My Life Blog

We aren’t gone yet, but a recap seems in order since I haven’t written about our visit since arriving.

We had no real plans other than a few dinner reservations on a couple of nights, so its been a relaxing, low-key visit. Considering this is our fifth trip to Kauai, there aren’t too many must-see sights, so most days we’ve slept late and slowly made our way out to a beach or into town.

Ke’e Beach was as pretty as ever. After being pummeled by sand and wind on Maui beaches, it was refreshing to visit this scenic beach. It never gets old. We also visited SeaLodge Beach which you must hike into. The hike was relatively easy, but still served to reduce the number of visitors. We were two of twelve on the beach at any given time. It was a small beach, but delivered huge returns for its beauty and privacy. And today, we drove the quarter mile or so to Kepuhi Beach which is the beach we were married on, though we were probably a mile East of the exact point. Its a nice beach to read, listen to the surf, and watch the crabs do what they do.

We’ve had mixed luck with our restaurant excursions. Postcards in Hanalei was completely forgettable — extravagantly priced, but unremarkable food, lackluster service with no personality. The Mediterranean had phenomenal food, but our waiter was largely unattentive. We went to Sushi Blues last night, but didn’t think we needed reservations. As a result, we found ourselves sitting at the bar with some of the locals and listened as they told disparaging stories about the tourists they had served earlier in the day. The food was good, but the experience would have been better out on the floor. We also sprinkled in Tropical Taco (Hanalei) and Olympic Cafe (Kapa’a). The former is a favorite of mine and remains so. The latter was a new place we found and it had good food and service.

We visited the Hanalei Colony Resort Day Spa on Monday to enjoy a beach-side couples massage. It doesn’t get much better than that! The only thing disappointing about it was when it was over…and maybe when paying for it — such luxuries are never inexpensive.

When we arrived, it appeared that it had been pretty dry for a while, however since arriving its rained quite often. We are enjoying a nice shower right now and its very relaxing to hear the rain as it finds its way through the trees. We’ve also become reacquainted with Chu-Chee, the cat that considers this property home. When we first arrived, she kept her distance, but has become friendlier by the day. At this moment, she’s on her fifth hour curled up in a ball on the loveseat. She reminds us of our own kitty who is surely dearly missing us.

We have had our disappointments with the River House this year, but those have mostly to do with its management. Its still a beautiful place to stay, but there are reasons why we will probably not stay here again. If anyone is contemplating a stay at the River House, email me and I’ll tell you why this is the case. In part also, we know of more consistent alternatives, so these weigh in when all things are equal.

Still a couple of days left, so the vacation is not over just yet!

The Lookout

Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

While returning from a venture to Kapa’a to escape the rain, Suzanne made a snap decision to pull over to check out a shop as we were entering Hanalei. In a neighboring shop, we found a Kim McDonald Gallery!

We had discovered Kim’s work while dining at The Beach House on the South side of the island in our trip last year. And after returning from Kauai, we eventually bought the piece that we saw. You can see “Night Shift” here.

This year, we didn’t even make it off the island before adding to our collection. We bought the piece above to go with our previous piece. As a bonus for buying on island, we also will receive a third giclee for free.

We’re really looking forward to the arrival of these new pieces, but our private collection of Kim McDonald art is now complete. Any more than three pieces and we need to call our home one of her galleries!

We left Maui yesterday morning after a week’s stay. Suzanne and I both agreed that we didn’t fall in love with Maui as we have Kauai, but we had a good time nonetheless.

We had a few missteps along the way which may have influenced our opinion. The Road to Hana made Suzanne carsick and washed out that day. Then, two days later I began feeling poorly and really haven’t felt perfectly since. Bookending our nights were battles with the rental house’s fire alarm which seemed to go off randomly; the last time with a lasting series of piercing bursts. We grudgingly called the homeowner over to have it removed so that we didn’t have an early morning reprisal. Then, 30 minutes after this event, our car alarm goes off. This, of course, was my fault for getting the key fob wet while at the beach. That said, it was embarrassing and I’m sure the homeowner was wondering what was up with us (they live on the property as well).

So we almost felt like we were escaping Maui.

We arrived on Kauai yesterday around noon and Maui took one last swipe at us. My bag was lost for about 30 minutes as it was apparently mistakenly unloaded in Oahu, but sent soon on a later flight. A little temporary heartache, but all turned out well.

After arriving, we had lunch at Duke’s in Nawiliwili Harbor. Still one of the most perfect venues to enjoy a hamburger! We then enjoyed the wonderful drive up to the North Shore. There is just no describing one section of that drive where trees form a grand tree tunnel (see, I didn’t even try).

We gathered up groceries in Princeville before driving into the River House. We were at the River House last in mid-May in 2007. We are deeper into the Summer this year and its possible that this has something to do with what we’ve seen since we’ve been here. The water level is down considerably, so the mini-falls are not so beautiful and many of the flowers are not in bloom or just flat out gone. Its still very beautiful, of course, but last year was near perfection. We may not take so many pictures of the grounds this year, because last year’s pictures provide a better account of things.

