My Life Blog

As of about 6:30am today, we are back in Dallas.  And now the long process of reintegrating with a non-vacationing society must begin.  Suffice it to say that we aren’t as excited about this prospect as we were with beginning the trip.  But before the reintegration, a review of the last few days.

After Tuesday’s ass-kicking hike, we pretty much went for maximum laziness and relaxation.  Thus we perfected the formula of getting up late, going to the beach for a few hours, and doing little else the rest of the day.  On Wednesday, we went to Poipu Beach and read our books in the shade.  On Thursday, we started at Gillin’s Beach, but because of mosquitos we moved back to Poipu Beach.

Beach stories really aren’t that interesting, so let me throw out a couple of notes:

• One of the many chickens wandering the beach was suddenly thrust into a life-or-death situation.  A black lab came out of nowhere and methodically chased a rooster down.  After the chase was over, the rooster was clutched in the dog’s mouth and the dog made a direct path off-beach to a residence.  It was a surreal experience and we couldn’t quite figure out if the dog was trained to make these quick strikes.

• In our first south-side beach session, a young Hawaiian came up on a Razor Scooter.  "Are you enjoying the beach?" he asked.  And it went from there with the questions.  We found out more incongruent things about this guy in 10 minutes than we thought we should have.  And we were peppered with crazy questions.  So we now have a new inside joke which involves asking each other random questions like we were that day.  The classic question that we started with was, "have you ever eaten an avocado?"  Don’t ask me why.  Since, we’ve been trying to invent crazy, out-of-place questions to surprise each other when we go in way-too-talkative-incongruent-over-asking-Hawaiian mode.

• We had dinner on Thursday night at the Beach House which is a must-go-to if you are staying on the south side.  Get there in time for the sunset as we did not do, but have done in the past.  The food was excellent.

• I cannot recall if I mentioned this previously, but we bought a garlic shrimp mixed plate off of a truck one day.  It was fantastic.  Our advice is to take the trucks seriously as they generally have great food.  This is how one of our favorites, Tropical Taco, got its start.

And now to the reintegrating.  Toward the end of each trip, I desperately try to search my brain for a way to extend the trip or to make the time between trips less.  I come back full of ideas that are going to deliver me from the daily toil of my day job.  And so for the first 30-60 days, I’m plotting and scheming.  It will be no different this time.  I’ll let you know how it goes, but most of the time, I’m beaten back into submission.

Otherwise, the cat is happy to see us.  While we were gone, the winter coat apparently was deemed not necessary, so there is cat hair everywhere.  Unfortunately for me, this brings my allergies back full-on after the pure oxygen respite of Kauai. 

So I guess that’s the trip review for now.  Now onto other topics much less exciting and extravagant.  Perhaps we’ll start with the Dallas Mavericks!

On top of Na Pali
Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

Today we thought we’d get our feet wet with hiking by taking a guided hike over the Honopu Ridge which offers a spectacular view of the Honopu Valley.

After it was all said and done, we got our feet wet along with everything we were wearing, carrying or covering up. But more on this later.

I should start by saying that we are in pretty good shape as a couple and so we thought we could handle a “beginning hike.” Wow! We vastly underestimated the effort, courage, and drive that it required to complete this hike. But we survived and are living to tell about it here.

First of all, the hike sounded easy enough; 2 miles each way, 1000 feet of elevation change, and 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours each way. However, the complications began early when it was realized that recent rains had made for treacherous footing. Both Suzanne and I had early flat-on-your-back falls in the mud.

When we weren’t on the ground, we were straining to find solid footing by seeking out roots, grass, or tree limbs to grab onto. In some cases, a combination was necessary to keep us upright. And this wasn’t on level ground. In some cases, there were escalator-like angles downward. It was mostly downhill on the way out to the ridge, so this continued for most of 4 hours.

A mixture of new-growth and died-back ferns lined the path in stretches. In some cases, there were fern tunnels to be navigated through. If that weren’t enough, there were many times where downed trees blocked our path and had to be straddled. This may not sound challenging if taken one at a time, but the aggregate toll on our bodies was considerable.

The first part of the hike is through the forrest as you make your way to the ridge. However, I started to wonder if and when we’d ever see the ridge. It seemed like we had already walked forever before the first view of the valley was upon us. And we were a bit disheartened when the view was shrouded in low-lying clouds. Fortunately, there were periods where the clouds would thin out and offer us better views of the valley.

We finally made it near the end of the ridge and had lunch on top of Na Pali. Our tour guide had thoughtfully purchased us some mixed plate lunches and we had a similar view to the one in the picture. That view actually allowed us to see down the Na Pali Coast to Ke’e Beach. This was a one-in-a-lifetime experience for us.

