Honeymoon in Paradise

Kaua’i, The Elusive Island

This was our 3rd time trying to go to Kaua’i and this time it worked! The first time was at the end of 2008, for our first anniversary (January 1st, 2009). But, that time we decided to book tickets to Oahu for some reason, thinking we’d just grab a boat or a plane to Kaua’i from there (remember we’d been years in Africa & Asia at this point, and had those backpacker habits… just wingin’ it). That didn’t work and we ended up in Oahu with no reservations at New Year’s, which was not the best idea. Then we tried again towards the end of the COVID pandemic, when sporadic lockdowns were still happening in the islands. This time, a Kaua’i resident couple broke the rules by embarking on a plane in San Francisco even though they knew they’d already tested positive for COVID. The airline found out, and when they landed in Lihue they were arrested and the island was locked down again. No Kaua’i trip for us that time either. But this time we did it right. We booked flights directly to the island, and booked our AirBnB, and booked our rental jeep, all from the safety of our homes before we left. Glad we did, ’cause even when you do plan a trip carefully, there can still be hiccups.

Day 1

Monday, December 30th, 2024. We started the trip with bad Thai food. Well, technically that was lunch, so like halfway through our day we ate the bad Thai food. We’d occupied the morning with last-minute packing, readying the house to leave, tying up loose ends, and saying goodbye to the boys. Then we drove to Seattle and had the disappointing Thai food before getting to the airport. The events of this day weren’t really notable. We got on our plane and watched movies. I tried to watch some standard American comic-book/action/sci-fi fare, but I couldn’t do it. I kept looking at previews and exiting them, starting movies and then turning them off. Then I happened across a little indie gem called “Didi”, about a Chinese-American teen in California coming of age during the summer of 2007 (the same year Chelly and I were living in Kenya). It was touching and real and powerful, and it made me nostalgic both for my own middle school years, and for that era of time when the film was set. This film was deep, and I had some heavy thoughts about life and growing up, the role of the internet in our lives, and the power of film in general. I decided that I’m not gonna waste my time watching superhero or video-game movies on the plane, but if I’m gonna watch something it better be something good and important. After that I watched Argo. This was a well-made film about a purportedly true story from history with real life and death stakes. President Jimmy Carter had passed on the day before, so this film about unsung heroism during his watch seemed topically important. It was a powerful film that worked on many levels, with suspense and tension, human drama, as well as joy and laughter. But I had some deep misgivings about the whole CIA-as-hero theme of the film. Well, at least I can say it was a more thoughtful and valuable experience for my time than watching some crass, bang-up, special effects vehicle.

We were exhausted when we arrived in Lihue airport that night. Even though it was only 8:40pm Hawaii time, it was 10:40pm for our bodies and we hadn’t had any dinner on the plane. The airport was confusing and no one told us how the baggage claim would work. Somehow we had to exit the airport, walk to the other end, and then enter again (without passing security) into another baggage claim area at the opposite end of the airport from where we’d deplaned. But, we got our bags, so I can’t complain. I will complain about the car rental, however. A month earlier we’d booked a “Jeep Patriot or similar” through EconomyBookings.com, but when we showed up at Thrifty/Dollar to pick up our ride, the keys they gave us went to a lame small-size Chevy SUV crossover thing. Not a Jeep, or even anything like a Jeep. We went back inside. The explanation from the gals at the counter was weak, and Chelly was upset. Then, after loading our bags into the back of the Chevy and taking another look at it, I said, “No.” I went back in and got us into a proper Jeep Wrangler. We had to pay a little extra–victims of an online bait-and-switch scam–but it was worth it to have our Jeep for the week and see the island in style, without complaining about the situation.

Then we drove around looking for a restaurant to get dinner. Little did we know that Kaua’i is the sleepy island. Everything closes early. At 9-something PM in Lihue (the island’s biggest city) we couldn’t find a single restaurant or bar still serving food. I ended up settling for some food from 7-11, while Chelly got McDonald’s. We ate in the car. Then we headed over to check-in to our hotel (or should I say, “resort”?) and found out that they had a restaurant inside which was still open. Wish we’d known that an hour earlier, but oh well, you know when you know and now we know. We never did eat at that restaurant.

