Last day

So with great sadness, we will spend our last night in Kauai tonight. We are heading to the west side of the island to catch the sunset, we'll have a little dinner and it will be back to the house to start getting ready to come home. After spending seven full days on the island, I'll say it is in the top two for beautiful places I have been. Jamaica would fall into the other spot, but not sure in which order. The beaches are beautiful, but the mountains are incredible. The sheer green cliffs are what what I think of when I think of paradise, followed by big coconut trees, banana trees and all of the colors. If you ever get the chance, don't hesitate to see one of God's greatest creations. Here are a few shots from the property we are staying at.
Those are our french doors to the left of the bamboo.See you when we get home, unless I get some sunset shots I want to share tonight.

Today was the slowest day we have had so far. We tried to go for a hike, but when we got to the trail head, the mud was as deep as a Chicago style pizza. (I think I need to eat some pizza soon) Marcy asked a lady who just got back how the trail was and she said the mud was pretty bad. We decided to take her word for it, seeing as how she had mud up to her knees, so we skipped the hike. Instead, we headed to Lydgate State Park, walked on a path and across what they called a play bridge, which was a huge structure that took you from the top of a ridge and you wound around this wooden structure that deposited you on the beach. My boys would have loved it. There were a bunch of different ways you could go and there were slides as well, although they were closed when we were there, which disappointed us because we were going to slide down. We walked on the beach and I saw way more of a couple of fellows than I needed to. The Speedo is here, even when it shouldn't be. I saw one pasty white guy with a bright blue thong on and my first thought was that he had better have lots of sun block on those cheeks, cause he is going to burn. I can call him pasty white because I fall under that category. Even after a week in Hawaii, I will probably only be pink because I use so much sun block. To much cancer in my family, no need to invite it in. After the hike, it was off to another waterfall, this one was close and huge. Also, our second rainbow of the day, yesterday.

We had bought some sweet potatoes at the market the other day and when I peeled them last night they were bright purple. I took this picture, but the brightness just didn't come through, but you get the idea.

Lastly, here is Marcy's artwork on the beach.

Another day in paradise!

Today we took what was supposed to be a 2 mile hike to a beach and turned it into an all morning thing. The scenery was beautiful with lots of cooled lava tunnels and walls with a lot of texture. I like to see things that I don't normally see, like me turning down a Coke or Marcy eating a Puka dog, so seeing all this stuff in Hawaii is right up my alley. We started off the day with this:Then moved on to this:Marcy is standing on part of the trail. I'd say it took us 3 hours to go one way with all of our stops and exploring and we timed it at 40 minutes to come back. Got back in time for me to get a Mahi-Mahi sandwich, Yum! Here are some of the cooled lava tubes and some dork posing with them.

We did finally cut up the pineapple I nearly died getting and it was worth it. Best I've ever had. I wish I could say I enjoyed the papaya as much. Odd flavor and we don't know if we picked a bad one or that is how they taste. We have another, so we will see how that comes out. We also got video of a monk seal playing in the water. That was kind of fun.

Whales, whales, whales

We started out today at Poipu beach, getting a little sun, doing a little snorkeling and watched a couple of monk seals yell at each other. I thought we were going to see them throw down, but cooler heads prevailed and they both went for a swim. Of course, they are swimming right where all of the people are swimming, so I watch a nine year old girl do the best water sprint I had ever seen trying to get out of the seals path. There are volunteers all over the beach that rope off the area the seals are beached so you can't get too close, but your still only 10 feet or so away. Once the seal hits the water, all the volunteers can do is start yelling at the people and wave their arms, but if you are a first time tourist, you might think they were just showing you the hula. That is until you see a 3oo pound seal barring down on you. Can they smell urine in the water? We snorkeled and saw some pretty cool fish, but you'll have to wait until we develop the under water camera to see those. I got my ass beat by the waves, coral and my snorkel gear. If you've walked with fins before, you know you need to walk backwards once you hit the water so you don't trip over you fins or have a wave use it as a rudder and change your direction for you. That method works out fine if you are walking in sand. The water here has about 2 feet of sand and then its rocks/coral. Lets just say walking backwards is not that easy. I'm sure I looked like I was being stabbed in the feet while I was walking, which in fact, I was. That shit hurt my feet. I tried to just lay out and swim, but the water wasn't very deep so when the waves went out I scrapped my ding ding on the rocks below, not fun. We finally got out into some decent water, I drank a little salt water, but we got to see some fish, big ones too. After a few minutes, Marcy's mask was leaking, so I gave her mine and I put on hers, which proceeded to come undone while I had my face in the water, so I nearly drown. If we hadn't been in 3 feet of water, this may have been a frightening story, but alas, not so scary. I decided I had been beaten by the waves enough and went to shore to try and fix the mask. Marcy stayed out for a while longer, then came in and we went to lunch. I had read about a Puka dog, plus had gotten a good review from Roxanne, so we headed to the Poipu Beach mall to pick one up for me. They hollow out a bun, not sure how they did that, stuck in a polish sausage, then you could get a relish of your choice, I chose mango. The other choices were other fruit relishes, but mango sounded the best to me. Anyway, Chad, if you like dogs, Puka dog is your kind of place. That was good, maybe better than a chili slaw dog from El Paso. Now we start to drive north, past the airport and up along the coast. We stopped at an "Scenic overlook" which if you see one, we learned, it's worth the stop. Here is a shot of us at the first one. We also hit a waterfall.And another scenic overlook.Then, we headed to a lighthouse. On the point where this lighthouse sits, is a good place to see whales and it wasn't long until we could see the whales blowing air/water through there blow holes. Look hard, you can see them.Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a whale breach the surface by about ten feet, so I spun around and snapped this, look on the far left of the picture.

