Kauai Bound - Thursday

May 22 2008


This place is noisy at night! Very little sleep. I am sure part of it was the first night in a new location. The rest was crying babies and sprinklers. Oh, and lets not forget the ever present roosters! We have got to remember to close the windows at night. We drove to Spouting Horn. It was awesome! This is a blowhole that is near Lawa'i. Water rushes under a lava shelf and bursts through a small opening at the surface. Every wave produces another spray. Supposedly the water can shoot 50 feet into the air. There is another hole nearby only blows air, making a groaning sound. Legend states that this coast was guarded by a large mo'o (lizard) who ate everyone who tried to fish or swim here. One day, a man named Liko entered the water. When the mo'o went to attack him, he swam under the lava shelf and escaped through the hole. The mo'o became stuck and was never able to get out. The groaning is the cry of hunger and pain from the lizard still trapped under the rocks. I love Hawaiian legends. There are vendors at Spounting Horn. Matt bought me a silver plumeria ring. Ahh, trinkets. We had passed a sign for a garlic shrimp truck but we couldn't find it. So we figured that we would have to come back another day to look for it. We decided to drive to the west end of the island. We stopped in Hanapepe to take pictures of the Swinging Bridge. This is an old plantation town that is now home to a lot of artists. Our next stop was Waimea. This is where Captain Cook first landed in the Hawaiian Islands. Waimea was the original capital of Kauai. We then headed toward Kekaha. This area is very desolate. We couldn't imagine going to the end of the road at Polihale so we turned around for home. I made Matt stop at Jo Jo's in Waimea for Shave Ice. I cannot believe that in all our trips we have never had Shave Ice! What boneheads. This place may have spoiled us though. I don't think any other will compare after this. We got the small Tropical Rainbow with mac nut ice cream on the bottom. The rainbow flavors were lilikoi, mango and guava. Who would have thought that this would be so good. Do yourselves a favor and do not get a small to share. Get your own!! They have a flavor called Halo Halo that intrigued me. I thought I would have to come back to try that one. Back at the condo for lunch. Made a couple of sandwiches then we hit the beach. Yes, we waited 30 minutes before swimming. The water was refreshing although there was a slight undertow. Ended up get my feet pulled out from under me and then had half the beach in my suit. Back to the room to shower. Matt went for a run because he was antsy. I walked across the street to the Poipu Shopping Center. I checked out all the shops. There is a cute store there called Sand People. They have a Crazy Shirts there also so I can stock up later. After all, what is a Hawaiian vacation without a shirt plus we didn't buy ANY in Kona. After our swim we cooked up the teriyaki burgers that we bought at the grocery store. We then had a heavy but brief rain shower. We walked down the point between rain showers and took some pics. Then we just hung out and read for a while. Off to bed for our busy day at Waimea Canyon.