Day 2

Tuesday, December 31st, 2024. The resort we were staying in was cool. It was the Outrigger, but we didn’t know that when we booked the room on AirBnB. On top of the restaurant and bar and gift shop and Starbucks (which we did not take advantage of), there were also 5 swimming pools, two hot tubs, and a beach. And a gym. I used the gym a lot. This first day, like most days, saw us take advantage of the comfortable room and cushy surroundings with maximum lounge time. We slept in. We got in the water. We exercised. We took our time and then we went into town.

Lihue was also a cool town; charming and small, with all that local Hawaiian flavor. First we hit up the health food stores. Vim & Vigor was pricey, but had a lot of crucial snacks that we loaded up on. HealthGo was next. They had a coffee counter and a hot food kitchen and we loaded up on more groceries there. I saw something interesting hanging on the back wall. It was a novel piece of exercise/massage equipment called the “Chi Stixs” that I fell in love with. When I saw these things, looking something like a cross between a TRX strap and a pair of Theracanes, I immediately knew what to do with them. I asked the proprietor if I could buy a set and she was totally confused. “Cheese sticks?” she said, looking all the around the place. So I was saying “Chi Stixs” and she was hearing “cheese sticks”, but eventually we were able to understand each other and she told me, “I couldn’t figure out what cheese sticks you were talking about because this is a vegan grocery store.” She found the stash of Chi Stixs packages and sold me one. On the way out the door, I bumped into one of the inventors and we had a great chat. With my background in infomercials, I got to meet a lot of inventors over the years, and as a fitness coach I am very interested in anything in the fitness category. So it was cool to nerd out a bit with a fitness tool inventor.

After that we found the good Thai food and erased the memory from Seattle.  Anatta’s Thai food truck. There were a half dozen of these food trucks around the island, we saw them on other days of our trip, but this was the only one we ever ate at. Seriously, we would drive a half hour back to Lihue to eat at this truck, even passing another Anatta’s on the way. It was that good and they took great care of us. We’d actually seen the place the night before, when we were driving around looking for a place to eat, but they were closed at the time. So now we went there for lunch. We ordered way too much of all our favorite things, and honestly, nothing I ordered was on the regular menu. They just happened to have some special things for their staff to eat, and because we asked politely in Thai, they were willing to make us some favorites that the ‘normal’ customers weren’t going to get. We made some new best friend Thai ladies and got to practice our Thai words and tell stories and stuff. It was cool and it made us feel super cool.

We couldn’t finish it all and we took some back to our room. On the drive, we discovered the Reggae stations on the island. First we found 98.9, which was cool. Poppy, love-song Reggae and Hawaiian local music with like R&B or Country vibes, and they have their own kind of Hawaiian Reggae fusion that they call “Jahwaiian”. Then we found 95.9, HI FM (“high FM”, get it?), which was way more our style: Heavy bass, heavy political tunes, red-eye vibes. We may have, in fact, done more grocery shopping on the way home, but in any regard, we got to the room and took a nap. At some point, we went out on the grass and did an hour-long calisthenics workout using a deck of cards (the “Karl Gotch Bible”). Then we chilled and watched “Chopped” on the Food Network in our room for a couple hours. What can I say? We’re on vacation!

That night was New Year’s Eve, and the stakes are always high for this one. Chelly thinks of this night as like the biggest night of the year, and she’s always looking for a great dinner and a great party. Who am I to disappoint? This night, on this strange new island where everything closes early, I had exactly one idea. And she didn’t like it. So–on faith alone–I said, I’m driving all the way to the North end of this island and I’m going to find something great for her tonight. She didn’t believe me and grumbled the whole ride along the darkened road to Hanalei. You couldn’t see anything beyond the road and it was like, “where are we going?”  But, I remembered this song from when I was a kid, about Puff the Magic Dragon. I think the song was really about marijuana, but to me as a kid it was a whimsical song about a boy and his imaginary friend. In the song, the dragon lived by the bay in a place called Hanalei. That vague memory of the place called Hanalei somehow convinced me that this town was gonna be something special. And it was.

