Catching Up on Kauai

Being a tourist is hard work.

It's funny though--How even when you're going gangbusters on a vacation--It's still a vacation.  Part of the key is not waking to an alarm clock.  Anyway, the last several days have been pretty full of activity and wonder.  I've totally let things get away from me.  I haven't documented Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.  What happened?  I know what it is--The later we get home the less we can do on the computer.  Then we might get up and jet out on another sightseeing/photography excursion and therefore don't have time to blog the previous day.

It got away from me.

Saturday we were both up early and drove quickly down to our closest beach to see sunrise pictures.  Alas, we missed it.  We took a few pictures, but nothing of note.  After getting ourselves all ready we took off for a full day of sightseeing.  Our first stop: The Kilauea Lighthouse.  It is the first "true" lighthouse I have ever seen.  Not only was it parked atop a beautiful cliff setting, there were lots of swooping birds in the area catching the updrafts of wind.  There were also a lot of Red-footed Boobies (funny--They have blue beaks though) snoozing in the trees on the cliff.

We stopped at a beautiful, small beach called Kalihiwai Beach to eat our lunch.  We went by a pretty patchwork of Taro fields on the way to Hanalei.

We finished our Saturday with a really great gathering here at the house.  There were about 50 people here, and there was a ton of food to eat.  As with most Hawaiian gatherings, there were people playing music and singing too.  Lots of really nice people.

Sunday.  Another day of sightseeing of course, with our first stop being Opaekaa Falls.  In addition to the falls themselves, there was a nice river view on the opposite side of the road behind us.

Just down a the road a ways we stopped at a tourist trap.  The stop wasn't much to speak of, but I got a couple a good pictures:

We continued our great sightseeing with a stop at another lighthouse--This time it was the Nawiliwili Lighthouse.  That lighthouse was pretty hard to find.  We drove all over through a developed Marriot-type resort grounds, knowing that there was a path/trail/road that led to the lighthouse.  We finally found it:

The last stop of the day was another one of those "end of the road" stops.  This particular road stopped at Wailua Falls.  Pretty impressive, the water drops quite a ways.  Right there at the parking area was this colorful looking feller weaving hats out of some sort of palm tree fronds... Possibly coconut.  I swear I saw the same guy on Maui a few years ago...

Monday both started and stopped with the same thing: Watching the transition of the sun from a beach.  I got us up about 15 minutes before sunrise and we jetted down to the closest beach just in time to catch the sun coming up:

The middle of the day was devoted to doing a couple of project here at Sue's parents' house.  We ripped out a sliding glass door.  Its location used to be an outside wall, but since the house had been expanded right out past it, it was now an inside doorway and needed to be removed.  We also took out an old water heater.  As with the door, expansion had phased it out.  Although it was still in its old place, it was no longer part of the water system and needed to be removed.

After relaxing through the afternoon we found ourselves on another local beach:  Donkey Beach.  We were there in the waning hours of sunlight.  Although it looks cold, it was not--Suzie said it was just too breezy:

The following day (Tuesday) found us fully into tourist/picture-taking mode.  We hit Secret Beach first.  In addition to a really nice sandy beach, it's also a place of many, many tide pools created by molten lava that had flowed and cooled in the past:

From there?  The Queens Bath.  I didn't get any pictures of it--Mainly because I was swimming in it instead of taking pictures of it.  It's a small pool that was formed by cooling lava and separated from the ocean, but yet still close enough for waves to occasionally slosh into it.  It's plenty big enough to swim in, and many do.  We both went in and paddled around for a while.  I was taking underwater pictures with a single-use underwater camera.  Not many fish to see but I shot a few pics anyway.

We continued on to the end of the road... The same road we had been to the end of a few days earlier.  This time we went to see a geological formation they call The Blue Room.  It's essentially a small cavern-type opening in the ground that had water in it.  Because it was so dark, it was hard to get pictures.  When you walk up to it, what you saw was the opening with vines draped over it (the left picture).  When you go inside, it's a lot bigger than it looks.  This long exposure shot of Suzie shows a little of how big it actually is.

That's enough for now. I'll continue playing catch-up at a later time.  I'm tired.