Kauai

Here is another break from politics - I hope you enjoy sharing our week in Kauai. Today, sadly, is our last full day here - but we're going on to San Francisco for the weekend on our way home, to ease the shock of returning to New Jersey.

We have discovered that we love Kauai. We hadn't been here since 1987 and had forgotten how lovely it is. We were scheduled to come stay at the Waimea Plantation Cottages in the fall of 1992 when Hurricane Iniki hit Kauai and wrecked just about everything on the island. As a result we changed our destination to Maui, which wasn't affected by the storm. It was then that we stayed for the first time in the Kealia condominium complex. For some reason after that we didn't return to Kauai again and just continued going to Maui. Maybe we thought that Kauai was still recovering from the storm; whatever the reason, I wish we had come here again sooner.

Much as we love Maui, the island is getting built up and less relaxing than it once was. There are divided highways being built; there are traffic jams. There are chain stores.

Here on Kauai it's the way Maui was 20+ years ago.

The town of Waimea, where we are staying, is a piece of Old Hawaii; the two main streets are lined with old wooden storefronts that would be at home in the Old West or in Australia. While there are some tourist businesses (mostly for boat tours of the Na Pali Coast, snorkeling adventures, etc.), they are all home-grown, not big corporate businesses. There is no CVS; they have the Menehune Drug Store.

Even Kapa'a, which is a major town on the other side of the island, isn't lined with strip malls or chain stores. There are businesses there, to be sure, but again, it is relatively unspoiled. Lihue, the town closest to the airport, has a number of businesses (including car dealerships), and there is a Wal-Mart nearby, but that's about it.

One of the striking differences between Maui and Kauai is that there are many more native Hawaiians or people of Hawaiian ancestry here on Kauai than on Maui. There are fewer rental cars and more pickup trucks, more people just going about their daily business. There is even someone who rides his horse to work and "parks" the horse at the side of the road.

The only ominous signs of development are on the Poipu peninsula, where there are a number of resorts. We had stayed at the Poipu Sheraton back in 1982, and at a little condo complex near there (Garden Isle Apartments) in 1987. Back then it was still a pretty sleepy little area and the old town of Koloa was unspoiled. Now we noticed that there are a number of properties being developed for "estates." We can only hope that this development is kept under strict control. At least it isn't strip malls.

Now for your tour of Kauai!

This is our cottage at the Waimea Plantation Cottages, nestled in its garden setting. All of the cottages are historic plantation cottages, which were originally built for those working on the sugar plantations. Many of these cottages were moved from other locations to the grounds here. The Waimea Plantation Cottages was named as one of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's "Dozen Distinctive Destinations" of 2006.

Here is a view of our living room and kitchen/dining area as you come in the door from the front porch. On the left, out of sight of the picture, is a TV, VCR, DVD player, portable stereo, and - best of all - an internet connection.

This is a view of the bedroom. In addition to the bed and two night stands, there is a bureau and a closet with mirrors on the doors.Below are a picture of the lanai (porch) with its wicker furniture, and a view taken from the lanai looking out onto the central lawn area.

This is the pool on the property, near the ocean.

Views of the black sand beach that we walk on each day.

Two views in the town of Waimea, including the Ishihara market where we have been buying our fresh fish and vegetables. The market dates back to the early 1930's.

This is one of the most spectacular beaches on Kauai. It is the Polihale Beach in Polihale State Park, and is the last beach before the Na Pali Cliffs, seen in the background. The white sand on this beach extends for 17 miles down the coast.
One of Kauai's other famous attractions is the Waimea Canyon, seen in these two pictures below. It is hard to do justice to it with snapshots.



This is a view taken on our way to the other side of the island.

This is a mother hen and her chicks that we saw at a little place we stopped at for lunch. Kauai has chickens everywhere. They just run wild. Roosters crow at all hours of the day and you can hardly go anywhere without having to avoid a rooster, hen, or their chicks. We awakened each morning to the sound of the local rooster crowing, along with other birds. We also had a tiger cat who visited us a few times and got some handouts!



