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Published: March 11th 2007
3/11---Woke up early again (is this really possible??). I like to watch t.v. for a couple of hours in the morning, but by 8 or 8:30 Jeff is antsy to get out and get to exploring. Today is our Waimea Canyon day. We left at 9 a.m. and took a detour through Kaloa so that we could get coffee at Leippert’s (that’s where I had ice cream and Jeff had coffee the day before). Then we headed to Hanapepe, which was on the way to Waimea. Hanapepe is unremarkable and we only stopped there to cross the swinging bridge (as advertised in our guidebook) that is suspended over the river that dumps into the Hanapepe Bay. It was fun, but anticlimactic. I had to take a leak so we found this public park with ratty restrooms. The restroom only allowed for one person at a time, but the guy in the men’s restroom hadn’t locked the door. So, Jeff got to walk in and see some dude taking a crap. We attempted to gas up in Hanapepe but found two gas stations closed and one that wasn’t allowing in any cars because they were pressure washing the curbs. Sundays are
a weird place here. Lots of places are closed or partly closed. Anyway, we were able to get gas in Waimea. Since we knew we had a 40-mile drive (round trip) we decided to eat lunch at the brewery in Waimea. It was cheap and good and they made a delicious wheat beer---there were roosters and a cat lounging on the deck outside. Afterwards, we headed up Hwy 550 to view the canyon’s lookout points. It wasn’t as scary as I was expecting. We went from sea level to 4500 feet elevation all in an afternoon’s drive. The last lookout point on the road (Pu’u o Kila) was closed, but we did get a ton of pictures. The weather was mostly cloudy, which made for some really terrific light-play in the canyon for our photos. On the way back, we stopped at the Koke’e Lodge & Museum and bought some souvenirs. We took Hwy 552 back to Hwy 50 and just into Kekaha where Jeff let me stop at a cemetery to take some pictures. I’d been ogling at the cemeteries the whole time that we’ve been on the island. The stones or crosses are simple, in some cases the
Cluckers at the Brewery
OMG, these cluckers are EVERYwhere. They're even fraternizing with the local cats.deceased’s name is written with a Sharpie or with sticker letters, but are so colorfully decorated with fresh plants and flowers. I spent a good 20+ minutes wandering around taking photos and visiting with the dead. Some stones were just random shapes (not cut or polished) and had Japanese (I’m assuming) characters on them. It was really cool. We headed back to Hanapepe and visited the Salt Pond Beach, which is my favorite beach so far. I took a LOT of pictures. What was so cool about it was this old lava shelf perfectly placed for the tide to spill up over at varying degrees. In effect, it made several pools between the big, bad waves and the beach---some were small some were large and there were seawater rivers running everywhere. The tidal waves create trickles and sometimes huge waterfalls of water which keep the pools filled up. I remarked to Jeff that it was the perfect beach for kids or grownups who play like kids, in our case. Since we’re both sunburnt, we really couldn’t get in and enjoy to the fullest but we did our share of wading and picture snapping. Before leaving Hanapepe, we stopped at one
Clucker Extravaganza
Seriously, I'm not even kidding. last beach, called “Glass Beach” where so many millions of tiny pieces of broken glass populate the beach that is literally IS the sand. It is a small beach and the surrounding area isn’t very aesthetic, but beach is so shimmeryand sparkly that it’s really not to be missed. We stopped at the Kaua’i Coffee Visitor Center on our way back and picked up some souvies. Jeff bought me a super cute t-shirt. We headed back to Kapa’a and ate a decent dinner at the Olympic Café. We’re going to lounge for the rest of tonight.
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