McKenna’s Blog

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ve seen some images that show things “island style.”  Today is our return-travel day, so we’re headed home.  We were returning the Toyota when Kathy spotted an unusual roof ornament on one of the cars at Island Cars.  Yes, that’s a black lab on top of the white car.  When we asked about the dog, we were told why he’s on top of the car, which, by the way, has a dent about the size of his body in the roof.  The answer was, “He just doesn’t like to be left out.”  Sure, why not?  It is, after all, island style.

Now, about those TSA agents. . . .  How many does it take to check a bag?  Based on what we saw this morning, the answer is four.  One to scan and call “bag check!”  Another to do the “bag check,” whatever that is.  A third to check the “bag checker.”  And a fourth, whom I can only assume to be a supervisor, who coordinates the actions for said “bag check.”

Okay, it’s not quite doom and gloom, but it is our last day, so it feels like doom and gloom.  For the most part, it was a cloudy day with rain showers intermixed with. . .yup, gloom.  Today it was time to wrap up loose ends, take that last long walk on the beach, and, oh yeah, do laundry.  In honor of going home, here are a few sunset shots.

On the bright side, we got our lithographs back, the new frames look great!  We had a great walk, no rain, just a few sprinkles.  The Toyota rental from Island Cars survived until the last day.  But, once again, I was mistaken for a local.  We were running a couple of errands.  The right front tire on the car was low, so we stopped at a gas station for air.  Another car, a rather nice one, in fact, pulled up to the air pump ahead of me.  The driver complained to me about having to add air to a tire on a rental.

I considered playing the poor local part for a few seconds, but dropped the thought for something better.  When I replied that I, too, was driving a rental, he did a double-take.  After all, he’s probably never seen a rental with so many dents, dings and loose parts.  Ah well, if you take away the dents, the dings, the loose parts, the missing radio, the dash lights that don’t work, and the spare plastic piece laying in the trunk you’ll have a late-model Toyota—with a lot of stuff missing.

Sung to the tune of “Singin’ in the Rain”:

I’m grilling in the rain,
Just grilling in the rain,
What a glorious feelin’
My salmon is done.

And I wasn’t even too wet, thanks to an umbrella and a cheering section—they’re shown in the photos here.  About halfway through my wet-n-wild barbeque session, a guy on the third floor yelled down, “Do those work?”

Nah, I’m cooking this fish on a cold, wet grill.  Of course, when I was done, the guy wanted to use my preheated, cleaned-off grill.  Guess it worked.

So that was the ending for the day, here’s what happened earlier.

We went body boarding in the morning.  Kathy caught a good ride almost immediately, another one later.  She decided to quit while she was ahead.  I, on the other hand, had the humbling experience of going under, twice.  So here’s the story.  I’m out in the water along with a kid who’s probably 4 foot tall at the most.  He’s getting pounded by waves that I’m taking chest high.  He caught some good rides, but he saw a lot of action under the water.  The waves were coming in about every ten seconds, so I caught several good rides.  With waves coming that fast, you barely get past one and there’s another.  Then came the Grand Finale.  I jumped one, saw the next big one coming my way and got ready.

I was in about three feet of water (though maybe a hundred feet out) and the wave coming at me was about four foot high.  I jumped a half second before the wave hit.  I got in front of the wave.  It pulled me forward. . .and down.  And more down.  The basic thought process at this point, “This ain’t right.”

Second thought, “Let go, dummy, and stand.  It’s like, three feet of water.”

I let go of the board, came up, stood, looked behind me and saw another one.  Oh well, go for it!

The last one was a good ride.  Of course, it took a couple of hours for all of the sea water to drain from my sinuses and my ears to clear.

Today’s forecast was for 30% chance of showers, same as yesterday.  The difference is, today started with clouds.  So, we thought, uh-oh, rain coming for sure.  Maybe, but not here.  We did our full walk and, when we got to our usual bench where we ooh and aah, eat our apples, then head home, there was a couple setting up for the day at a nearby picnic area.  He was getting ready to fish, she was still putting out the paraphenalia.  Anyway, the guy wasn’t particularly friendly, which seemed a bit unusual.  We found out why quickly.  When we finished our apples, I went to the restroom, Kathy decided to follow along and walk because the couple had a dog that whined and cried a lot.  Well, when we walked back by the bench, we saw that they’d taken over the spot where we were.  Oops, we’d inadvertantly taken their bench.  Oh well, we’d had it for a few minutes, they could have it for the rest of the day.

The rest of the day was taken up by a couple of trips to the pool and finishing off our chores (lube the windows, make a couple of minor repairs).  Originally, we’d intended to go body boarding, but opted to make it a slow day to rest up and get all the tools out of the living room.

And, it never did rain. . .here, anyway.  Someone else got our 30%.

The forecast today was for 40% chance of rain.  We had a beautiful, sunny walk and decided that today was the day to checkout one of Kauai’s waterfalls because, as they say here, “if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.”  Well, Opaeka’a Falls isn’t that far away and can be seen from the road, so everything seemed pretty safe.  We also intended to do a little exploring and find someplace we hadn’t been before on the island.

But first, about that trip to the falls.  These falls are a popular tourist destination, in fact, there are several tour bus parking places.  While we were there, we had no tour buses, but nearly every parking space was filled and there was a constant stream of visitors.  There were even two guys in white shirts and ties along with a couple of girls in actual dresses.  Talk about over-dressed!

The second photo shows the view off toward Kapaa. At this point in time, everything was clear and no 40% here.  We hit several patches of rain on our driving tour, but continued on.  We had lunch at Kealia Beach, then did our “chores”, a trip to Walmart, KMart and the grocery store.    Then, it was back to the condo and a dip in the pool.  After that, we were doing a little “cloud bathing,” when I said to Kathy, “I think it’s time to go, I’m no longer drying out, I’m getting wet.”  Yes, we were getting our 40%.   And no, I wasn’t about to wait five minutes to see if the rain stopped.

That’s right, we went to Mt. Wailaleale, the wettest place on earth.  The mountain receives an average of 426 inches of rain each year and we knew that if we didn’t get to the top early in the day, we’d be fogged in.  So, we made a beeline to the top of the mountain.  The trip up went smoothly and we arrived around 10:30 or so and went straight to the lookout where we could see. . .nothing.  We were fogged in already on the makai side (ocean side) and the only view was gray.  From past experience, we knew that the view wasn’t going to get better, so we took a few pictures (north, south and east) and headed back to the visitor center.

We had lunch, met a few chicks, who really seemed to like their lunch “on ice,” then headed back down.  We made a couple of other stops along the way, got a few photos, then made stops in Hanapepe (“The Biggest Little Town on Kauai”) and at the Kauai Coffee Plantation.  You’ll find the photos below, just click on any of them to see a bigger version.