As we were eating our last bites of lunch, the rains came. We had been sprinkled on during our approach, but this rain was harder and longer-lasting. We decided to turn back and though the rain quit briefly, it proceeded to rain the entire way back out.

The way back out was uphill and with the rain it was completely muddy. As mentioned previously, everything we were wearing or carrying eventually became totally soaked. Suzanne and I both agreed that we couldn’t remember ever being so miserable. Pouring rain, mud, a two-hour uphill struggle out of the forrest. Yuck.

Note that we did make it out in 2 hours as opposed to the 4 hours getting in. All I can say is that we wanted to get out of there. I cannot put into words how miserable it was. On my part, my muscles were already fatigued from the hike in. You have to keep every muscle ready to catch your fall, so there were few moments to relax. Every step was stressful. And toward the end, my boots were covered in mud and every step took that much more effort.

I learned a lot about Suzanne today, though. Wow…what a trooper! She seemed to hold up better than I did. I was fit to be tied toward the end and downright grumpy. She was miserable, but wasn’t outwardly so as I was. I feel great to have learned how strong my wife is!

So at the end of the hike, we piled into our car and made the drive down to Waimea. We were rain-soaked and looking forward to the pizza that we had planned to get at the end of the day. We looked like absolute hell, but they still served us. Too tired and dirty to eat the pizza there, we brought it home to eat. Our first priority was to take a shower and get clean if that were possible.

So that’s the review on hiking. We each believe that we were just dealt a very bad day for a first hiking experience. But rain has been a recurring theme on this trip. A drier day would probably have made for a blog post focusing on scenery rather than misery.

Timing and bad weather have enabled me to see much of the Mavs-Spurs series and so today I was lucky enough to see the second half of Game 7.  It seems the only time my blood pressure has really elevated on this vacation, its been during one of these games.  What a series!

I am very proud of the Mavericks for winning this one.  I felt like they were the better team throughout the series and said so even after the Game 1 loss. 

Many may not know this, but my home town is San Antonio and the Spurs were my first NBA team.  I grew up with George Gervin, Larry Kenon, Louis Dampier, and James Silas as my basketball idols.  But after moving to Dallas in 1986, my allegiance quickly changed.  Trouble is, short of one or two of the Tarpley years, I’ve consistently been upside-down on the exchange.  And to make matters worse, I family still in SA that remind me every year.  I’ve never enjoyed any of the SA championships as they didn’t come under my watch.  So now, maybe its Dallas’ turn.

I truly believe the best team won this series and maybe I’m a homer for making this next point.  Tim Duncan gets every call and believes he’s never committed a foul or traveled.  He’s an amazing talent, for sure.  But man, he gets all the calls from what I can tell.  Our guys, Dampier and Diop, looked to me like they were playing good defense, but Duncan would run over them and draw a foul.  It was amazing to watch. 

When my SA family used to complain from time-to-time about SA not getting the calls during a game, I always figured that they had a point.  SA is a small-market team and conspiracy theorists would have you believe that they weren’t the NBA’s pick to advance.  But what I think now is that they were used to getting all the calls and lost the games that somehow got called fairly.  My family will surely disagree with this, but there are film highlights and boxscores with overwhelming foul advantages for SA as evidence.

I’m getting off track here, just wanted to say that I’m glad the Mavericks gutted it up and won.  Game 7 was incredible.  This series was incredible.  Now let’s see what happens next in the Dallas playoff run. 

Baby Beach
Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

Today was a transitional day for us as we had to check out of our vacation rental on the north side and make our way to the south side. So we were up and on the move before 10am.

That’s not really a stretch for us as we always seems to get up early. We seem to go to bed at 10pm and get at least a full 10 hours of sleep. For me, that’s huge as I wander the Earth always in a sleep-deprived state — getting 6-7 hours most nights.

We had breakfast at the Wake-Up Cafe which was recommended in our Ultimate Kauai Guidebook, but probably cannot be recommended by us. Aside from the potential charm of the location, it offered very little. The food was okay, but over-priced. The service could almost be described as grumpy. We may have hit them on a bad day as they appeared to be without a hostess to smooth things out at the doorway. Our recommendation goes to the bakery back in the Ching Young Shopping Center which offers better food at cheaper prices and we at least got smiles.

We then made our way through Kapa’a and thought we’d finally pull over at the Weekend Fair that we had passed by a time or two on past trips. It turned out to be quite underwhelming, so we didn’t stay too long. Maybe this is a truism of most souvenirs, but I definitely felt like those that were available there were sitting at their max value. In other words, we weren’t impressed with anything.

We later made our first stop this trip at a Lappert’s to get ice cream. We browsed around Koloa town before going to the Big Save for groceries.

