Travel Diary

It was Saturday morning and we weren't going to miss the sunrise this time. So Misty and I arose around 5:50am and headed down to the beach. The weather was already mild and we even spotted someone swimming in the ocean. The sun took its time but eventually pulled itself up over the horizon. The clouds tried to hide it a little, but we were able to grab many great shots. After our photo shoot, we rested some more and then got ready for another exciting day.

Terry and Lesly took care of getting breakfast. It was fresh pineapple and donuts. Yum! Our outing began with boogie boarding at a nearby beach. Wow. That's something everyone should do. Boogie boarding in a cool ocean sure does beat boogie boarding whilst battling hypothermia as experienced by me back in California. Unfortunately, because of my experience in Hawaii, I may never enter California's ocean again. Sure, they may write some groovy beach songs about our coast, but they don't do it while in the water shivering.

The ocean wasn't too angry. I was easily able to beat the waves out past the break. It sure is a lot easier to do when you can dive under the waves without worrying about icicles on your eyebrows when you resurface. I may complain about our water temperature here a lot more now since having had this enlightening experience. Not that I expect anyone to do anything about it. Well, maybe we "could" all spray more aerosol cans into the atmosphere and hope the greenhouse effect does the rest. I suppose it's worth a try. Everyone go to the store right now and pick up some Aqua Net.

Our next mission was to see Ho'opi'i Falls. (I don't make these names up. Apparently, the Hawaiians have a thing for apostrophes. Crazy, I know.) This mission wasn't quite as easy as driving up, parking and snapping off a few pics. No, this would take some effort. But effort was fine with us. Effort and 82-degree heat maybe wasn't so choice.

Parking was tricky to find and the trailhead was even tougher. We did get lucky though and see a family suddenly disappear from the road. If it had been the X-files, I might have been worried. But since it was Kauai, we knew that they had just found the trailhead. It was carefully hidden off the road. We followed the others and journeyed into the wilderness. The hike was a long one. Along the way, we got to the thunderous unnamed falls. It's neat, but all in all, not worth naming. Continuing along the ever-shrinking path, we entered the thick jungle and saw many, many trees. There were almost as many trees and there were apostrophes in the Hawaiian names. Some may be surprised to learn (hey, I was) that even the word Hawai'i has an apostrophe in it. It also pronounced "ha va ee" as well. I imagine German people have to troubles with this.

Okay, back to the trail. After continuing eastward a ways, we finally heard the river again and eventually found the place where the book said to cross. Uh, this would not be quite so simple. It was moving along steadily. And the current wasn't hazardous or anything, but there weren't any stepping-stones to hop over either. We had two choices. Choice A would be to cross with our shoes on and spend the next few hours with wet feet. Choice B would be to take our shoes off and cross in our bare feet. Looking at how slippery the rocks were and not knowing what the bottom was like, we opted for Choice C, which was not to cross at all.

We followed a small path eastward some more and it led up a cliff overlooking the river. Soon, the falls came into view. The view was quite nice, and it was worth the trouble of reaching it, but we did want to get closer. As luck would have it, we spotted another tourist climbing up the cliff at a specific spot, and he said it was tough, but doable. That was enough for Misty and me. We left our bags with Lesly and Terry and climbed down to the base of the falls. Now, our guide book said there were supposedly no snakes on Kauai. But Misty claims to have seen one. So there might be at least one. The guidebook also said to make sure to kill any snakes you find. We skipped that part. Snake? What snake?

I grabbed a few good shots of the falls and we hiked back to the car. The heat was pretty awful, but nice in a sort of sweatshop kind of way. We drove back to the hotel and got ready for the wedding. We then headed back to Princeville and down to a nice beach. The wedding would be right in front of the ocean. Since we arrived on time, we were about the only people there besides the wedding coordinator, the "guy that married them," and "the guy-with-guitar-who-sings-very-high." Not sure exactly what the guy who married them was. I didn't hear what he was saying since I was taking pictures (I know that does sound odd, but I look through a viewfinder and my ears close up), but Misty said he didn't really make any Biblical or references to God so I'm guessing he wasn't a priest or minister.

Once the ceremony was done, we traveled up the beach a bit and to the dining area. The food was great and we got to learn a little more about what Hawaiians ate. I knew there had to be more than just McDonalds. I doubt people four hundred years ago were eating McPele burgers or anything like that. We had some Hawaiian entertainment after that and then returned to the hotel. The bar was once again visited.

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