At the far end of that dark and lonely road, about an hour from our hotel, we finally got to the charming little town of Hanalei, where almost everything was closed. But then I found a spectacular Tapas place called Bar Cuda and we had one of the two best meals of the trip (my other top restaurant was Japanese Grandma in Hanapepe). There was an appetizer with honeycomb and blue cheese, a zatar lamb lollipop dish, and coconut ice cream in a magic chocolate shell.  It was excellent and my chef wife was pleased.  From there, we drove an hour and a half back down to the South end of the island, looking for a fireworks show we’d heard about at Poipu Beach. When we got there, we discovered that the fireworks show was canceled this year. No worries. We found a DJ party around the corner at a nearby hotel bar where the DJ played a wide variety of tunes, everything from trashy EDM to early 2000s Top 40, hip-hop hits, and some of the Reggae music that we love. The DJ was way too drunk and he kept breaking out in “freestyles” that were really just profanity-laden rants with a mild sense of rhythm. It was pretty funny, actually. One of the most amusing moments of the night, for me, was when an intoxicated woman near the bathrooms told me, “only you could pull that off,” commenting on my floral print getup from Thailand, then berated me when I tried to help her find the ladies room. The party was a blast, spirits were high, and we met a few cool new people as Chelly and I ushered in our 17th wedding anniversary.

Day 3

Wednesday, January 1st, 2025. Welcome to the Western New Year! I celebrate New Year twice a year (first being the Ethiopian New Year, “Enkutatash” on September 11th, 12th, and 13th), but this one has added significance because it is our wedding anniversary. We were married on January 1st, 2008. Six years before the show “90 Day Fiance” came out, Chelly was given a 90-day “marry or go home” ultimatum by the US Government that pushed us to marry on this auspicious winter date, rather than the June or July wedding we’d been hoping for. The election in Kenya was really what forced our hand, but that was a long time ago. Every year since then we have celebrated with a trip of at least 1 day and usually longer. Our favorite anniversary trips are the ones that take us to somewhere warm and tropical.

On this anniversary day, we slept in, walked the beach, hung out in the pool and the hot tub. Then we drove into town for more Thai food from our favorite truck. No big plans. No big expectations. And please don’t expect much from us after the big day we had yesterday and traveling the day before. We drove West towards Waimea town to check out some sights, but Chelly wasn’t feeling well. Stopping at a really cool juice bar was our only event for the day.

Hawaiians call them “Juice Hale” (juice house), and this was the coolest one we found on the island: G’s Juicebar. They had an awesome menu of Acai bowls and smoothies, fresh juices, and more. The music was all classic Jamaican Reggae and heavy Jahwaiian, the stuff with fat bass lines and Hawaiian language chants. I loved it and I loved the “Gandhi Bowl” that I got there, one of the most delicious things I had on the entire trip, and honestly something I would have eaten for breakfast every day if it wasn’t such a long drive from home base. In a gesture of Hawaii’s love for Bob Marley and all things Rastafari, they had a “Marley Bowl” on the menu and a Bob quote up on the wall. The owner and I made nice conversation about that and he told me about the Rastas he’d seen in Japan and how popular Reggae was over there. So, I filled him in on Haile Selassie I’s outspoken respect for Japan, the Japanese garden he’d built at the palace in Addis Ababa, and Bob Marley’s massive concerts there in the 1970s. Also on the wall was a map of the world with little stickers to show where the visitors came from. Most were from the continental USA and Europe, but there were plenty from Philippines and India, Mexico and the Caribbean, and many parts of Africa. I put the first sticker down on Mombasa for Chelly’s sake.

I made dinner reservations at a place called “Duke’s”, which was a kind of fine-dining chain that I was familiar with from visiting the big island in 2022.  Then we went home for a nap.  We woke up from our nap and got dressed just in time to make it to our dinner plans. It was a nice occasion, our anniversary night, and the service was great, but the food was so-so and the salad bar was atrocious. They’re lucky I don’t do Yelp. We had a lovely dinner anyway. I had a great view with the stunningly gorgeous woman sitting across the table from me, and we had a nice time just talking and looking around and halfway enjoying, halfway complaining about the food.  I saw some awesome vintage Aloha shirts framed and hung up on the wall that had belonged to the original “Duke”, Duke Kahanamoku, the man who popularized surfing to the world, and the restaurant’s namesake. Finding a long-sleeve shirt like that became my big objective for the trip, but it was sadly unfulfilled. After dinner, we just went to bed early. Day done.