This is a view of the Hanalei Valley, which is another beautiful area of Kauai. For some reason we don't seem to have pictures of the area along the shore or the cute little town of Hanalei, which we drove through. I guess we were too busy admiring the scenery and didn't stop to take pictures!

Here are a couple of pictures of our favorite little town of Hanapepe, which is a few minutes down the road from Waimea. On Friday nights all of the little shops and galleries are open and there is live music in the streets. In addition to galleries and gift shops, there is also a great bookstore called Talk Story and some good local restaurants. Many of the buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places.This building, which once housed a hotel, was used in the filming of the movie "The Thornbirds," standing in for an Australian hotel.


Last but not least, a Kauai sunset taken on the beach near our cottage.

Onward

Yesterday we bid a fond farewell to Maui and flew to Kauai. After a leisurely drive from the airport, including stops along the way, we arrived at the Waimea Plantation Cottages in Waimea. I love this place - it is fabulous.

Our cottage is one of about 50 antique cottages left from the plantation era, scattered in an orderly yet natural way around beautiful gardens and open spaces. The property is on a black sand beach that stretches a long distance in either direction, perfect for walking, with a pool overlooking the ocean.

The cottage itself is beautifully restored, with lovely wood floors (could they be koa wood? I'm not good at wood identification) and island-appropriate rattan furniture that is of high quality. There is a spacious bedroom, a huge bathroom with both a tub and a large shower, a kitchen-dining area and a good-sized living room that opens onto a lanai with wicker furniture, plus a private patio where you can sit and watch the sunset.

I'll write more about our new location in my next post, and include pictures. In the meantime I'd like to share more pictures from our time on Maui to keep your mind off the Wyoming caucuses!

Below is a picture of windsurfers on Ho'okipa Beach on the eastern side of Maui:

The following pictures are views from a drive we took around the northwest side of Maui:

Below is a Hawaii dog. Hawaii dogs ride around in the back of their masters' pickup trucks and enjoy the view. These dogs are the result of various breeds mixing for as long as anyone can remember and they look like a combination Pointer-Lab-Collie-Shepherd-Terrier. This one is waiting for his master to come out of a little store on the outskirts of the town of Kula in the "upcountry" of Maui, on the side of the Haleakala volcano. (UPDATE: Or could these "Hawaii dogs" actually be Australian Cattle Dogs?)

Below is a view taken in the same vicinity:

Hope you enjoyed the tour of Maui. I'll put up pictures of Kauai as soon as we take some!!

Those Pictures I Promised

This is a view from our lanai, looking westward.

This is the view looking east.

One of "our" whales in the bay.

A view taken while walking on the beach.

Blogging on the lanai (wearing my new visor that says "Maui" on it).

The traditional picture taken by the dead tree. We have been taking pictures by this leaning tree since 20+ years ago - in the beginning the tree was still alive. Every year it gets deader and deader; its bark has all worn away and it has been smoothed by the ocean into driftwood. Those bushy things sticking up are two bouquets someone attached to the branches.

Someday when we come here it will be gone altogether.

Sunset, taken from our lanai.

Hope you enjoyed them...more to come.

I'll write about the primary results in the morning...

Maui

I am happy to report, Maui is still here in all of its beauty. As the plane descended I could see it spread out below, resplendently green, looking like a tropical version of Ireland.

In some ways it seemed like a longer flight than the one to Australia last year, even though it was a good eight hours shorter altogether. I think that is partly because the flight to Australia was on Qantas, and the seats were appreciably larger with a lot more leg room!

DH and have been coming here since 1982 - before we were even married. In the early 80's, as some of you may remember, it was the heady time at the dawn of the "frequent flier" era. Free tickets abounded, with airlines fighting over who had the best awards. At the time, DH was going on numerous business trips to California and piling up miles galore on United Airlines, and I did some traveling of my own. And back then, for 75,000 miles, you got two free FIRST CLASS tickets plus four nights free at a Westin hotel.

