Sorry for the not posting lately...the internet connection in the condo was not good so...anyway, here is Thursday

Kauai - Thursday

Wow!! Today was busy, we saw a ton of stuff on the West Shore of Kauai and up in Waimea Canyon. Here’s a quick run through of the day…

We started the day with a trip to Christy’s favorite spot in the mainland…Walmart!! Had to stop there and get some Benadryl for those nasty mosquito bites. We ended up spending a little time there looking at novelties and I bought me a sweet Hawaiian shirt!! From Walmart we headed to the West Shore.

Our first stop was JoJo’s Shave Ice. JoJo’s was highly recommended by the book we are living by here in Kauai (The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook) and we wanted to go there because…well…it was JoJo’s. JoJo’s was a cool little hole in the wall with GREAT shave ice (with Macadamia Nut Ice Cream underneath it). It was so good. The guy that served us had no shirt and board shorts on…only in Hawaii!!

After walking around for a little we headed up to Waimea Canyon. The drive up was very pretty. The West side of the island is the “dry side”. It is SO different from the side we are staying on and have stayed on for the first few days. It is not humid but very dry (hence the description "the dry side"!). The grass is all dead and yellow, and the dirt is RED. It looks a little like Oklahoma! Start up the mountain and things begin to change. We drove up the mountain for 15-20 minutes and it looked like we were in the middle of Colorado. We traveled all the way to the top of the mountain to the Puu o Kila Lookout. This lookout was from the top of the mountain out to the Na Pali coast. The Na Pali coast can only be seen by boat or air or from this lookout – there are no roads to it. It was so awesome!! Unfortunately, there were clouds rolling in so the pictures didn’t turn out great. Here are a few pics from that lookout.

With the clouds!! Pretty huh?!

Less clouds.

Even less clouds...the pictures again don't do it justice.

From there we worked our way down the mountain to several different lookouts including quite a few for the Waimea Canyon. This place was UNREAL. I can’t begin to explain how incredible this Canyon is…you just wonder at it’s beauty. From the main lookout you can see this BEAUTIFUL double waterfall (the one from Fantasy Island!) but I think the little off the road lookouts were even more spectacular. Here are a few of Waimea.

Almost as pretty as Palo Duro Canyon!!

Incredible!

Check out this cool waterfall!

We also saw a family of mountain goats from one of the off the road lookouts. Here’s the Billy!

The drive back down the mountain was also incredible. The views of the Ocean coming down were…well…they were incredible. No pictures!! You’ll just have to trust me on this one.

After a quick lunch (great Calzone at a little hole in the wall), we went to a few other sites on the West side. We went to 1 beach where the sand is a real dark green. This is where the Waimea River runs into the ocean….it’s real cool to watch. The sand there has olivine (green) and black flecks of lava in it to make it dark green. Very pretty but not good for swimming or playing on the beach.

Green Beach

We then headed over to Pekala Beach.

Pekala beach again is not for swimming and there were only a dozen or so people there...mostly surfers…well all surfers accept for us. This is a beach known for it’s surfing but not good for swimming or snorkeling. You get to it by parking along the highway, going through this fence then along a “pig trail” for a couple of hundred yards. Then down the beach and past the wall that says “private property”! All beaches in Kauai are public but sometimes you have to cross private property to get to them. We spent a little while at Pekala watching surfers do their thing and kicking back on the sand. Very relaxing!!

From Pekala we went to another beach…kinda weird beach…Glass Beach. Our book says that Glass beach was created from millions of pieces of broken glass washed in from broken bottles and auto glass. Behind it is the industrial part of the west side with huge gas tanks…you have to drive down this dirt road and then you come up on it. Again, not a place to swim but the “sand” was very pretty and cool and interesting.

Glass Beach

We spent some time then at the Harbor and watched some team kayaking and surfers then headed over to Spouting Horn at sunset. Spouting Horn is pretty cool. Spouting horn is essentially a hole in the lava shelf where water from waves is forced through forcing out water…and air. This is what the “blue book” says about spouting horn. “This particular site distinguishes itself from other blowholes around Hawaii in that it has an additional hole that blows only air, causing a loud moaning and gasping sound”. That's funny...me too! It was cool. Especially at sunset. When the sun was setting, every time the hole would blow (ha!) it would create a cool rainbow. We also saw a turtle and a seal at Spouting Horn. We spent quite a while there taking pictures and just enjoying the view.

Spouting Horn

A couple of Blowholes

Check out the Rainbow

We ended the day with a sandwich and some fresh pineapple at the condo…pretty tired from the day.

Today, we didn’t do any swimming or snorkeling or zipping…just a lot of enjoying God’s beauty. It’s incredible. It reminds me of how creative our God is….he is the creator! The beauty he made is AMAZING…and as I was sitting on the rail looking out over the NaPali coast, what came to my mind was…as beautiful as this is…outstanding colors, peaceful in every way, etc, etc, the most beautiful thing God did was on an ugly mountain with no flowers…just the blood of his son. This caused me to worship today…again. God is good in every way. Thank you God for the beauty you created in nature…thank you for the love you show every day to me.