Day 4

Thursday, January 2nd, 2025. I was up early this morning to do a workout (I don’t remember what), hit the hot tub, and then do my programming. This is something I haven’t mentioned on the other days, but I do it every weekday. I have a roster of fitness clients–mostly back home in Washington, but some elsewhere–who I write exercise programming for, one week at a time. They also write me messages, ask questions, send videos. So, part of my daily work as a fitness coach is to get those programs written, check in with my people, respond, give notes, and provide further information (links and videos and things) for their own learning. Once that was done, we hit the road.

We had no plan this day, but we headed North. Soon we discovered the Farmer’s Market in Wailua. We just saw it happening on the side of the road and decided to pull over. It was in a little cluster of shops built around a central park, a modern development that was part strip mall, but part homey island community at the same time. We started in the sunny parking lot where the market was taking place, and picked up some incredible local honey spreads (one with mango and the other with cacao and macadamia). Then we found the fruit sellers, mostly Thai people, who seem to be immigrating to this island in large numbers these days as we met quite a few. We picked up some delicious rambutans, one of my favorite tropical fruits that I will never find back home (and even when I do find them–say, in an Asian market near Seattle–they aren’t any good). These ones were good. Then we wandered into the tree-shaded shopping complex to explore. I found the Jiu Jitsu gym, and I thought about returning for a class during this trip, but that’s one of the things that never happened. No worries. It doesn’t pay to have FOMO on vacation, I have found. Just take it as it comes. Then I got a top quality shave ice and sat on the grassy knoll watching a Polynesian traditional music and dancing performance. We picked up a few things at the grocery store and had ourselves a little picnic, then headed out on the road again.

Next up was a hike. This was one of the main reasons for us to come to Kaua’i. Chelly has become quite the avid hiker in recent years, and I have always been. I was born hiking. Anyway, Kaua’i is well known for trails and mountains and waterfalls and such, and we thought we’d do a bunch on this trip. Here it was day 4 already and we hadn’t done one, so I Googled “hiking trails near me” and found a close one called “The Sleeping Giant”. The Sleeping Giant is the lonely steep-sided peak of an isolated mountain ridge. It’s not too high, but looks dramatic, and has breathtaking views. The proper Hawaiian name for the place is Nounou. We parked at the Nounou East trailhead and headed up, passing loads of wild chickens on the way. Wild chickens are a thing here. Kaua’i is known for them. I heard a legend that they escaped from someone’s farm long ago, and in the absence of natural predators, they have multiplied and spread across the island. I bet that’s a great thing for hungry and homeless people; there’s always some easy food running around in both the town and the forest.

The hike started out pleasantly enough, with plenty of long, lazy switchbacks (and rooster roosts along the trailside). Then we hit the muddy part and it got pretty ugly fast. This was serious mud and there was no avoiding it. Mud all over our shoes and up our legs. This is tropical rain season I guess, in Kaua’i, the only form of winter they get apparently (temps were in the high 70s the whole time we were there). We trudged through that for a while before encountering the picnic shelter, which had an awesome view, but that wasn’t the end of the trail. The next section was muddy AND vertical AND rocky. It got a little hairy at a couple points and turned into more of a scramble than a hike, but I’ve been through much worse and Chelly can handle it. In a little over an hour we were at the top–well, almost the top, the closest to the top that we wanted to get considering conditions. We took a ton of pictures. The views were awesome. Most of the panoramas I took were up there at the top of this hike. And then we hiked back down. Much quicker going this way. After we passed the muddy section, we saw a couple men coming up the trail. One of them had some spotless new, white Adidas shoes and we warned him, “Man, you are about to ruin those beauties.” They must have turned around soon after because we saw them again in the parking lot before we left. It was a great hike, but turned out to be our only trail hike of the whole trip.

After that Chelly was craving fish & chips. I’m quick with Google Maps and found her a top-rated spot nearby in Wailua town with Fish & Chips as their best-known-for item: Napali Brewery. We enjoyed some live music, talked to the owner, and had a nice time. The fish & chips was fantastic, like really, really good. After that, we went home, hit the hot tub (again), and went to bed early.

