Hello from Honolulu, HI and Evergreen, CO

Hello from Honolulu, HI and Evergreen, CO

Friday evening April 3, 2009 (Third travelogue of this trip)

This installment will start at the Honolulu airport and finish up somewhere on the way home. I will publish it when we get home. Things have been a bit hectic since we got home, so this travelogue is a bit tardy (being posted on 4/6/09).

Tuesday we took it kind of easy. I did a lot of work on my business website. It was getting pretty dated and needed a general overhaul. I did a major format change and got some of the content updated. I also got the e-store updated as well. Take a look at: http://rvsafetysystems.com/. It may sound strange to be doing work in such a beautiful setting, but it needed to be done and it was fun to take breaks and really enjoy the setting. That evening we went into the small town of Hanalei. We love that town and will discuss it more in a couple of paragraphs.

Wednesday, we again drove south to visit the Kilohana Plantation and ride the Kauai Plantation Railway. This was a great tour. The plantation was a huge sugarcane plantation at one time. It is now an experimental farm and great tourist attraction. Our tour included a ride out into the plantation where we stopped to feed “wild” pigs. We then took a hike down into a beautiful valley that was close to being a rain forest. Our guide was very knowledgeable about the vast number of plants and trees that we saw. After the hike we had a fun box lunch and then hiked into the experimental farm area. Here they are growing a large number of fruit hybrids. Not many were in season, but we did get to eat a great fruit that was a combination of a lemon and orange. It tasted great. We got to see banana trees, pineapples and many more varieties of fruit. We then met the train for a return to the visitor center.

The sugarcane plantations used trains to a fair extent. This train (see photo) was pulled by a 1939 Whitcomb locomotive. I had not heard of Whitcomb locomotives, but it turns out they built a lot of mine locomotives in the early part of the 1900s. Later they were bought by the more well know Baldwin locomotive company. In any case, it was an interesting locomotive that really was more like a truck, in that it had a small diesel engine/four speed transmission/clutch for the drive train.

After the plantation, we went to the Kauai Coffee Museum. This is a huge coffee operation with very advanced coffee processing equipment. It was quite a contrast to the very small “old fashioned” processing plantation we visited in the Kona district. It was fun to see the drastic differences in the processing.

Thursday we again had a leisurely day with an excursion to Hanalei for dinner. So, let's talk about Hanalei. It is a very small town with a great deal of charm. In the fields around Hanalei, the majority of all of the Hawaiian taro is grown in fields that are constantly flooded. Taro is used primarily for poi, a staple of the Hawaiian diet.

Hanalei is also famous for the filming of the movie South Pacific. In addition, it was made famous by the song Puff the Magic Dragon. The cliffs near the town are said to look like a dragon. Lastly, the town in Lilo and Stitch is said to be based on Hanalei. But to us, it is just a fun little town with some great casual eating opportunities.

As seems to be our habit, we found a great little ice cream store on the way home from Hanalei. It is Lappert's and seems to be fairly famous in Hawaii. It serves great ice cream and very fresh, tasty coffee.

We had to laugh when we rented our first car in Hawaii. Of all things, it was a PT Cruiser (same car as we have at home). It is considered a mid-size car by Dollar Rental. When we got to Kauai, guess what? Another PT Cruiser {grin}. At least we knew where all the controls were.

We did pretty good on expenses for this trip. Stampin' Up! paid for the hotel/airfare/meals for the first half. We used our timeshare for the second week, used miles for the rented cars, and now we are sitting in first class (via air miles) on the way home. Our flight from Denver to Honolulu was over 7 hours, and it got very cramped in coach. We decided to spend the air miles for the upgrade on the way home and it sure feels good.

Well, we are home. Got into Denver at about 9:00 AM Saturday. They had predicted a foot of snow by the time we arrived. However, it turned out that Denver only had about 1 inch. By the time we got home it was snowing pretty good and we ended up with about 6 inches and temperatures in the low 20s. Talk about thermal shock!!!

