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Aloha!

A friend had invited me to spend a week with her in Hawaii. I left on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day and arrived after a long flight that was late leaving San Diego due to engine problems (a wonderful thing to think about as you are waiting to depart). My friend Susan met me on Kauai with an exotic orchid lei, and we had a very late Thanksgiving dinner at her home in Kapaa ("It's Kapa-a-a", from the movie Honeymoon in Vegas).

When I awoke early the next morning, I explored the neighborhood before breakfast. It was in the mid-80's, the air was clean and fragrant, the sky royal blue and filled with rolling clouds; there were dramatic mountains in the distance, and all sorts of exotic plants by the roadside. I picked some pink, sweet Hawaiian grapefruits for breakfast. It was all very beautiful and dreamlike.

On my first day on the Island we hiked an old sugar cane trail for three hours along the ocean, between Kapaa and Anahole, explored Lihue, shopped for aqua turf shoes, t-shirts, and had a leisurely lunch at an outdoor market.

Let me try to give you a feeling for the things we did. On Friday we hiked the sugar cane fields, and explored the island by car. On Saturday we went to three craft fairs, and drove to the Princeville Hotel for an incredible sunset on Hanalei Bay where the movie South Pacific was filmed; there is a stark green cliff with five or more waterfalls behind the bay, and the scene is so unreal that it looks like a movie set. We had drinks on the terrace, and then a great buffet dinner. On Sunday, we drove to Kokee State Park, stopped at all the scenic overlooks that face Waimea Canyon and the Na'Pali cliffs (about 4,500 feet), and hiked Berry Flats Trail for about 3 hours, going through dense pine, redwood and Koa tree forests, amid brooks, streams, waterfalls, flowers, berries, birds, wild pigs, and other exotic sights. We finished the day at a beach on the west coast of Kauai just below barking sands, watching the sunset, taking pictures, and then looking at the stars. When we returned to the car, which was parked on an isolated sandy road next to an irrigation canal, Susan managed to get us stuck in the sand up to the hub-caps as she was turning around. It was pitch black, we were a mile off the main highway (which had very little traffic anyway) and there was absolutely nobody else on the beach! We tried digging out with our hands, with make-shift tools from driftwood, then tried to push, pull or in any way budge the Honda Civic, all without any luck. So we hiked to the road, managed to flag down a truck filled with 4 guys, and with them we still couldn't move. So they called in reinforcements from the nearby navy base, and managed to pull the car with a make-shift tow line out of the hole it was in. We celebrated at a great Mexican restaurant called Sinoloa's Cantina. After we got to the restaurant, just behind us were the guys that helped us, along with their girl-friends. I told the bartender to give them all a round of drinks on us, by way of thanking them.

Monday I toured the Lihue Museum and looked at a bunch of photos taken by Mr. Senda, a local island photographer from Japan, who took most of them in the early 1900's. Then we flew to Maui, where I got in some disappointing snorkling at our timeshare hotel on Kaapalua Beach. Later, we drove to the Ritz Carlton Hotel for a memorable dinner, and then packed for an early check-out. We got up at 3:30 a.m., and were out the door by 4:00 a.m., and drove in darkness with a sliver of a new moon to the summit of Haleakala Crater (10,037 feet, temperature 35 degrees F), arriving there at 6:10 a.m. in time to see the most striking sunrise of my life at 6:35 a.m. I hiked up a 200 foot rock pile for a better view, and watched the incredible scene unfold, quickly becoming chilled, but still hung in there as Susan watched from an enclosed glassed area in the heated visitor's center.

Afterwards we drove down the hill, and stopped for breakfast at an outdoor terraced restaurant that was still quite high, then drove to the airport, returned the car, had some ice cream, and caught our flight back to Kauai. Susan went to a class at Kaui Community College in Puhi, and I drove to Poi'pu, explored an art gallery, had a pizza, and then picked her up after class. On Wednesday Susan took me to Ke'e Beach on Haena State Park on the north shore, at the very end of the road where I had a wonderful snorkling experience. There were over twenty species of incredibly colorful fish, and they literally swarmed around me when I tried to feed them with crushed up crackers. I looked for sea turtles and morey eels but didn't see either. Still it was great! In the late afternoon, Susan's friend Jan (who we ran into on my first day on the island), came by to fetch me and took me to a pasture in Kileuea where she boards her two horses, an Arabian mare and a beautiful brown stallion. We fed them, both animals really took to me as did her two dogs, then we drove a short distance and climbed down a steep trail to a place called Secret Beach, where we walked along the shore and watched an incredible sunset. Porpoises have been seen frolicing along this beach and she told me that she has actually swam with a school of them. But there were none that day. Jan then drove me to a house that she and her boyfriend are building. It is twelve sided with a skylight in the very center of the roof and very beautiful! As she was on a juice fast and couldn’t take dinner with me, she drove me to a Thai restaurant where I ordered take-out and then dropped me off back at Susan's place. Susan had to go to work that night at a hospital near Kekaha, where she is a registered nurse.

On Thursday, my last day on Kauai, Susan got in at 9 a.m., and slept for a few hours. I borrowed her car and drove back to the wonderful snorkling beach, which was practically deserted because the weather was cloudy. I was soon swarmed by the fish, who seemed especially hungry. In the feeding frenzy, a 30-pound grouper brushed against my head. I left after about an hour, and headed back toward Kapaa at a slow pace, which was made even slower by a flat tire which I shredded while looking for a place to pull off the road. After I got back to Susan's home, we went shopping for a new tire, then stopped at a local diner for some shaved ice, and drove the back roads to get a view of Wailua Falls from above, and also Opaekaa Falls which are much less dramatic in appearance. We had hoped to kayak up the Waimea River, or cruise on one of the commercial barges, but will have to save that for the next trip. After packing, we returned to the King and I Thai restaurant for a not-too-spicy dinner, and then on to the airport for a long good-bye before I had to reluctantly catch my flight back to civilization. I was tempted to stay forever, but will also have to do that another time.