Greetings, Friends and Aloha from the fiftieth state of the union. I am now sufficiently awake to be able to write a letter to you.

Why am I so tired? We travelled home on a red-eye flight from Kauai to
Denver over Sunday night. Surprisingly, the flight was only half an hour longer than if we had flown to L.A. The big surprise, though was that no one sat in the aisle seat, so I could move over. With a seat between us I was surprised at the feeling it generated: it felt civilized. And even with the on board salad served with a truly mystery meat, it still felt civilized.

However I have informed the hubster that we are past our red-eye flight opportunities. I slept a little on the plane, in the Denver airport, and on the short flight to MSP. And when we finally got home, I took a shower and crawled in bed at 3 in the afternoon. And slept a little, more off than on, but at least I could stretch out. It wasn’t until Wednesday that I truly woke up.

In Hawaii I naturally woke up around 6:30. Go figure. And it wasn’t because of the roosters crowing, either.

They have chickens in Kawaii, and they are all over the place. They are beautiful, all different browns and blacks and golds and reds and whites. The white egg laying chickens and the technicolor meaty chickens were released during hurricanes in 1982 and 1992 when the coops and cages were damaged. They’ve been wildly breeding ever since with no natural predators. There are no mongoose on the island.

They are not good for eating; they’re notoriously tough. It is said that if you take a lava rock and a Kauai chicken and boil them both in a pot for a few hours, the lava rock will be more tender.

So the powers that be decided to protect them as a symbol of the island. It is a $10,000 fee if you take or kill one.

We had chickens stalking around us, begging, as we ate our lunch on Ke’e Beach. We had a chicken walking around inside a restaurant as we ate lunch. We had a chicken sitting in a tropical tree not ten feet from our lanai or porch. I had one sneak up on me at the beach and crow loudly 18 inches from my left elbow.

They are just part of Kauai. Noisy, beautiful, curious, unafraid.

Another part of visiting Kauai is putting on sunscreen all over when you first get out of bed. Remember the lifeguards when we were growing up? They all wore that infamous white zinc oxide nose? Well, that’s what the reef safe sunscreen is like now.

Monk seals sunning themselves on the beach is also a part of Kauai. The gentleman just in front of us on the beach was wearing a tee shirt that named him as part of the Monk Seal Response Team. He’s responsible for spotting them, then putting up flags around where they’re resting on the sand to keep humans away. I’m sure he also is a fount of information about the mammals.

Just before the seal beached itself, the hubster thinks he saw it under water while he was snorkeling. How cool is that?

Another cool thing that happened is that the Kahlua and the Koloa Rum arrived home without leaking. It’s the hubster. He uses plumbers’ tape.

And speaking of the hubster, he is today mixing, carrying and applying cement to the area formerly known as our bathtub. He’s already broken up and carried out the tub—cast iron, who knew?—taken off the lovely harvest gold tile from the walls, removed the floor tile, and moved the drain. Today’s project is the shower pan.

He demo-ed the bathroom before we left for Kauai, then spent a week in paradise NOT WORKING ON THE PROJECT. I can’t remember a time in his long history of projects when he has done this.

And just how did we occupy his mind while in Kauai? By signing up for all sorts of activities to keep him busy. The first day there he rode a Zodiak raft chasing after whale sightings. I opted out of that one and it was a good thing I did. Sitting on the side of the boat, without life jackets hanging onto the ropes for dear life, he said it was like riding a bucking bronco for two hours.

The next day we tubed down old irrigation canals, wearing helmets with headlights. Here were maybe twenty of us with three guides and the water was cold, but not Lake Superior cold. And we were told that we couldn’t complain about it. We could only extol its virtues, as in, “It’s refreshing!” or “It’s nice and cool!” We rode up the mountain in an open bus, stopping to see the wild boars by the side of the road, and the place where they filmed the scene in Jurassic Park where the T Rex attacks the car with the kids in it.

Eighty percent of the tubing experience was inside the tunnels where the walls were rough rock and sometimes the water ran faster and your tube spun around so that you couldn’t always face front. We had our headlights on except for the last and longest tunnel where we all agreed to turn off our lights. We were told not to hang onto another’s tube, nor could we say sorry when we bumped into another. The reason? Hanging on to another tube would create a blockage. And we were constantly bumping into each other’s tubes, legs, feet, so the sorry’s would be constant. You were never by the same people; I lost track of the hubster.

Oh, and no peeing in the water, either. This water supplied the east side of the island.

It was fun, though. At the canal’s end, we had a picnic. The extra food was left for the boars.

The next day was spent exploring the east side of the island with a two hour Sashiko class at Vicky’s Fabrics for me. The hubster went snorkeling in the morning, then we ate lunch at a Kilauea Fish Market. He tried raw fish; I was not so daring. From 1 to 3 I was in a class of six practicing the Japanese stitching of white thread on indigo fabric. Two of us were from Minnesota!!! And two were from Michigan! What are the odds. The other two were from the island. It was great fun and much laughter was enjoyed as we learned.

One of the employees said she could always identify quilters who came into the store. They were the ones who stroked all the fabric and said “Ahhhh.” She figured that while on vacation these quilters were away from their sewing machines and projects and needed a fabric fix.

The next day was supposed to be the hubster’s hiking day near the Waimea Canyon. He had had enough of an adventure on the Zodiac, so he decided not to hike. We just toured the Canyon sights together.