Day 5

Friday, January 3rd, 2025. When Chelly and I are together, our style of travel is pretty laid back. We don’t make a lot of big plans or expectations, we just kind of wing it and enjoy ourselves, giving each other a lot of grace. The only strong feeling we had this morning was that we wanted some breakfast. We went to three different places for that (!). We went to the first place, where I got a green smoothie and Chelly had a loaded bagel.  While she was eating that, I walked down the street to the next place to to pick up some gluten-free avocado toast. This isn’t really a food blog, and though I do love to take pictures of (and sometimes brag about) great meals that we find out there, I haven’t included many food pictures this time around. About these meals, let me just say that we were unsatisfied, and that’s why I’ve left the restaurants anonymous. We met up again and decided it was time to find something better, and we found it, at the Puakea golf course of all places. This is where Chelly got the most delicious ginger fried chicken and I got gluten-free mochi waffles. Amazing. We put them together to make chicken and waffles that you’d drool over.

We hit up Costco on the way home. Then it was time for the beach, a workout on the beach, and then I did my programming for the day. Chelly was taking a nap by this point, so I went down and tried the hotel gym. It was meh, as hotel gyms usually are (except in Sweden!). But, I made the most of it. I remember this workout was L-sit pull-ups and pike presses to handstand with wall assist, plus warm-ups before and accessory work at the end. Good times. I did a little Yoga and meditation on the grass, then headed back up to the room to shower.

After that, we went out in search of dinner. This time we headed West towards Hanapepe. I was looking for a good sushi place and I found one called Japanese Grandma. From the street, it didn’t look like it was open. The dining room was empty and Chelly doubted me, but I had Google Maps that told me this place was open, busy, and highly rated. Then we found the sign for the garden path and seating in the back. We walked back there and found the outdoor seating (both covered and uncovered) was packed with people.  There was live music there too.  Luckily, we got a table and settled in next to an incredible tropical tree (Banyan, maybe?). The sushi here was awesome, a welcome change for me after a series of bad sushi experiences recently. I especially liked the bluefin tuna sampler, with lean, semi-fatty, and totally fatty versions. I liked the lean the best and ordered more. When we left the restaurant, we discovered the Hanapepe Art Walk, which just so happened to be happening that night (and we didn’t even know). That was a cool event, with vendors in the streets and a little farmer’s market of it’s own. I picked up a bag of varied tropical fruits, some old favorites and some new experiences. We also got some gluten-free lumpia and fried mochi balls.  Chelly is a Chef, don’t ya know, so every one of these meals and shopping trips would be considered research.  Eating isn’t everything in life, but it’s a big part.

After the art walk, we got back into the Jeep and went searching for live music. We didn’t find it. Turns out the big live shows were on New Year’s Eve and we missed them. That’s when we learned another lesson about this quiet island where people do stuff during the day and then sleep at night. There were a few places who’d have solo artists (like we’d seen at Napali), but no Reggae parties or DJ nights like we might have been able to track down on the bigger islands. Those things were rarer here.  If you know different, then please tell me, because I’d like to visit Kaua’i again in the future.

So, it was back to the hotel for the hot tub again. This might have been the night when I filmed a timelapse of the starry sky with my new GoPro. I did that one of the nights, not sure which. I always work when I travel, and in addition to fitness coaching, the filmmaker side of me has to bring along some projects too. This time I brought the GoPro to shoot some test footage and try out all its features. If you’re auditing me right now for the IRS, I also did some location scouting and research, read a book on the history & theory of Nonfiction Film, did some writing, networking, and marketing (handed out promotional cards for my films when I met folks with likely interest).  This is on top of the fitness programming, admin, and research I was doing (remember the Chi Stixs?), and the recipe, ingredient, and concept research Chelly did for her catering business.  When you’re self-employed you never really stop working, and you’ve got to recognize all the work activities you end up doing on a trip so you can remember to expense that stuff when tax time comes.   