OK, I'll admit, it's a crappy picture of the very end of the breach, but that was the best I could get. I stood there for another ten minutes trying to get something better, but it didn't happen. This same whale breached a few more times, but I was never able to catch it. Take my word for it, it was awesome. Here are a few shots of this park.

We finished up with another overlook.

Tomorrow looks like a hike and a sunset, stay tuned.

Last night we had a visitor.

Marcy is always able to catch these.We had geckos in Jamaica, which was the first time I had dealt with them in the house, so I knew there would be a chance this time. We had several on the deck in the front of the house, so I figured it was just a matter of time. We went on a walk yesterday, up the mountain from where we are staying. I'll toss some pictures in, hope it shows how beautiful it is.

You can't really see them, but there are cows and horses on the side of the hill on this last one, grazing. This last one is a tree that grew around a rock.
We are off to snorkel, wish us luck!

Day two

We decided to head to Spouting Horn, which is basically holes in the lava shore and when the waves roll in, the water spouts through the holes.

It happens every few seconds, so its not like one of those things you have to sit for an hour if you missed it, ala a geyser. It's really cool to see how the lava cooled here, you can see the mud like formations. I found it interesting anyway. We drove along the coast for awhile, waiting to go to Sunshine market, which we were told by our neighbors was a good place to buy fresh island fruit and vegetables. Marcy had read that you needed to get there early because they sell out quickly. It opened at noon, so we drove around until we found it, about 10 minutes until noon. The parking lot was PACKED and I had to pull on the grass, which everyone else was doing, so monkey see monkey do. We walked to where we could see umbrella tops and waited in the crowd until they let us in. Some dude started trying to tell the masses something, but I really couldn't hear him. The mob was getting restless, so he let us go. The sea of people started flowing towards the umbrellas, only to be stopped by dude, who was saying something else, but again, I couldn't hear him. He finally let us go and it was a mad dash to the tents and cars to buy their stuff. We found a lady who was selling a bunch of stuff and had some really big pineapples, I'm in. I love pineapples, so Marcy started weaseling her way to the front and ended up squeezed in between two tables and snagged us a pineapple, paid for it, but then couldn't get out because another lady had squeezed in between the same two tables, blocking her in. She hadn't made her purchase and wasn't willing to give up her spot in line to let Marcy out. Her husband finally convinced her to release Marcy, so we headed off. The whole time she was trying to buy our fruit, I was standing 3 feet away fending blows from a bunch of 90 year old lady's determined to get to the table next to me. I tried to get out of the way, but if you moved to let one lady through, your were probably moving into the path of another and she just elbowed me in the kidney and kept right on going. I was like a human pinball, bouncing from elbow to elbow of four foot two old ladies. We finally got out of that area and headed along to try and buy a papaya, since neither of us had ever eaten one, we figured we would give one a try. People at this place were nuts, like they have never been able to buy fresh produce before. I wanted to yell that we were at the grocery store the day before and the fruit and vegetables looked just as good and were about the same price. I think it's one of those deals that everyone thinks this market is cheaper, when it actually isn't. I was amazed at the fight for a bag of fresh basil. I wouldn't know what to do with fresh basil if someone gave me a bag. Maybe they are smoking it. We did a little shopping, had some lunch and headed back to the house. The rain at the house has stopped, so maybe we will head out for a walk. It didn't rain on us at the beach all morning. The weather here is as screwy as any place I have ever been. Rain at the house, drive 2 minutes and no rain and lots of sun.

