Kaua’i, January 22, 2022

Today was an exploration of the south shore of the island along with exploration of the Waimea Canyon and Kōke’e State Park.  Weather reports were that our side of the island (the north side) would be rainy until the afternoon and that the south side of the island would be in the sunshine all day long.  There were two flaws in my plan.  First, while to get to Waimea Canyon and Kōke’e park you have to drive all the way to the south end of the island, then one must turn inland and drive north, back into the rainy, and cloudy, part of the island. Note on the map below that when we reached the Pu’u O Kila lookout we were actually much closer to our condo in Princeville than we were to the south shore of Kaua’i.  The second flaw in my day plan was that I believed the weather prognosticators.  It was raining everywhere on the island.

We started our trip with a stop at a bakery for some coffee and a crumpet...I was looking for a malasada.  They did not have that, so I settled for a bacon twist (bacon intwined in a cinnamon stick).  We then continued our trip to the Pu’u O Kila Lookout where I took a picture of the inside of a cloud and a very faint rainbow.  

Driving back down the mountain we, at last, came out into the sun.  We drove to Kekaha Beach to watch the surfers.  There were probably 50 young people sitting out on their boards waiting for that right wave to come along.  It was a lot of fun

Driving through Waimea, we stopped at the Russian Fort Elizabeth.  It is a lava rock enclosure built to protect Russian trading concessions.  Interesting fact, at one time the King of Kaua'i, Kaumuali'i, offered his island kingdom to the Russian Tzar in exchange for protection from Kamehameha, who was in the process of unifying the islands which included making human sacrifice of the individual island kings.  This is also where Captain Cook made is first landfall on the Hawai'ian islands.

Finally we headed to a restaurant that was recommended to us by friends who have a timeshare here on Kaua’i, the Beach House.  This restaurant is known for great seafood and a “Chamber of Commerce” sunset.  The restaurant lived up to its reputation.

This trip is a seven week celebration of our 50th anniversary.  Our anniversary is coming up this February but it’s not our fiftieth, it’s our fifty-first.  In reality we spent our 50th anniversary at home by ourselves, unable to go anywhere because of COVID.  The Boathouse fit in well with our celebratory plan.