Yes, it’s green and yes, there are chickens everywhere and yes, Hanalei is heaven by the sea, though the surf was crazy high when we were there and we could not get near the ocean, which was too bad. There were a lot of disappointed looking humans on the beach but it’s better to be disappointed than to be swept to sea in a rip tide.
The rental car company hates us (or they would if they knew) because we drove the 1/2 hour “road” to Polihale State Park – a huge stretch of beach with towering cliffs on one end. I had a helluva headache by the time we got back on the main highway, one that stuck with me for much too long, but the beach was indeed spectacular. There were a handful of those pickups raised up on ridiculous struts crawling down the beach like post apocalyptic dinosaurs, but the beach is so big and they were so far away that they hardly wrecked the feeling.
We have three more nights in Hawaii and then we will return to the shock of sweaters and closed toe shoes in Seattle. We have been in, what, 15 hotels, five rental cars, three fancy restaurants, and a nene underneath a mango tree… I remember things like which hotel had the best product or the most expensive internet (this one!), but I don’t remember so much which beach that was or where I parked the car or even what color the rental car is and yesterday I tried to get into the wrong Dodge Caliber – an awful car, really – because there was a fleet of them lining the parking lot.
Here’s a disappointing thing: In spite of the fact that so much good coffee is grown here, we are having a hard time finding decent coffee in the restaurants. Perhaps it’s hit and miss, but we have, for the last week, not had a good cup of coffee. I don’t quite get it. Often the coffee packets will say things like “10% Kona!”, never mind that 100% Kauai is grown just up the road here. We keep trying. Consoloation, though, yesterday we had the best damn pineapple I’ve ever had. We ate it in the car while driving down from the Waimea Canyon.
The lack of connectivity is truly a challenge, two days ago we waited on the beach (boo hoo) for a call from the B&B where I thought we were staying, oh, oops, that’s tonight, and we missed the kayak trip because I could not connect with the provider to confirm. It’s not a great tragedy, more a small disappointment, made slightly more difficult by the fact that my cell phone is also operating on full Hawaii mode, meaning, I get a signal when it feels like it, or not.
Upon return to the mainland, I am determined to implement something in my own life based on a sign we saw in a Kaunakakai shop window: Open 9:45ish – 4:00. Molokai time, that’s the way to live.
Pictures upon our return, I promise.
Oh this kiwi creature is reading this from cold grey Antwerp and trying not to drool on the keyboard and feel sad.
Sounds like you’re doing good over there!!!!