| Kauai | |
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| Silver Falls. |
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| Kilauea Point Lighthouse and Bird Sanctuary; here's a shot from the top. |
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| Here's the decomissioned lighthouse. |
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| Inside the funky cave on the northern side of Kauai. |
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| Another shot inside the cave. |
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| While on Kauai, we went to a timeshare presentation. The grounds had these black swans, which I thought was a cool way to end a roll of film before the chopper ride. :) |
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| One of the aerial shots I took. |
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| I'm psyched, and alyse is glad we're back on the ground. :) |
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| Alyse thought I looked all cute on a horse. "Ya!" My horse was very restless, whereas hers was very placid. |
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| Waimea Canyon, the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. |
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| The missile testing range. They have awesome signage. |
| The Big Island | |
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| Standing next to some display grapevines at the (Kilauea) Volcano Winery. |
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| Going up to the Kilauea Volcano National Park, you pass these signs. The nene (pronounced "nay-nay") bird is the state bird, and is heading rapidly for extinction, since it's a ground nester and can't compete against mainland predators (mongoose, rats, cats, pigs, etc). They're a cousin of the Canadian goose. |
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| Just outside the entrance to the lava tube. The big white splotch is probably the flash reflecting off one of the cords on my hat. Sigh. :) |
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| Aka the "BunBus", this was a tour bus parked outside the lava tube. |
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| On the drive down from the caldera (near the top), you go through blasted lands -- large fields of pahoehoe (runny lava). It's kinda weird, what with the winds up to 40 mph or so, no trees... but there'd be an occasional cloud, and we saw some awesome rainbows. |
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| Alyse really liked the pahoehoe texture, so she posed on some. This is near the petroglyphs we saw on the way down to the CPA (Closest Point of Approach) to Kilauea. |
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| Along the coastal road leading to Kilauea. Just a funky sea texture. |
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| So much for driving further. The two white splotches are reflective tape on cones that guide you to the recommended CPA (about a five minute walk from the end of the road). |
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| "If you are a dumb bunny, please note: do not touch the lava." |
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| Steam vents from a different caldera. Pretty cool; this is where Pele the fire goddess was supposed to live. |
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| This was at the Hawaii Botanical Garden. Pretty cool place. |
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| This was a statue to a local Hawaiian god, who was supposed to give strength, wisdom, and cunning to competitors. I'm not making that up. I'm carrying a big black umbrella, which they loan out for free at the Visitors' Center at the top of the valley (it sometimes rains a lot). |
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| The funky black sands beach. |
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| This was at the HiltonDisney, aka the Hilton on Waikola Beach. They have this big Buddha statue. Alyse thought it'd be cool to pose the same way. :) |
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| The white coral beaches that are often found on the west side of the island. Note the black lava as well; people made graffiti by spelling out words in white coral on the black lava. Kinda cool. :) |
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| The Keck Observatories are those liiiiitle white buildings on the top of the mountain. This was the last picture we took on our honeymoon. |
We left on Tuesday, 7/20 on United. Woo! Went to bed around 3am. Got up at 5. Ugh. Note: travelling is travelling: there's no reason to get to the airport more than 45 mins ahead. Oh well; we had to check luggage. Snoozed while waiting for the plane. Boston to Chicago was empty, so that was nice. We got in early, and the flight crew let us look at the cockpit. Pretty cool. Chicago to HNL was long. Woof. The pilot piped out the radio traffic, which was awesome -- kept me entertained for a good 5 hours. They showed Patch Adams for free, so I watched that, except for the tense climax, which they muted -- probably to not offend the PC types. Sigh. Managed to get an early connection to Lihue, Kauai, so we got our car while we waited for our original flight (& luggage!) to arrive. i opted to upgrade to a convertible. :) I figure we'll see if it's worth the extra money; if so, we'll do it again in Hawaii and break our budget. :) Editor's note: Yes, it's definitely worth it.
Got to our condo then. It's very unspectacular, but A, it's bigger than our apartment, and B, it's cleaner. :) But we're in the tropics, so that means bugs. I have a half-dozen mosquito bites, and our car had cockroaches. Yuck. so we returned it today. Hey, I should get Marleigh's address. I figure it'd be hilarious to get a postcard from Hawaii while in Germany. :)
Got too lazy to write.
On Wed... :) went up to the North shore and back; our condo is on the east. It's an hour's drive; the first 20 minutes is relatively normal highway. Then it becomes a windy road, periodically punctuated by one-lane bridges. We got up really early (7am?), had breakfast (we had gone to Safeway the night before), got a new convertible (only one roach resident so far), and then headed out.
