the rest of the day lounging by the pool. The surf was too rough to swim in the ocean. The few degrees difference between the Big Island and Kauai (low 80s vs mid 70s) make a huge difference. It definitely feels tropical here.

Monday, January 17
IZ is to Hawaii as Bob Marley is to Jamaica. Several years after his death, his popularity still appears to be on the rise. You hear his songs everywhere you go. Luckily, it’s the type of music everyone seems to love and not get tired of.

Two MAJOR hikes today.
Hike 1: We drove to the town of Waimea, parked at the end of a road and hit the trail. It began through some fields, which then turned into a forest. The forest included some bamboo areas that had some eerie cracking noises. I guess bamboo does that. It was a nice and relatively easy hike – we covered the two miles in much less than half the time it took us in Kauai. Then we got to the edge of the Waipio valley. There was a sheer drop of 2000 feet. The trail continued along the edge of the cliff with the sheer drop becoming ever sheerer. Remember the Tarzan movies where they are walking along the side of a steep cliff and every now and then some porter tumbles down? That’s what it was like. We went along that edge for a while before turning back. Good thing we didn’t run into anyone coming the other way.

Hike 2: After a great lunch at Daniel Thiebault’s in Waimea, we drove to the Pololu lookout. It’s a pretty view of the Big Island’s ocean cliffs, with Waipio being on the far end. We had never ventured down to Pololu Beach until now, however. The path was steep, but not overly difficult. The beach has black sand, and the whole area in the valley was neat. Getting back up wasn’t quite so easy, but then, the Joy is in the Journey.

Tuesday, January 18
The Big Island is Big. It took us quite a while to drive to the south end, and we never made it to the eastern side this time around. Along the way we toured a coffee plantation (Greenwell Farms) and bought some cheap Kona coffee from them at 28 bucks a pound. We then checked out a huge, mostly empty subdivision of 1-acre lots that are available for only a few thousand each. The only problem is that there’s no electricity to be had. Or water. Or soil (it’s all lava boulders). We’re going to hold off on the land speculation for now.

We spent the afternoon and evening in Kona. Kona is cool. Dinner was at an Indonesian place called Sibu. Although the food was unusual, it was probably the best dinner we had in the islands. As always, the Kona sunset was supreme.

Wednesday, January 19
We have the Griswalds as neighbors. They like to smoke, have LOUD arguments and LOUD phone and walkie-talkie conversations out on their lanai, which is just above ours. “ALOHA! GUESS WHERE I’M AT!” Five minutes later: “ALOHA! GUESS WHERE I’M AT!” A couple hours later, with the walkie-talkie: “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DINNER AT 7:30. OH, YOU CAN’T MAKE 7:30? THEN WE’LL ALL GO AT 8!” Five minutes later: “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DINNER AT 8 INSTEAD OF 7:30…” and so on.

Dinner was in Waimea at the Waimea Ranch House Grill. Good steaks, but so-so service. Don’t like being forgotten about. At least the Griswalds didn’t show up there.

Thursday, January 20
We went on a whale-watching cruise. Saw a few of the hump-backs, but every time someone would see the spout and holler “Thar She Blows”, our boat would head over to where the whales had just headed under. We never got to see them really well until one surfaced fairly close by as we were heading back.

We ate at Roy’s Euro-Asian Cuisine. Great food. Then we watched a nice hula show put on by several generations of the same family along with a bunch of little keikis.

Friday, January 21
Between the pollution and the high surf, today, our last on the islands, was the only day I could venture into the ocean. So I finally went in for a snorkel. Saw some neat fish and coral. One eel too. Later on Debbie and I spotted a sea turtle near the shore.
Other wildlife we spotted during our stay on the two islands: Mongooses (Not mongeese. They resemble stealth squirrels), owls, and a bird called an ‘a. And oh yeah. Plenty of chickens.