Tuesday December 29th

The day started out with great promise.  We were up before dawn, packed all our hiking gear, had breakfast, and were on the road by 7:30 to head to the canyon for a day of hiking.  It was a beautiful sunny morning, with puffy clouds off in the distance.  We'd picked Tuesday for the big "hike to the world's highest swamp" day due to it having the best looking forecast for the entire trip.  (I had been checking the forecast constantly for weather all over the island)  After about 45 minutes of flat highway, we began the slow 17 mile switchback drive up the mountains.  Then we saw the clouds rolling in, and thought maybe they would burn off or pass over.  About halfway up we realized we were now inside the clouds.  Every viewpoint was entirely socked in.  At the end of the road, at the highest viewpoint, we found the trail head.

We wandered around the "view" point debating about what to do.  We came prepared enough, with rain jackets and full hiking boots and poles and everything, but the trail conditions were - quite honestly - shit.  (Red dirt slick shit, to be exact)  Even with boots, we were sliding on the flat part.  Even if the clouds did clear for a view (which they never did) the first mile of the trail is not only red dirt slick shit, but it is steep red dirt slick shit, which given my "light" pack of 20 pounds of camera gear, is just a huge recipe for injury-so-bad-your-trip-is-ruined.  As we discussed our plan, we saw a hiker hit the trail holding those ice-pick looking shoe attachments (you know the kind... for climbing up the sides of icy mountains)  In his experience, they were necessary to get through this trail in wet conditions. We briefly thought about trying it another day, but the drive up and back amounts to over 3 hours of time, which I don't want to waste again, so we abandoned my planned hike.  *sigh*  With a promise that we shall attempt it sometime when we visit in the summer season.

Plus, there are plenty of hikes to be had on our side of the island, which is not only a shorter drive, but better trail conditions, so we might fit one of those in.

We made the most of what would have been our hiking time by driving back down the mountain and heading into the town of Koloa, stopping at a viewpoint along the way.

(G asked me to get this shot of her)

We were hungry for lunch, so we stopped into Pizzetta, an Italian place that smelled delicious.  They did not dissapoint.

Their mozzarella sticks consist of cheese folded into pizza dough and baked.  It's like deconstructed-reconstructed pizza.

Mele Kalikimaka, here is your pizza!

After lunch we visited a few shops, picking up a couple of Crazy Shirts (which are great quality and so comfortable!) and a couple bottles of wine from a wine shop.  The shopping area is surrounded by these huge monkeypod trees, so I spent a little time getting pictures of their canopy.

From Koloa, we headed south to Poipu Beach.  We'd brought along our bathing suits and towells, just in case we found the time and water to play in, and Poipu looked like an ideal spot to take a dip.  This is a very popular beach, given the size, the location on the "sunny end" of the island, and the relative protection from the open ocean.  I hear the snorkeling is great here, but we only had bathing suits, not our snorkel gear, so we just played in the waves for a bit.

I'm smiling through my panic.  I was honestly freaked out and clinging to D for dear life.  (Yes, people were able to walk just a few feet behind us, but it gets deep quick.  And I'm short.  And OCEAN.)

This is what I was looking at.  OCEAN.  BIG MOVING OCEAN.

We headed back to the room where G and I spent a bit of time in the pool, then hot tub, then we came in to clean up and get ready for dinner.  By that time, the locksmith had shown up.  

There are several cupboards in our condo with locks on them.  We presumed the property manager was using them for storage of cleaning supplies, so we asked if there would be room for us to store things (like beach towels, etc..) in one of the drawers so that we wouldn't have to lug so much stuff back and forth from the mainland.  It turns out that the property manager thought we were using the cupboards, as they weren't using any.  So all the locked drawers, cupboards, and closets are available to us for our own storage between visits!  However nobody seemed to have any keys.  Hence, the locksmith.

The locksmith took about an hour to change out all the necessary locks, and at that point we were unable to get a table at Sushi Bushido.  We drove into Kapa'a and checked out a few restaurants... one was a lounge with a very loungey vibe, loud live music, and only big loungey chairs to sit in... another was a fish market with a counter where you could order food, but all the tables were taken up.  We took a table at one place, but discovered the menu was far more limited than we'd thought it would be (leaving me and my allergies with very little option) so we went to Olympic Cafe.  Olympic was our favorite place for breakfast on the last trip, and does have a terrific breakfast, but while their dinner menu is Cheesecake-factory-huge... their food quality for dinner is really lacking.

 

The Mai Tai was pretty good.

G being a teenager.  "No pictures Mom"

This was my blackened ahi/shoe leather, along with the waffle fries.  I had subbed fries for the mashed potatoes, my plate originally came out with mashed potatoes, when I pointed out the error, they took my plate back, scraped off the mashed potatoes, and put the fries on.  I absolutely hate it when restaurants do that - I sub my orders due to my allergies (a lot of times restaurants put chicken stock in mashed potatoes, so I never order them) so when they goof up, the plate is contaminated. In this instance, their potatoes only have garlic and butter in them so I didn't have an allergy concern, but "scrape and send the somewhat dirty plate back out" is poor form and shows a lack of care for the food they are serving. I'm only posting a photo so that I remember not to go here for dinner again.

But honestly, we've always enjoyed their breakfasts (though keep in mind, I only ever order oatmeal.  G seems to love their pancakes, so I guess one could say they do simple food well.)

So the day was bookended with some disappointment, but it's all in paradise so no big whoop, right?