We got to the Kilauea Point lighthouse/bird sanctuary too early -- it opens at 10 (we got there at 9). We moved on, stopping briefly at a beach, then a few lookout points. There are wild chickens on Kauai, and they're -everywhere-. And they're very unshy -- they know to go right u to the tourists. Pretty funny.
Then we stopped at this funky place. First, a stream crosses the road -- no bridge, just this dip. Then, on one side of the road is a big cave -- pretty cool. No internal structures, just a big cave. On the other side is a beach, with the stream coursing to the ocean. We flopped out there for a few hours, then headed back home for a shower and lunch. (Burger King -- we were feeling silly and cheap.) Then an afternoon snooze -- I wasn't feeling so good from flying -- and then we headed back north with more film. The lighting wasn't very good by the time we got there, but it's driving in Hawaii, so who cares? :) Dinner Tues night was at Kintaro, a Japanese restaurant. Cool place, but there was a loud birthday party next to us, so that wasn't very good. Plus, halfway through dinner, my body realized it was 2am, so I crashed. Wed was at a Sizzler-like place. Oh well; we were in the mood for steak, which we got.
Thursday... got up early again. We had already decided to head west and see Waimea Canyon, also known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. The drive up is quite formidable -- 400 ft elevation. The canyon road goes along the west bank -- very cool. We stopped at almost every lookout point. :) The Grand Canyone appellation is quite a good one, having seen it as well. At the top, there's an (Army?) missile test range (closed to visitors -- darn!) and a little restaurant, where we stopped for lunch. We then tried hiking, but clouds were rolling in, so we tried waiting them out by napping in the car. Nap yes, sun no, so we headed down a bit and stopped where a whole gaggle of cars had stopped to go hiking. The trail was maybe 1.5 miles up and down, to this little trickle waterfall. At one point, it collected into a somewhat stagnant pool. We splashed around to cool off, which was fun. Splish splish. :) Then we hiked back and drove a different route back down. On the way home, we stopped at Fort Elizabeth, a c1830 Russian fort. Not very interesting; it was small, rundown, and we were too tired to find the entrance (we walked around the wall the wrong way). Then we stopped at the Kauai Coffee Company plantation's Museum/Gift Store/Visitor Center, but they were mostly closed. Had a free cup of coffee; wasn't too bad. :) Then home, shower, and off to the Coconut Marketplace. Coconut Plantation Marketplace, really; a row of shops. Alyse got a sarong. She looks goooood in it. :) Then we went to Mema's, a Chinese/Thai place. Awesome place; I'd be psyched to go back again. An evening stroll on the beach, and then it was snooze time. :)
Friday on kauai... was awhile ago (it now being Thu night on the Big Island, our last night). Friday we got up early to get snorkeling gear. The morning was the chopper ride. :) That was cool. Alyse, we determined, is not so psyched about chopper rides. The tour was good --a good route. The pilot was funny - he had this dull/calm monotone -- good subconscious condition, I figure. Never flown in a chopper before, so that was cool. Then was snorkeling. We went up past Hanalei to Ke'e beach, which is the end of the road. Awesome snorkeling -- wish we had one of those underwater cameras. Lots of schools of fish, but not a huge variety. Still. Dinner was at BK or KFC; we went to the other one Sat night, since we were both really tired from snorkeling (and I kept falling asleep during dinner).
Saturday we got up wicked early to go to a timeshare presentation -- that got us $75 off our chopper flight. It was interesting -- if/when we buy a house and have some leftover cash lying about, it might make for a good investment. In the meantime, I want to crosscheck their rep and numbers. :) Afterwards, we went back to the Kilauea lighthouse and looked at the bird sanctuary. Very cool. I got a baseball cap. :) Then we went to Silver Falls Horse Ranch for an afternoon ride. Alyse was all chortlely. I just felt sorry for the horse that had to carry me. Our group was us, 2 women from Atlanta, and the Loser family. George Loser, no Jane Loser, but 3 sons and 1 daughter. The daughter was a floozie, but not especially a loser. It was sad - the sons, starting with the youngest, started flirting with the blond extrover from Atlanta, finishing with Mr Loser. Yes. Very sad. It was funny; one of the guides was saying how Mr Loser told her boss how the waivers aren't worth anything. She basically said, 'OK!' and promptly gave him the most broken-down horse. Very funny. I wasn't feeling so good, so I didn't go swimming at Silver Falls (a stream cascading maybe a yard down some rocks) but alyse did. Splish! Afterwards, alyse went snorkeling again (I watched) at Ke'e beach.