The airlines even had deals where you could get these free tickets by traveling a certain number of flight segments in a given amount of time, which encouraged the dedicated frequent flier to opt for flights with several "legs" rather than non-stop direct flights. Once, in order to earn my next free ticket to Hawaii, I was short two segments and time was running out. So we booked the shortest flight we could find, which was from Hartford, Connecticut to Providence, Rhode Island. We drove the 2-1/2 hours to Hartford, and DH waited there while I got on the plane, flew to Providence, stayed on the plane, turned around and flew back to Hartford. I got off the plane, $90 poorer, but richer by two segments that earned me a free ticket to Hawaii. A worthwhile deal.

This bounty translated into several memorable trips to Hawaii for us.

Our first trip was in November of 1982; we visited four of the Hawaiian islands in 12 days, to see the differences between them, as neither of us had ever been here before. We spent two nights on Oahu (had to see Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial), two nights on the Big Island of Hawaii (stayed right by the active volcano in an old hotel called the Volcano House, where Mark Twain once stayed), four nights on Maui (in the Westin Wailea hotel, for free) and then five nights on the Garden Isle of Kauai.

We loved all of the islands we visited, but realized we liked Maui the best, as it had the perfect combination of natural beauty and good restaurants!

Since then we've made numerous trips back to Maui, have visited the much less touristy island of Molokai (the location of the now-defunct leper colony run by Father Damien), and even taken a day trip by catamaran to the island of Lanai, which at that time was mostly pineapple farms; now it has several expensive luxury hotels.

There have been many changes, of course, since we've been coming for the past 25 years. The airlines have all cut back drastically on both their frequent flier awards and the services they offer on the planes. Now we would have to use some huge number of miles to fly first class, so we opt for coach. And where we once were served by flight attendants garbed in Hawaiian Aloha shirts for the men and flowered dresses for the women, they now wear traditional uniforms like any other flight attendants. Gone are the orchids on your tray (yes, you got them even in coach) and the macadamia nuts. Heck, we didn't even get peanuts on our flight this time! And we had to buy a sandwich. Oh well, with Hawaii, it's all about the destination, although it was nice when the journey was also a pleasure.

Maui itself has seen changes too numerous to mention, but being me, I feel compelled to mention some of them. In 1982, the town of Kihei (which is where the condo we stay is located) was a sleepy little town with no traffic lights, with a narrow two-lane road sparsely populated by locals who would drive along at about 20 miles per hour, in no hurry whatsoever, on island time. There was one mall, called Azeka Place, and a couple of small restaurant complexes of reasonably priced, unique food. One was a great place called The Outrigger, which was right on the beach. Another was La Familia Mexican Restaurant, which had a happy hour at sunset and everyone would gather and drink frozen margaritas and watch the sun set on the bay across the road.

There were a number of condo complexes tastefully situated along the beach, with stretches of natural brush and terrain in between. The ocean was visible for most of the drive along the road.

Today South Kihei road is lined on both sides with enormous strip malls populated with fast food chain restaurants, grocery stores and souvenir shops, and farther up the road, many additional condominium complexes on both sides.

There is a whole other highway that has been completed that runs parallel to the original road, also lined with condos and shops. There are several street lights on Kihei Road, the road has been widened, and the traffic could be in New Jersey as it whizzes by. Now they are widening the road from the airport to a four-lane highway.

That's the bad news. The good news is, we don't have to go there once we get our groceries and stock up for the week (or two, depending). The condo where we stay is the last one, on North Kihei Road, and beyond it is nothing but wilderness.