And on one of these nights–maybe this one–I stayed up ’til an ungentlemanly hour attempting to watch two cop movies on TV simultaneously. We don’t have regular TV at home, you see, so we are not subject to station programmers’ whims or advertisers’ impositions. We just watch whatever we want to whenever we want to, and it’s been like that ever since I “cut the cord” back in 2006. But, here in the hotel where the host’s instructions said wifi wasn’t strong enough to support streaming, we became prisoners once again of the dummy box. I did a lot of channel stepping before bed at night, and found some interesting programs about history and cooking, and some classic movies, but I could never stay with anything for very long because the blasted ads would drive me away. This one particular night, I found a very serious drama about the NYPD on one channel (Brooklyn’s Finest, starring Don Cheadle), and a very stupid comedy about the NYPD on the next channel (The Other Guys with Will Ferrell and Marky Mark). What I did is just watch one of them until the commercial break, then switch over to the other one until it went to commercial. This made for a highly surreal experience meshing two divergently bullshitty Hollywood cop stories, the one dark and gritty and ‘realistic’, the other absurd and humorous. Both films had overlapping themes about the camaraderie and contradictory loneliness of police work, the different siloed job roles within large urban departments, and two completely different takes on prostitution. When by chance it happened that both movies went to commercial at the same time, I shut the TV off and went to bed.

Day 6

Saturday, January 4th, 2025. This day started with another drive out towards Waimea. This time we headed up the winding, narrow road with stunning views of Waimea Canyon on our right, leading towards the numerous state parks and wilderness areas of Na Pali. We skipped breakfast and drove all the way to the end of the Kokee Road, to the Kalalau Lookout, where hiking trails led into the intricately formed volcanic valleys of the Na Pali Coast. After checking out the views from the top, we “hiked” along the closed section of road towards Pu’u O Kila Lookout. I say “hiked” in quotation marks because I don’t think walking on a paved road is truly hiking. But, it was beautiful and serene. I also took a few side trails to get into the jungle and really experience it.  On one of those side trails, Chelly took a picture of a cool fairy house that someone had left there in the woods. 

This many days into our trip, and after that much driving, we were pretty worn out. So, after returning to Kalalau, we cut the hiking short, had a little picnic and started down the hill looking for food. This time when we stopped in Waimea, Chelly got the Gandhi Bowl from G’s Juicebar.  I got a different kind of bowl whose name I don’t remember… it was delicious, but not as good as the Gandhi. These Acai bowls filled us up and so we skipped a proper meal to head to the beach and look at waves. This was Kekaha Beach, which from the satellite maps looked to be the longest and broadest beach on the island. The waves here were incredible, we couldn’t stop watching them, and the place was swarming with surfers who obviously felt the same way. The way these waves rolled in looked like hundreds of little white horses galloping on the water. I tried to get some slo-motion videos with my GoPro, but it couldn’t do them justice. We were surprised to learn the next day that this was not the best beach–nor the coolest waves–on the island.

After the beach we were properly hungry for a proper meal, so we… drumroll please… drove all the way into Lihue for our favorite Thai food truck. We got some things from the menu and some special items that weren’t on the menu, I don’t really know what, but I know that every time we ate at Anatta’s we ordered way too much food and brought leftovers back to the room. Probably half the food we ate on this trip came from that truck. That was kind of it for our day. We chilled by the outdoor fireplace at the resort, hung out in the hotel bar for some live music during happy hour, and then went to bed fairly early.

Day 7

Sunday, January 5th, 2025. I hope you’re loving my obsessively detailed account of meals and bedtimes and mundane excursions. Now let me continue. This morning started with a 2-mile run. On a normal Sunday I would be up very early to take my sons to our Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, attend a long and solemn service, teach Sunday School, enjoy a feast with our parishioners, then do some shopping or visit friends or do something else down south (our church is in Lynnwood) before making the long drive home at the end of the day. But, here in Kaua’i there are no Ethiopian churches (yet). There was an Ethiopian Orthodox Priest in the islands, and I’ve had some great phone conversations with him (his story is actually super interesting), but he sadly passed away recently and now there are none. There are other Ethiopian Orthodox Christians in Hawaii, some from Ethiopia, the Caribbean, or the USA, and also native Hawaiians who have come through the Rastafari movement as I did, but I don’t know any of them. So, we went instead to my wife’s church. Chelly is a Catholic, and there happened to be a Roman Catholic church (Immaculate Conception) very near to our resort.