Since we still had an hour before we could check into our new place, we wasted it at Brenneck’s Beach where we saw a Monk Seal bathing by himself. Here, they rope them off like a crime scene so that people will keep their distance. It was cool to see the Monk Seal, but you could almost hardly tell if it were still alive as it rarely moved.

Thereafter, we checked into our place and settled into Baby Beach for the rest of the afternoon. Baby Beach is within walking distance from our rental and is quite picturesque. I love the view which serves as this entry’s highlight.

Me on the beach…
Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

Or should I say “sand!” We had a full day of sun and thus a full day on the beach. So now I know it pays to broadcast our plight to the blogosphere in hopes for positive changes. It certainly worked in this case.

We split our day between Tunnels Beach and Ke’e Beach with lunch in between. I really enjoy both beaches, so I was glad the rain ceased somewhat. We did duck the occasional shower while out, but those were nothing like the full deluges that we’ve been having.

Ke’e Beach is such a nice beach. It marks (to me) the beginning of the Na Pali coast line and has quite a dramatic backdrop. It has a reef 100 yards off the beach, so it provides a gentle area for swimming. There is an area at the mouth of the beach which is fantastic for swimming.

We closed our day by eating at the Bali Hai restaurant in Princeville. The view was amazing and we were lucky to have been sat a table previously vacated by some folks that we think objected to the gusty winds. For us, it was fine.

We check out of our north side house tomorrow morning and head to the south side where we anticipate much more sun. If I begin to complain about rain again, you will know that it just wasn’t our time on the island. But we’ll see.

Also, our full-time connectivity will probably come to an end unless this house is in Wi-Fi range. That wasn’t the case last year, so we’ll probably be heading to the coffee house if we feel like there are pictures to be posted or words to be shared.

  Kauai Rain 
  Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

Its really a good thing that the two of us are mostly just happy to be away from Dallas and happy to be in Kauai no matter what the circumstances. 
A couple of days ago, I started to suggest that our trip was off to a sputtering start, as we had early and consistent rain and I had to make a trip to an island medical center.  But now I’m sure of it.

Of the seven days we’ve been here, we’ve had pretty consistent rain or beach-denying cloudiness for five days.  The one excellent day was a down day for me at the medical clinic.

As the picture suggests, its raining again today.  That picture was taken an hour or two ago and the view outside our windows has hardly changed.

But this is why we plan long vacations.  We have another six full days and one partial day to get our fix of the beach.  For a lot of people, that’s their full vacation, so we are not complaining and consider ourselves lucky. 

We also know that when we transition to the south side, the odds will be much greater in our favor for having sun-filled days.  Whereas we might have wasted them in vacations past, I’m sure we’ll be out for much longer stays in the days to come.

As you might also have surmised, this rental house is connected.  Thank goodness for that!  The combination of the connectivity and the weather have enabled me to keep my pics and blog constantly updated.  Unfortunately, both could be more exciting to be sure.

Again, we’re not complaining, we’re off work, we’re in Kauai, and its beautiful here.  But its also very wet too!

  Rock formations at Secret Beach 
  Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

We decided to try Plan A from Wednesday on Thursday and enjoyed some success this time.  We had nice sun for the early part of Wednesday and drove to Secret Beach.

Once there, we easily made the 10 minute hike down to the beach.  It was mostly shaded and we either used roots or man-made steps to ease the straight-down hike to the beach. 

When we hit the sand, we decided to take a left toward the Secret Lava Pools, but did not walk all the way there.  Instead, we walked a quarter of the way there and decided to camp out on the beach.  It took us a while to settle down because the beach was so dramatic.  The waves were quite large and mesmerizing. 

To our right was a nice long-range view of the Kilauea Lighthouse perched on top of a peninsula.  We spent a couple of hours there really relaxing and enjoying some rare beach time.

The way out wasn’t so enjoyable as it was practically straight up!  Downhills equals uphills is the formula I used to use when jogging a lap around a block.  We certainly paid the piper on the way out.  But it was more than worth it.

On a side note, my sinusitus case has all but cleared up.  I was feeling 100% better the day after my unexpected trip to the doctor (Tuesday).  So we were only slowed down on Tuesday, though unfortunately, that was a great sun day that we missed.

It is well-known that the north side of the island of Kauai gets more rain, but we are getting it almost every day.  This has made it somewhat challenging to get sustained sunshine on any of the northern beaches.  As such, we’ve become good at planning at switching to a Plan B.

On Wednesday, we set out to explore Secret Beach, but as soon as we arrived to the entry point, a big rain started.  Thankfully, we hadn’t taken the 10-15 minute hike in which would have been dreadful to walk out of in the rain.  So we wandered down to Moloa’a, but the same clouds and rain persisted.  So we set in motion Plan B.