We have worked through one complication. The refrigerator was not cooling when we arrived. This was a problem since we had just bought a load of groceries. We called the emergency numbers and they eventually brought us a large ice chest filled with ice. This got us through the night and miraculously, the refrigerator appears to be cooling this morning. My theory is that they had cleaned it out before we arrived and let all the cool air out of it and that its just an inefficient refrigerator. Needless to say, we’re being judicious with our accesses.

Today looks like a beautiful day and we’re heading to a beach. We’re just not sure which one. We are looking forward to a beach that will be less windy and a little bit more shady than the ones we enjoyed on Maui. A couple of those Maui beaches exfoliated us pretty well!

With some free time after hanging out on Ho’okipa Beach, we decided to drive south into the Upcountry town of Makaweo. Our guidebook had tipped us off that this was a Cowboy town and so we were curious to see what it looked like. Also important, it was past lunchtime and we were hungry.

We drove only a few miles from Haiku (where we’re staying) and the ride was a bit surreal. There were rolling hills and ranches! Had I been teleported to that area of Maui, I might not have guessed that I was in Maui. Of course, at various places along the road you could look back to the North and see the sea, so that might have been telling. But anyway, it felt weird.

Once there, we dropped into Polli’s Cantina — yep, Mexican food in Maui! What were we thinking?! The food was actually pretty good, although we knew we weren’t in Texas when we had to pay $2.00 for chips and salsa. In Texas, you hardly get comfortable in your seat before you have a delivery of chips and salsa (for free). Curiously, the place was jumping even though it was around 2:30 pm.

Done with our meal, we then walked the main street and stopped into the various shops along the way. Suzanne bought a couple of things along the way, while I mostly chatted with the storekeepers. Its my hobby while here to glean as much information as I can from the storekeepers while Suzanne is trying something on. She jokes that I’m never so charming as when I’m doing this. Sad, right?

We thought the town was pretty sleepy, but we were told that its off-season for them. Strangely, the travel industry claims its high season. But often, we were the only ones in each store unless a neighboring storekeeper had temporarily closed her store to make the rounds. I jokingly told Suzanne that they just must sell to each other.

The merchandise, as is the case on Maui in general, was pretty expensive and definitely meant for tourists (too dress for locals). I’m no fashion expert, but some of the clothes looked a little stale. As in, the inventory might not have turned over much for some shops. Maybe they are targeting the older tourist demographic, I don’t know. We did enjoy one shop whose inventory was completely hand-made by their family (paintings, etchings, carvings, jewelry, etc.).

All in all, it was a fun three hours after a morning on the beach. Getting more relaxed by the day.

Falls on the Road to Hana

Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

Today we woke up extra early so that we could be on the road by 8am to take on the Road to Hana. All our research indicated to us that this was a must-do with many must-see sights. We were expecting spectacular at every turn.

But that would be asking a lot since the Road to Hana has 600+ turns and 50 narrow bridges over its 32 miles. It never occurred to us and never was mentioned in our guidebook how challenging this road might be. After about mile marker 3 the turns came fast, furious, and unrelenting.

The night before our trip, we had highlighted mile markers for stops based upon what was contained in our guidebook. Unfortunately, we ran into a couple of problems with this approach. First, our guidebook was about 3 years out of date. This was enough time for the quality and availability of a sight to have changed. We found in a couple of cases that areas were no longer accessible. Secondly, in many cases we needed to track the location of the site to tenths of a mile beyond a mile marker. Well, our car didn’t have this precision. This made finding a few areas challenging.

Maui has been going through a dry spell of late, so many of the Falls are only a fraction of what they normally are. As such, the payoff was pretty low in almost every case. I do realize we’re still in Hawaii, but the expectations were really high.

What we enjoyed most was the black sand beach which was at mile marker 32. It was as advertised and we lingered there for quite a while and enjoyed lunch.

Unfortunately, if you take the Road to Hana, you must also take the Road back from Hana. So by the end of your drive, you’ve navigated 1200+ turns and over 100 narrow, often single lane bridges. Suzanne was car sick as we neared Hana and managed to beg some dramamine from a well-stocked family and while this helped for a while, she was just barely holding on at the end of the road.

So, bottom line, we don’t think we’ll ever try the Road to Hana again even if we’re here in a more favorable time. The winding roads detract too much from the enjoyment of the sights along the way. We know we’re probably in the minority, but that’s okay. Here’s hoping this balances out the reviews on the Road to Hana and saves someone a vacation day sometime down the line.

Morning Rainbow II

Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

Suzanne admonishes me often for letting significant events go by without a blog entry — things like seeing the Foo Fighters (best concert ever), putting in a backyard garden, freelancing for Google, etc. For whatever reason, it takes relaxing surroundings and something I’m really excited about to get me writing.