It was a welcoming parish and warm community. They had Leis of tiny seashells for all the visitors, and there were a lot of us. There was also a woman who made jewelry that she gave as gifts to the women visitors (Chelly got a pair of earrings). Then, inside, they had another set of knit Leis (impressive work) for those celebrating weddings or anniversaries. The service was quite touching and beautiful. It was shorter than ours, and more modern, but I recognized many familiar elements in the abbreviated liturgy. Chelly took communion and I said my own private prayers. But, the most moving part of it was the homily of the presiding Priest. I’m not sure if he was a Hawaiian or a Filipino (or a Filipino-Hawaiian, there are lots of those), but he was definitely not a mainlander. He had a very calm and compassionate air about him and he had a gift with words. He spoke of the birth of Christ, and of the three wise men who followed the star, the gifts they brought and the gifts of the Christmas season, about the new year, and about the humble giving of simple gifts we can give to one another, like our forgiveness and our grace. Then there was a blessing for the visitors, and a special blessing for weddings and anniversaries like ours. This came with another deep lesson about marriage and the willingness it takes to grant one another peace. It wasn’t “my” church, but I was happy that I went.

Outside the Church was the Kapaia suspension bridge. We found it by accident. There was a little trail leading off through the jungle and I think I saw a chicken go down that way, so instead of heading to the truck, we went and checked that out. It was very cool, and at the other end was a little monument with a photo of the same area 100 years ago. Fascinating. What is a sleepy residential neighborhood today was the center of commerce for a small community back then. The Catholic Church and the Buddhist Temple are the only two structures still standing from the time. And the trees have grown up massively. After that I went to buy some boxer briefs (I hadn’t packed enough for the whole trip), and then we stopped at a place called Red Eye Snack Shack for a serious Hawaiian breakfast. We got some Poke that was out of this world, and I got to eat Loco Moco for the first time in my life because they had a gluten-free gravy. Happy times. We changed our clothes quickly and headed North to spend the rest of the day in Hanalei.

This was the part of the trip where we “discovered” the thing towards the end of our time that we wished we’d discovered at the beginning of our trip. Remember that song, “Puff the Magic Dragon”, and how I said Hanalei was a special place? Well, it was a really special place in the daytime. Absolutely the most spectacular part of the island. I mean, the drive in through the jungle is one of the most incredible views I’ve ever seen, like something out of a dream or a fantasy movie that’s just too good to be real. The little town is charming, with excellent food and beautiful people. Past that is a series of breathtaking beaches with wide stretches of sand and massive waves that roll-in in never ending sequence, crashing with those little magic white horses that I talked about. We found a beach that was hands-down my favorite beach of the island: Lumahai beach. There we had a picnic, watched people, stared bug-eyed at the gorgeous beach girls and talked about how we should move our teenage son Javan out here so he can find a girlfriend and future wife. One of the coolest things about this beach was the little river that flowed into the ocean here, but when the tide was high, the ocean flowed into it, creating a confluence zone that was calm enough for swimming even when the waves were rough. There I found a couple of rope swings and joined some of the local youths (and tourists) in swinging into the water and jumping from the trees. My inner Tarzan had a play day.  He needs that sometimes.

After all that, I was Jonesing for a shave ice. We drove back into Hanalei to the famous shave ice place that’s been running since we were infants (the sign said 1983, I think). I got in the long line and waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, I got up to the counter with my order on my lips, but the work-weary high school girl said, “Sorry we’re closed. We just had to finish the line of people who were here by 5:30.” So, what had I done? Pulled up at 5:31? And then stood in line for 15 minutes… I went to the car super disappointed, and everyone else around there just look stunned. But, I wasn’t gonna go out like that. I needed my shave ice. So, I went up to the counter and told the gal I would give her a nice tip if she helped me out. She told her friend, “he says he’s gonna give us a good tip!” and they took my order. They felt kinda bad about the whole last person in line thing anyway.  I got some kind of passion fruit, coconut, maybe mango, with coconut cream on top. It was decadent and delicious, but seriously not that decadent, because the shaved ice is way less caloric than, say, an ice cream or some other sweet dessert. Then we found the food truck park, about a block away, and Chelly got an awesome fish curry from the Indian Food truck. Awesome, impressive, delicious, I’m running out of superlatives. It was good food. The truck was called Turmeric, and it specialized in Goan cuisine, but the chef was from Kolkata. Whatever, it was awesome and we were back there again a couple days later to try more of his stuff. That’s honestly all I remember from this day, because after an hour’s drive in the dark, we were totally ready for bed when we got home.