Friday was a busy day. The morning was occupied by off roading at Kipu Ranch. It rained torrentially at camp just before we took off. We drove our ATV’s off in the cool and wet windiness. I drove the first leg and nearly drove off the road when my hat blew off. Because of the cold, I was then trying to pull the toggles down on each side of my rain poncho hood; I didn’t want to get cold in Hawaii. Because I was still steering an ATV on a rough road, this was quite a challenge, but I did it. Finally. And I successfully drove the ATV to the end of my designated part—the flat part.

The rest was for the hubster to drive. OMG!!!! MN potholes have nothing on those on this route. Most were 6 to 10 inches deep. And they were full of water. Red water from that Kauai red dirt. I have a picture of my polka dotted rain poncho on one leg, my mud spattered pants on the other.

There were two hand grips for the passenger and I used them thankfully even though we had seat belts.

This was fun, too, and our guides, Giggly and David, were knowledgeable and funny. We saw where the Galimimas (big running birds) chased the kids and Dr. Grant in Jurassic Park. Tropic Thunder, Mighty Joe Young were filmed here, too. Evidently Kauai can stand in for Africa, Vietnam, and Costa Rica.

And speaking of Jurassic Park, there’s a two second home movie of Hurricane Iniki taken by Spielberg himself that appears in the movie. Look for it, Giggly said that you can tell it by the change in quality of the film. Spielberg somehow evaded authorities and shot some of the storm while they were there filming Jurassic Park. He changed the end of the movie to include the storm!

After the off roading we went to Da Crack for lunch. It is a window in the wall where you order Mexican food to go. There is no restaurant to sit in. Just this crack. Da Crack. Food’s great.

After lunch, I drove the hubster to his ziplining adventure. Yeah, no way was I doing this. There were eight ziplines. On two of them, he did it

Superman style. Arms out, legs out, stomach facing the ground, coming in hot.

You can see how he was not thinking about his project at home!!

The last day of adventures was spent at the Kilauea Lighthouse and then Ke’e Beach. At the Lighthouse Lance took videos of humpbacks breeching . We saw nenes (the Hawaiian geese) with babies. They’re relatives of our own Canadian geese, but a lot nicer. You now need a reservation to visit the Lighthouse.

Then, we returned to Ha’ena State Park where the hubster had hiked the Kalalau Trail in 2016 during the rain and very nearly slid off the trail into a ravine or the sea—hard to tell. Prostrate on the side of the muddy hill, he slid another twenty feet before he could use his hiking poles to gain traction. He was the last one to come off the trail that day.

I was waiting for him in the rain with my headlights on. He was covered with mud. And once he stopped hiking, he started shaking. Hypothermia.

I turned the heater on high and drove to Chin Young Shopping Center in Hanalei about 30 minutes away. Chicken in a Bucket was a good dinner that night. The hubster stopped shaking as he ate, but then started again when he was done. Again the car heater was on high as I drove the remaining 75 minutes back to Lihue. He walked straight into the shower, boots and all.

He was not going to do that hike today. You now need a reservation to hike it. You also need a reservation on a shuttle to even get to the State Park and the Ke’e Beach.

A word about Ke’e Beach. It’s on the north side of the island with notoriously rough waters especially in the winter. About a hundred yards out, the waves are breaking in different directions with every crest. It was mesmerizing, like watching a campfire.

It is posted no snorkeling. The wind blows so strongly that the six inch square of indigo cloth on which I was doing my Sashiko stitiching was fluttering nearly out of my hand.

And, of course there are the chickens who are begging for food while circling the hubster and myself.

There is a small area of beach where people are playing in the water. A lifeguard watches them. There is a deep enough area parallel to the beach where an off duty lifeguard is swimming laps. Well, back and forth. You know what I mean.

And then, there is the couple who enter the beach with their snorkeling gear.

They find a place to drop their stuff, then head to the water with their gear. They snorkelled for about five minutes before the off duty lifeguard who was doing laps—back and forth—you know what I mean— got out of the water, walked over to where they were and motioned them in. He then explained the rules and the reasoning to them; they came in to shore and dropped their gear. High winds, high waves, dangerous coral. Seemed like a no-brainer to me, especially after reading the sign that said no snorkeling.

The last day in Kauai before we needed to turn in the car at 6pm for our 8:20 pm flight, we wanted to be special. So we started out snorkeling and wading, the hubster and myself respectively, enjoying sitting on the beach, taking video of the monk seal baloop, baloop, balooping on the sand to get a comfortable position. Then we shopped at two malls, well, we really only looked at the clothes and their pricetags—ufda! And then we scored the best table at Keoki, a popular Poipu restaurant.

What made it the best table? Close to the really good Hawaiian singer who performed there every Sunday Brunch. Close to the outside wall with a view of one of those huge trees that let you know that you’re not in Minnesota. The moss trailed from its branches and swayed in the breeze. And, of course, a chicken walking around. Well, they do fly, and there are no windows or doors to speak of.

Next up was Shipwreck Beach to watch surfers. This lasted about five minutes until torrential rain chased them out. It is called the Garden Isle for that reason: lots of rain, not really lasting that long. It makes everything green.

Which brings me to my last Kauai fact. When you drive around the island you see many tall trees with lovely large orange red blossoms. These are African tulip trees and those blossoms are like two hands cupped together. The last monarch of the islands, Queen Liliuokalani, had these trees imported to give the island some color other than the predominant greens and browns. They are a lovely addition to the landscape, popping up all over.

We are no longer lathering on the sunscreen in the morning. The hubster is back at his project. My package of fabric from Vicky’s Fabrics just came in the mail.

It has Kauai chickens on it.

Of course.

Big hugs to you all. Do something that feeds your soul. Tell someone you love them. Smile.

Aloha,

Janet