Sunday: slept in, madly packed, and caught our flight to the Big Island. Oh, right; tried returning our snorkeling gear, and found out we could retro-rent it for a week and return it on the Big Island. Woo-woo! Big Island: arrival was okay. Car was terrible (Alamo). First car: trunk does not seat properly. Second car: no gas. they fill it for free. Then we noticed the roaches, after we've found our hotel. We take it back and scream. Third car: dirty windows; we eventually got Windex and roach traps, which both worked. We were going to go snorkeling on Sunday -- oh well. Dinner at Wendy's, since I was feeling all depressed; flop out afterwards.
Monday: talk to overexuberant activities director. Get an underwater camera and go snorkeling. Come back, shower, go snorkeling again. Woo-hoo! Got the underwater film developed; turned out okay. Went to Borders for some CDs for the car, then went to this great place called Oodles of Noodles. Italian/chinese. Awesome place; totally hilarious.
Tuesday was Day 1 of the Volcano (Kilauea). Took the southern route, which was nice. Went on a short guided tour; the guide was Tobias Belize, fresh from Germany. Hilarious German accent. :) Factoid: A caldera is a crater that is more than 2 miles across. Then we drove down to a lava tube. There's a section where you need flashlights; that was cool. (Creepy and eerie, but cool.) We had to get flashlights; we came back for the tube on Thursday.) Kilauea is just a steam cloud where lava dumps into the ocean a few miles away. Not particularly interesting in the day. We also looked at petroglyphs, which was kind of neat. Then to Hilo for dinner (Fiasco's, an all-American -- okay place), then after procuring flashlights, back to Kilauea at night. That's pretty cool -- the lava lights up the steam cloud. By the way: it's -very- windy on a pahoehoe lava field -- there's nothing to stop the wind. The a 2-hr drive home starting around 11pm. (Uck.) Got home okay, but got stuck the last 30 miles behind some slow bastard.
Wed was alyse's bday, so we started with snorkeling. Saw a sea turtle -- no, that was Monday. One sunning, one swimming. No turtles Wed -- but we did find an area fed by hot springs, so it was warmer (a good thing -- being cloudy meant colder water). Splish. Then an afternoon nap. Snooze. Then dinner at Jameson's by the Sea. Cool and expensive. An altogether good day. :)
Thu was today: back to Kilauea, this time via the north (boring) route. Stopped at the Hawaii Botantical Garden: it's a valley filled with plants/trees from tropic zones around the world. Pretty cool. Then to Hilo for luch and then back to Kilauea: the unlit lava tube, plus the tree molds. Oh, on Tue, we visited the (Kilauea) Volcano Winery. Cute place; brought some bottles back. :) On the way back (we took the southern route again), we stopped atht ePu'uhau Beach -- black volcanic sand. Cool stuff. :) Then back to Kona (more annoyingly slow drivers) and then dinner at the Chart House. While there, our waiter told us about the Kona Brewing Company, a local microbrewery.
Friday we visited the KBC; I got a t-shirt. :) Sampled their wheat beer; it was pretty good. Then we drove north to the Hilton Waikola, which cost $250 million to build. At first, it's not terribly impressive -- you walk in, and it's a typical huge Hawaiian building -- open aired at the back. Fine. So what? Then the monorail pulls into the back of the building. "Oh." Then you walk across the monorail tracks and you see these boats, straight out of the Disney Jungle Cruise. Basically, the Hilton complex is shaped a little like a sinusoid, and you enter at the middle. So the monorail and jungle cruise boats run in both directions, if you don't feel like walking. If you do, there's a walkway lined with art from around the world. There's artificial lagoons everywhere -- some are pools, some are faux beaches, some are faux ocean (stocked with tropical fish so you can snorkel), there's a waterslide, a rope bridge, 18-yr old waitresses, dolphin lagoon... it has everything! :) We spent the day there, including going down to the beach (which is bone-white coral and black lava rocks... kinda neat), lounging around the pool, and looking at the shops. Then we had to catch our flight at 7pm, and we finally pulled into Boston around 3:30pm. Caught up on the cuisine we had deliberately avoided -- Italian and shellfish -- by going to Vinny Testa's with some friends, picked up Bob, and then we collapsed.
All in all, a great honeymoon. Until the Visa bill arrives, that is. :)
dave