The rest of the island is much as it once was. Drive through green fields of sugar cane to the eastern side of the island and there is none of the modern chaos that little Kihei has become. Drive up the Haleakala Highway to the top of the dormant Haleakala volcano and enjoy the peaceful, starkly beautiful terrain. Drive around the back of the island, through the artsy little town of Paia (home to ex-hippies and surfers who enjoy the waves at the beach there), through the rain forest to Hana, then back via the other side of the volcano, where the mountain slopes steeply down to the sea, punctuated with a few cinder cones that formed 200 years ago in the last lava flow.

Drive to the "upcountry" where the weather is cooler and the views spectacular, and the old cowboy town of Makawao beckons with its little shops and boutiques and several good restaurants. Walk on the beach past the Kealia Pond Nature Preserve and watch the whales spouting in the bay. Explore the old County Seat, Wailuku, home to a local theater group and some great Thai food.

Yes, it's all still here, as long as you close one eye to the overdevelopment that threatens ominously in certain areas. If it is kept contained where it is, Maui will continue to be the island paradise it always has been. Let's hope the good people of this island know the gem that they have and don't allow it to be sullied irreparably in the name of progress.

On a more mundane note, I am happy to report that, as you may have guessed, our condo has wi fi and I am able to both blog and read blogs! So my vacation is complete! I'll post some pictures when we get around to downloading them. Yes, we've already taken several!

I am continuing to watch the news about the upcoming primaries and have read that Obama and Clinton are now in a dead heat in Texas. I'll be following this closely in the news and on the blogs!

Haiku Monday

I have to tell you, I am all out of energy. It is a combination of the February blues (an extension of my January Seasonal Affective Disorder) and all of the family chaos that has been going on this month.

I swear I don't even know where February went! The last thing I remember was it was Super Bowl Sunday and I was looking forward to a nice evening at a friend's party (which she always has catered with awesome and delectable party food) - and it never happened and I just remember an endless swirl of hospitals, nursing homes, and telephone conversations with doctors, nurses, social workers and more.

In the meantime, while my in-laws have had their health problems, we've also been trying to get my aunt's house ready to sell. She moved out in October into a senior citizens' apartment building, and now we have to sell her house. But it had to be painted inside. And the floors had to be done. And now a plumber must be called to fix the downstairs sink. So even though we have had months to get the house ready to sell, of course we are down to the wire now. And the house has to be cleaned before it is offically on the market, which is supposed to happen imminently. Progress is being made but there are still more details to be finalized. All before this Friday.

Because, in the midst of all this, we are heading out for a two-week vacation, this Friday - to Hawaii. Yes, we're going to our favorite place, to de-stress, relax and recover from winter. Last year at this time we were in Australia soaking up hot sunlight in 100 degree weather (but it was a dry heat!). And we swore we would make sure to take a warm-weather vacation every winter if at all possible, because that made winter so much more bearable.

This time, instead of Australia, we're spending a week on Maui, here, and a week on Kauai, here.

So in the next two days, I may not have much time to post or visit, as we'll be finishing up last-minute things and trying to pack.

Luckily all seems to be going well for my in-laws and they will be in good hands while we're gone; for awhile there we were wondering whether we'd have to cancel our trip.

Baxter may not be able to post since I won't be home to help him, but my good friend (fondly known as "Friend #2" in several anecdotes you may have read) is going to be dropping in and visiting him and making sure he has plenty to eat and a clean box.

Diva will also be in good hands at the vet's, where she is treated like a major celebrity by the staff and the veterinarians, all of whom adore her, as of course they should, since she IS the Diva.

I am going to bring my laptop with me, as I'm pretty sure there is wi fi in at least one location, so I won't be out of cyberspace for very long! And we'll be downloading the NY Times and keeping up with the politics because a news junkie like me can't keep away from it too long.

Finishing up with a few pertinent haiku:

New Jersey winters
Are long, cold, gray and slushy
Too long to abide.

Snow and ice abound
But birds have started chirping
Spring will follow soon.

Soon we will leave for
A tropical paradise
And return to Spring.