The house

So I thought I would share a little on the house. The pictures on the link below are good enough, so I won't be taking anymore. I may have mentioned that the road to the house is narrow with a blind corner, fun. Once you get to the house, the driveway is narrow and has a circle drive at the end that is as wide as the Mustang. I have to park in a little spot so the people next door can still get by, a little challenging. In the middle of the circle drive is a koi (sp?) pond, but until the water clears up, you can't see the fish. They've had so much rain here that the water is dirty in the pond. It is raining now, at 7:30 am, but it's supposed to be clear the rest of today, we'll see. We didn't have any rain yesterday until we got home for the night, then got to listen to the rain, really nice. The house has turned out great, plenty of room, the kitchen has everything we have needed so far, no major bug problem and the shower has good water pressure. I was a little nervous, since I picked it out with no help. If the house was crappy, that might put a damper on the whole week. The one thing that strikes me as humorous is, there are seven clocks in this one bedroom house, but only two of them have the correct time. I'm not going to try and figure out how to fix the ones that are wrong, seeing as how there are better ways to spend my day. I walked around the yard yesterday and found a banana tree, a coconut tree (loaded with nuts), papaya tree, and a bunch others that, of course, I have no idea what they are. The ground is very spongey because of all of the rain, so I didn't venture to far off. Our neighbors gave us some fresh bananas that were really good, a bit sweeter than what I'm used to. We also had our first encounter with a gecko. He was on our car and when Marcy tried to catch him, he ran into the car. I put the top down, on the car not Marcy, and hoped he would let himself out. I have no idea if he did or if he has set up a new home in the back. I had a little trouble with the convertible top, putting it back up that is. When you put the top down, it rolls the windows down, the two front and the two back little windows. When you put the top up, it doesn't roll them back up, so you do that with the regular power window controls. That's fine for the big windows, but I couldn't figure out how to get the two little ones back up. I kept trying the two methods I thought would work, which didn't, but I kept trying them. I finally noticed a third window control, that I thought was the lock, that when I pushed it, both small windows rolled up. I'm very proud of my intelligence, it only took me three hours to figure it out. The drive we did yesterday was amazing. It's one of those things that makes me wonder if the people who have always lived here, know just how beautiful it is. Just like the lady I have written about before, that I met in Appalachia who didn't even know that the view from her front porch was absolutely gorgeous. We tend to forget to appreciate the things we have in our life, whether it be family, work or the view from our front porch. I love Iowa and think it is beautiful, in its own way, but Hawaii is ridiculous.

WOW!!!!!

I will say that I won't attempt to say the places I have been. I can't pick up on the Hawaiian language yet, very difficult to pronounce. I think the scenery speaks for itself. These are pictures of Holy Shit lookout:

Here is a shot of Oh My God Falls from far away:

and one from far away, but zoomed.

They says this canyon is the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. I'll tell you it was spectacular. The road getting there was as curvy as any road I've ever been on. I was worried that Marcy would get car sick, she is prone to do that on roads designed by a snake. We did pass a car pulled over with a small boy hurling his guts out. Can't say I blame him. I, of course, was having fun taking corners in my 5.0, but even I was going a bit slower because of the degree of the turns. A motorcycle passed us and was really having fun with the corners, but his woman on the back appeared to be holding on for dear life, so probably not taking in the sights. Too bad, the whole drive was amazing. We went to a beach this morning a got a few shots of some monk seals.

No, they're not dead. I was saying how the roads remind me of Jamaica, well the chickens remind me of Juarez. We were woken up this morning by several roosters having a conversation. The same thing happens in Juarez every morning. I'm glad I get to hear it here, since I won't be crossing the border this year.

We made it!