Plan B involved driving along the east part of the island through Kapa’a and down into Lihue.  Once there, we decided to visit Hilo Hattie’s to supplement our souvenir and fashion collections for the trip.  I bought a couple of nice Hawaiian shirts earmarked for future evening events on our trip.  I also bought a couple of workout tank-tops which need to be worn out as I look at pictures of myself from this trip.   We bought a few Kauai calendars for ourselves and our immediate family.  Suzanne bought a few notecards and some comfy (she says) pajamas.

We ventured on to Nawiliwili Harbor where we once again dined at Duke’s.  We generally go to Duke’s a couple of times a trip since we love the view.  However, we didn’t anticipate our second visit to come so soon.  After buying a couple of more things we made our way back north to our house.

We experienced our first real episode of nastiness from a local on Wednesday.  As we made our way back, we had to go through Kapa’a at "rush hour".  While its not a Dallas rush hour, there are still plenty of cars and it will slow you down considerably.  At one point, I got trapped in a turn lane and a local ensured that I would not be able to get back over.  This caused us to have to turn into a shopping center and fall into a long line of cars trying to get out.  This added about 15 minutes to our trip.

We have heard various stories about ill will toward tourists, but had never experienced it.  I guess I can understand it to some degree, but it seems to me that Kauai lives off the tourist industry either directly or indirectly.  Even if you don’t provide service directly to a touris, you probably provide service to a business that provides services to tourists directly.  It was probably an isolated case, but it had never happened to us.

Though not a beach day, it was a good day, all in all.

  Kayaking Hanalei River 
  Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

On Monday, our second full day, we had planned to kayak the Hanalei River.  We chose this river for our first ever kayaking experience because it was very calm and because we could go on a self-guided tour.  Despite being beginners, we just like to be on our own schedule.

We chose to kayak in a "double" which means its a two-seater.  We put Suzanne up front and the "power" (me) in the back.  After a quick Q&A with the guide on the dock, we were put in.

To get to the river, we had to navigate a narrow, mildly-winding channel.  The funny thing is that this was probably the most challenging part of the whole experience!  Only a few feet into our journey, the channel begins a gentle bend to the right.  The trouble is, there were sizable sticks pointing a foot or two out from the left-hand bank.  It reminded me of a medieval guantlet.  Any mistake we made would be punished by a brush against these spears.  Fortunately, it looked worse than it was.

The second small challenge was getting out of the channel and into the river.  There’s a sandbar in between and we had to use the paddles to shove ourselves into the river.  If we had been a single, perhaps this would have been easier.

Once in the river, it took us a bit to get our rhythm.  We crab-walked for a while; making good progress for a while, then over-steering one way or another.  After a while, we seemed to know when we needed to make our corrections and we were able to get moving pretty nicely.  Though the stream was calm, we were going upstream initially, so we had to keep paddling or we would lose momentum to the stream’s current.

To be honest, the sight-seeing wasn’t that great.  The problem was that the river level was at least five feet below the bank.  So it was difficult to see beyond the river.  We could only see what lined the river and while it was quite beautiful, there wasn’t much variety.

If there were sights to be seen, they were hard for us to capture on film.  We conservatively stowed the cameras away in dry bags, so the challenge was to fetch the camera while the sight to be captured was still in a capturable state.  There were a couple of times when a picture didn’t get taken because of these factors.  So this is why there aren’t many pics from the kayaking trip.

We didn’t find the paddling too challenging.  It was represented that the route we took was to take 1.5 hours each way.  However, we made  the entire trip (there and back) in roughly 1.5 hours.  And we took it pretty easy on the way back since the current did most of the work.

The downside to the trip is that Suzanne tweaked a muscle in her upper back and neck area.  Its one of those injuries that restricts your motion, so she was disappointed.  Otherwise, we each are not sore, so there are no lasting effects.  We both avoided blisters between our thumb and index fingers as we detected them developing and modified our rowing style.

So in short, it was definitely worth doing, but kind of an underwhelming experience.  Its possible we chose the wrong river within Kauai and that would have made all the difference.  As we discussed this, we both concluded that the experience was much better than sitting at an office in Dallas…even with an injury involved.

  Beach to our left 
  Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

Unlike other tropical places, Kauai offers you all the space you could ever want on many of its beaches.  This is a picture of the beach we visited on Monday.  As you can see, no one to be seen.  I have a picture in the other direction; same thing, no one to be seen.  Sweet.

Twenty years ago when I visited Oahu, there was barely a few inches between people on the beach.  Of course, that’s my perspective as a guy who already has his girl.  In my single guy days, these beaches would really suck.