That's all for this trip. We head out in the bus in a bit over two weeks, so join us then.

BTW, did you notice that we have added a map showing the states the bus has been in. If our schedule works out, we will be in a few more states by the end of the year.

Kauai Plantation Railway

Our Great Tour Guide at Kilohana Plantation

Kauai Coffee Visitor Center

View from close to our condo overlooking the taro fields

Our condo in Kauai

Hello again from Kauai, HI

Hello again from Kauai, HI

Friday morning April 3, 2009 (second travelogue of this trip)

As it turns out, this travelogue is written in two parts. The majority was written at the condo, but we had to check out and I did not get it finished. The final part is being written in the Honolulu airport.

Now we need to start talking about this island. Kauai is the northern most Hawaiian Island. It is 552 square miles (about 14% the size of the big island). The highest point is Mount Waialeale which is 5080 feet (about 1/3 as high as Mauna Kea of the big island). The mountains of Hawaii are very deceiving. On Kauai, they look sharp and rather tall. On Hawaii, they do not look tall (until you notice the snow), because the slopes are very gradual. Indeed, when you compare the altitude of Mauna Kea, it raise almost 14,000 feet above the base which is said to be a higher elevation differential than Mt. Everest..

This island is called the “Garden Island” for good reason. It gets a lot of rain. At one location the average rail fall is 460 inches! Everywhere you look, the vegetation is very thick and green.

The weather here has been windy and we have had quite a bit of rain (normal). That is OK. We have been going at a much more leisurely pace. We had thought about several tours and dismissed most of them. We chose not to go on a whale watching cruise since the ocean swells are rather high and the whales have mostly left this area. I had thought about doing a dive here, but because of the rough seas, I changed my mind. When we were here in 2003, I did a dive with Pat's brother and his wife, and the diving conditions were not all that great.

We talked about the cats and mongooses on the big Island. Here the “wild” animal population is chickens. They are everywhere and the rooster crowing is rather fun (right outside our window as I write this). Domestic type chickens were brought here decades ago. Some folks also brought fighting roosters. The story goes that in 1992 the devastating Hurricane Iniki (third worst damage causing storm in the US) caused all the chickens and roosters to be turned loose and roam free. They do not have natural predators, so the population is quite high. Both islands have very large wild pig populations and they are a big problem. Hunting is permitted at all times.

We are staying in a time share that we swapped with our timeshare in FL. It is actually a part of the Westin Hotel (map). As is generally the case, I post a link to a satellite photo of our location. This one is particularly interesting. I double checked the GPS coordinates and the location of the indicator is very close to our building. However, the satellite photo is rather old and does not show the rather extensive complex. Our building is on a high bluff overlooking the ocean.

The Westin is in the Princeville area of Kauai. That is on the north shore of the island about 30 miles form Lihue and the airport. It is gorgeous here.

One of the first things we did, was to look up the house where Pat and I and several members of her family stayed in 2003. For documentation, the address was: 3948 Anini Rd (map). As the crow flies, it is less than 1 mile from our location. That house was right on the beach. It looks like the place is a bit run-down since we stayed there, but it sure brought back good memories.

Monday (3/30) we drove down the west coast and along the south coast and then turned onto the Waimea Canyon road. This road leads up to several overlooks that give a great view of a huge majestic canyon (see photos). This canyon is not as big as the Grand Canyon, but it is spectacular. The road then leads up to the Kalalu Lookout (see photo). This gives a great view of a steep drop-off into the Na Pali coast region of the island. The Na Pali area is remote and can not be accessed by car.

I will end the travelogue here. We are supposedly headed home on a 10:00PM flight. Only problem is, Denver is expected to get about a foot of snow and there is a possibility that they will have to cancel the flight.

We will finish up the final travelogue in the airport and on the plane and publish it when we get home.

2003 Rental House on North Shore

Pat at Waimea Canyon

Falls at Waimea Canyon

Kalalu Lookout looking down on Na Pali