So I think I surprised her. I started off by turning on the video camera, which may have spooked her a bit. Then I told her that I had been lying to her for a year. She seemed a bit shocked:) I tossed her the wrapped tour book of Kauai, which she unwrapped and just stared at it. I said, “That is where we are going.” She started the “are you kidding” marathon. It took several minutes to convince her that I was serious, but she finally believed me. The few people that have found out since say I have earned a bunch of brownie points, which is good I guess, but I really just want my wife to be happy and I thought this just might do the trick. I don’t want you to think she wasn’t all ready happy, I mean, she is married to me:)
Our flights were good, but the day started at 4am, so I’m guessing it won’t be a late night in Hawaii. We didn’t exactly get to the airport when we wanted, so there was a huge line. Luckily, the curbside check guy came by and told us he could help us. He printed our boarding passes, checked in our bags and probably saved us 45 minutes, easy. I’ve never really used the curbside check in, but next time, I think I’ll print my boarding passes at home and check my bag curbside and skip the whole line thing. We flew to Denver first, and saw the plane that crashed a week or so ago, still sitting in a field at the end of the runway. I’m really not afraid to fly, but seeing a crashed plane sure makes you think twice. The flight had an episode of The Office, so I was entertained for a half hour. Our second leg into LA was started with a guy who was supposed to sit at the bulkhead, which I’m sure you know means he doesn’t have a seat in front of him in which to put his bag. If you sit here, you have to put your stuff in the overhead bin, which was full. The flight staff (not sure what they want to be called now) was attempting to find a place to put his bag, but it was 10 to 12 rows behind him, which didn’t sit well with him. As he approached my row, he was complaining to the staff, which I’m not sure what he wanted them to do, build another over head? Ask everyone in the area to reclaim their bags so they could re-distribute them to better accommodate this guy? Yes, lets hold up a plane so you can easier access to your MP3 player, I mean, who wants to be on time. He finally huffed that he would just sit in the empty seat in the row in front of me, luckily not in the empty seat next to me. If you read my blog from when I came home from El Paso last time, you know that I have a history of pissed off people sitting near me coming out of Denver. It must be the altitude. We made it to LA without this guy going off, but I did hear the flight staff say when he went back to get his bag, “Great, we have a bunch of happy people on board today.” (and that was full of sarcasm if you couldn’t guess). The rest of the flights were good, but I realized 6 hours sitting in a seat hurts my knees really bad. I'm not sure how I'm going to do 15 hours to South Africa, but I'll suck it up and only whine a little bit (Get ready Chad). Our luggage was the last to come out, so I was a bit nervous, but at least I wasn't one of the 3 couples still standing there when I left, looking into the that luggage hole with nothing coming out. We picked up our Mustang 5.0 convertible, which I'm sure screams "tourist" to the locals, but I always wanted to drive one, so here is my chance. I will say that you can squeal tires, in the middle of the night, in a very quite neighborhood on a slightly damp blacktop road, just in case you were wondering. No better way to tell the new neighbors we are here than to lay a patch in your first hour here. We met the people who live in the house next to ours, really nice. I hope we can spend a little time with them. They just retired here from Alaska, even though they don't appear to be old enough to retire. They gave us a few local tips to go along with the tips I got from Roxanne at work who has been here several times. One thing I learned last night is, when it gets dark in Hawaii, it gets freaking dark. Headlights can only light up a patch in front of you, then, nothing. We have to drive on a road that reminds me of the roads in Jamaica, very narrow and blind corners. I hope I don't meet anyone in those stretches, might have to see if my rental can 4 wheel drive.

Mission acomplished!

This isn't a shot to President Bush for his famous banner, no this is something I have been working on for over a year, and today, it will all pay off. Some of you may all ready know, but Marcy and I are on our way to Hawaii, right now. I've been telling her for a year that we were going to LA for my work, but the whole time I've been working on this secret trip. Marcy and I will celebrate our 10 year anniversary this August, and this trip is in honor of that. Why am I going in January instead of August? Well, there are several reasons, the first is, it's whale season and I want to see a whale. Call me selfish, but that is my number one reason for the date choice. I hope that Marcy will feel the same way. The second reason, hello, it's winter in Iowa. Why would I go to Hawaii in August when I can use a Jan. trip to get out of the miserable cold. It is rainy season in Hawaii in Jan., but I'll bet you it won't snow. And I bet the rain won't freeze, that makes it worth it to me. Another reason to go in Jan., Marcy will never see it coming. I've had the house reserved for a year, the car reserved for just as long and I've had a Kauai tour book for 15 months. If I would have known then, what my financial situation would be now, I never would have booked it, but since I all ready had the airfare bought and half the house paid for, I figured it would be silly to waste that money. Here is a link to the house:

http://www.vrbo.com/31236

I've been in contact with the lady who owns it, and she seems really nice. We aren't on the beach, but we are close. All of the people who wrote reviews said it was quite and close to everything, so I was sold. Marcy has never been to Hawaii, and she deserves it, so here we go. It has been killing me to not tell her, but I hope it will all be worth it when I give her the tour book to unwrap and see her face when I tell her that we are going there, instead of LA. The house is supposed to have WiFi, so I will post from there, if I can. Thanks to all of you who kept the secret. I would especially like to thank those that have offered to help with child care while we are gone. I most certainly couldn't do it without you. When I was asked by someone at work about my "trip," I wasn't sure which one they meant. I realized at that moment, how lucky I am to travel like I do. I mean, the work stuff is fine, but I'm going to Hawaii now, El Paso in Feb. and South Africa in July. I love my life! Stay tuned for reports from Hawaii.