We arrived yesterday after a long direct flight from Dallas. The trip was mostly smooth, though our flight was delayed one hour and we were made to wait till the bitter end to get our bags — they were the last ones delivered off the plane.

Flying on American these days is not a culinary delight, so we were famished by the time we arrived. We drove the short drive to Paia and found the Paia Fish Market where we promptly spurned the fish for burgers and fries. We’re saving our fish quota for other venues. It was quite satisfying and we enjoyed a couple of Bikini Blonde Lagers, a local brew.

With daylight fading and with our own energy running low, we made our way to our cottage which was as nice as advertised. Perhaps not as fantastic as the River House on Kauai, but that bar is set unfairly high. We have a glorious view overlooking a valley with Hookipa Beach off in the distance. We can also see the larger city of Kahului across the bay.

It rained most of the night which made it easy for us to sleep through to nearly normal morning hours. We were still up at 5:45am, though. We took this picture of a dawn rainbow across the bay. What a start to our day and our trip!

I was thinking to myself there was something funny to say about last night’s Dallas vs. Buffalo football tilt.  Through all 60 minutes of the game, Dallas never led — but they won.  Yes, that’s true.  The clock hit 00:00 before Dallas obtained the winning points.

But leave it to Razor Reaugh, our local hockey TV analyst, to put the right words in place.  Recall that Dallas beat Buffalo in the Super Bowl in the 90s and beat them to win the Stanley Cup in hockey in ‘99.  The latter event is still disputed by Buffaloans as the game winning goal was scored by Brett Hull with one skate in the crease.

So Dallasites, please observe the travel advisory for travel to Buffalo…something tells me their hospitality may not be what it once was…

On the October 8th episode of Heroes we were innocently watching when a beach scene appeared before us. Well, it was none other than Bali Hai in the background and thus it was likely Tunnels Beach on Kauai. When asked where they were, the female character in the scene answered “Maui” which was incorrect.

Its okay to take poetic license, I guess, but I had to wonder why Maui was any better choice than Kauai. If this is the prevailing opinion, then let it be so, for we will be happy to have Kauai be Hawaii’s best kept secret.

Given the time between blog entries, you might think I have stowed away on that secret island. Alas, not so. Its been an interesting few months and I am overdue an update on these parts. Stay tuned.

Pearl Harbor Memorial

Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

You are made to check out of your rental home at 10am which can often leave you at loose ends on your last day. In the past, Suzanne and I have not used these days very well — you basically kill time until you leave.

Since our flight back routed through Honolulu this year, we decided to leave Kauai early and tour the Pearl Harbor Memorial during the day and return to the airport for our 7:55pm flight.

We had some initial bad luck leaving Kauai as Hawaiian Airlines was uncharacteristically late taking off. Its only a 20 minute flight, but we were around 40 minutes late. This put us on the ground on Oahu after 11pm and we were worried we would not be able to get into the Memorial. You see, they only have a few tours a day and we were told that we probably needed to get there by noon in order to get into one of them.

As luck would have it, we were able to get in with no problem. Our previous research led us to believe we’d be standing in lines — at least, that’s how we interpreted what we were reading. Instead, what happens is you get a numbered ticket upon entry. The number is for the movie showing — for instance, ours was number 21. When we arrived, they were showing 17 — each movie is about 30 minutes in length. This meant we had a bit of a wait.

However, while you wait, you can tour the museum exhibits and the gift shop. We found that the exhibits were so interesting that the time flew by. Before we knew it, our movie showing was next up and so we actually stood briefly in a line to get into the theater.

The movie is really a documentary with a lot of black and white footage (obviously). I figure its the same documentary that I saw when I visited the Memorial back in 1986. Its quite a moving story and sets the scene for a somber visitation to the Memorial itself.

At the end of the movie, everyone is escorted directly to the ferry where you are taken directly to the Memorial. You can stay as long as you like since ferries come and go quite often. The Memorial itself is quite well done. You can see all the names of the fallen soldiers as well as those who have subsequently interred there. The Arizona itself is in shallow water and in partial view from the Memorial. Oil still seeps up to the surface and disperses quickly.

After touring the Memorial, Suzanne and I made the mistake of asking a cab driver’s advice on where to go for lunch. We mentioned our preference for a view, possibly eating outside, and yet close to the airport. We clearly had trouble communicating and in the end, we were delivered to a Chinese Buffet in a run-down strip center. It was far from what we had imagined, but it was fine. We did feel like the music stopped and heads turned as we walked in. Yes, we were the only two white people in the place.

All in all, we were happy that we maximized the value of our last vacation day. It did make for a very long travel day, but since we are now back, that seems inconsequential to the experience.

Aggies at the Beach

Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

I wish I could say that I staged this, but I would not be honest in saying so. The only silver lining here is that I discovered my error before actually sitting down.