Day 35 – The Final Full Day

This was our final full day here, it pains me to type that. We did a lot, but yet we still have much more to do, to explore to hike, and to eat. Honestly before we left for this trip, we really thought this would be our last trip here until we retire. We landed and we knew that thought was a joke, we were just kidding ourselves. We can’t keep ourselves away, so for all those things we didn’t do, I’m not upset, just gives us something to look forward to when we return in two years.

Today we went for a beach walk on Cannon’s. We did try to park at Ke’e first, but at 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday the lot closest to the beach was full. I think this was our second Sunday we tried and well, no not the time to go. So to Cannon’s we went.

We came home to make breakfast and start the packing, laundry and cleaning of the house.

We also made a quick run into Hanalei, I wanted to pick up some cards at a store and get our last bit of poke fix in from The Dolphin.

We were expecting friends to stop in to have their first visit to Tunnels. Kelly and I met teaching, but she moved away and we haven’t seen each other in maybe 9 years, but through the magic of FB we have kept in touch. They arrived mid afternoon and we took them to the beach, Kelly and her husband snorkeled (yes they had a great time, even swam with a turtle), while Mike and I did our last float. It was fun for us to watch someone see Tunnels Beach for the first time and go WOW!

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After they left it was back to packing, more laundry and having dinner of poke. We headed down to the beach for our last sunset. Last night the Kauai Gods gave us a green flash, tonight they bestowed on us a beautiful after sunset glow.

Our last full day here, it was full of things we love, beach walks, time with friends, poke, and a beautiful sunset. We are grateful to have all this.

Tomorrow our long journey home begins. There will be no blog post tomorrow, maybe on Tuesday when we land and figure out our time zone, I will post one, but maybe not.

July 30, 2017 0

Day 33 – What to do on a Rainy Day?

Try to outrun the rain? Or just drive around? Or go play outside between showers? We did all of those things and a few more!

We had a few rain showers overnight, but no gushing downpours. We woke to a bit of cloudy skies, but after reading Glen’s detailed forecast we knew showers would be more numerous today due to the remnants of a tropical storm.

We had to have a beach walk to start our day, so we just went “around the block”, a brief road walk to the beach and then back to the road. Lucky for us we did this loop, we had monk seal encounter #5 of this vacation and a rainbow!

After the walk it was breakfast time and then the jackfruit adventure awaited Mike.

Well, the jackfruit adventure was a bit of a bust and disappointing. Mike watched youtube videos on how to cut the fruit and what it should look like, so he was prepared. However the jackfruit was picked to early and wasn’t ripe. The pods were rock hard and didn’t have that juicy fruit taste.

After a clean up of the area and Mike from the gluey substance that jackfruits give off, we headed to do the other side of Waiakalua Beach. On Day 26, we went to the left side of the beach, today we attempted the right side. The adventure here didn’t get very far, the rocks we had to go over were more and further than we expected to get to the secluded beach. Plus it started to rain, which was making the rocks very slippery.

After that we packed in the adventures for the day, went to the Dolphin for lunch and had a salad and a fin burger, cajun style.

We arrived home to patches of blue sky, mixed with gray. When we had a fairly large swath of blue, our neighbor invited us to look at another neighbor’s gardens and her stunning orchids. I feel like this trip, orchids are all the rage!

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We had a late lunch, so we just had some chips and salsa for dinner before sunset viewing. We were treated to rainbow before the sun sunk.

In our three trips to Kauai, we never had a truly full day of rain, today was the rainiest we’ve encountered, but we survived, dodging the rain and at times embracing it. You have to make the most of the days, rain or shine!

July 28, 2017 0

Day 29 – Rainy Day on the North Shore

Note: Just go to the end, skip reading and look at the beautiful sunset photos!

We felt the effects of Fernanda today on the North Shore. We woke to rain, some thunder and lightning. Manoa Falls which we can see from the house was raging down, at one point the water turned brown. It was a perfect morning to do some book purchasing for my school library. I knew I would have to do some work here and was putting it off. I had no more excuses not to do it with all this rain.

While I worked Mike made me a little bright drink, papaya with red dragon fruit juice on top.

However the falls became a distraction and I only did 3/4 quarters of a book order, oh well.

After the heaviest rains diminished we went out for a bit. First stop was the transfer station to drop off the recycling. Makes me appreciated my curbside recycling pick up at home. However as I was putting the can returns in the bin, the workers offered me a freshly picked hand of bananas, right off the trees! Such a small gesture made me so happy and with curbside pick up you don’t get free bananas.

a piece of island life, Mike is laughing because he just sees me walking with a hand of bananas not knowing yet how I got them.

We decided to chance going to Moloaa Bay, thinking we could get parking due to the gray skies. I needed to go to snap a few photos for a teacher friend, who always sings a “line up” song to her prek class to the tune of Gilligan’s Island theme. We could get parking with this weather!

After our brief walk, we headed back into Hanalei for lunch at the Dolphin. Yup, we had our usual of house salad and fish tacos. Works for us, fills us up and tastes yummy!

Our next stop was a little shop we like in Hanalei. Glad we decided to stop in because the parking provided us a lovely view of the waterfalls.

After driving past Waipa, we noticed how brown the water was in Hanalei Bay area. Going slow I was able to take a few pictures.

On our way home we stopped at SushiGirl to pick up dinner for tonight. Mike ordered the special and I choose the “Action” poke bowl.

We really needed a beach walk after sitting around the house and car this morning. So we dropped the goods off at the house and headed to Cannons to do a small beach walk. Of course it started to rain, but it didn’t matter to us.