Day 8

Monday, January 6th, 2025. We started the day with a little morning Yoga. Chelly has a Yoga group and sometimes they do live classes, but with the 2-hour time difference, she was never up early enough to join them on this trip. Instead, she did pre-recorded sessions from the website. While she was doing one of those up in the room, I went down to the grass near the beach to do my sun salutations and a few other things. Then we went souvenir shopping. That was a big project, but not much to talk about. We bought some interesting fabrics for my mother (the quilter), and a variety of things for Dad, the boys, and Bibi (Chelly’s mom). The highlight of the day for me was stepping out in my 2-piece “Ganja Suit”: matching pants and shirt, black background, with an almost camouflage pattern of red, gold, and green ganja leaves all over. Chelly thought I looked ridiculous, but I got a lot of compliments, especially from the older local women, who kept asking me where to get the real stuff. But, I don’t know, because I’m not from this island!  The Filipino grandma at the souvenir shop taught me how to say “Pakalolo”, the Hawaiian word for Ganja. And there was ONE younger lady who beeped her horn and shouted out the window, “I love your outfit!” I told Chelly about it because I thought it would make her jealous, but it didn’t work. 

After our souvenir shopping, we headed towards the South side, which is really just a bit West of Lihue and down. First we went to the Koloa Old Town. Some parts of it are old, anyway, and then there’s the modern development section, which still has some of that old timey character: a collection of two story buildings with wood siding, long porches, and a courtyard in the middle. We walked all around the town and checked out all the spots, but didn’t want to eat at any of them. Instead, we crossed the road to the ruins of some old plantation structure, where we found a food truck park and ate Mexican food. I had authentic chilaquiles. Incapable of brevity in a travelogue, I must detail every meal. Then we headed to Poipu for the beach.

Poipu was something else, wholly different than most of the other places we visited on the island. It was basically a colony of the mainland USA. Everything there looked like it could have been in Sun City, Arizona, or Redmond, Washington. It was cul de sac developments built around golf courses, with brick signs at the entrances bearing names like “Bayview” and “Crestview”. A sanitized Anglo-American Hawaii for the retirees. Parking by the beach was hard to find, and the beach itself was absolutely the most crowded that we saw anywhere on Kaua’i. Not that it was the best beach, but it wasn’t bad either. There was a cool little island, accessible by land bridge at low tides, but I didn’t get to go out there because there were a couple of sea turtles sleeping on the island and the lifeguards were keeping careful watch over the animals. That was one of the special attractions of this beach. Despite being small and crowded and lined with homes and resorts, it was also a home for local wildlife (there was a monk seal sleeping on the beach near us, and another sea turtle just a little ways down), and the site of the most spectacular sunset view.

I took dozens of pictures of Chelly in the “magic hour” light as the sun dipped down towards the ocean. I also did a little workout of front planks, reverse planks, and side planks. After the sun was gone and I’d finished my planks, I packed up my stuff and started back towards the truck. There was an older man watching me, and he asked me a question about the exercises I was doing. This started a nice conversation that went from fitness to aging well to tech to politics and conspiracy theories, took some detours through hopeful idealism about what would make the world right, and dire pessimism about what the digital parasites in everybody’s pockets are doing to our youth. It turns out he was also the inventor of a camping product (my second inventor of the trip) and that was cool too, because, as mentioned, I have a soft spot in my heart for these guys having known many at many different stages of product development, production, and marketing. We decided we’d like to stay in touch, but checking our pockets, we found that neither of us had any business cards on us, nor did we have cellphones. So, that was that. A happy chance meeting, until we meet again.

We drove through Hanapepe looking for a dinner spot, but everything looked closed, so we ended up eating at a not-so-memorable brewery in Eleele. Then it was back to the room. Chelly was tired, but I was not. She went to sleep early, so I went down to the gym for a late night workout. This was a massive dumbbell improv session. I used every dumbbell on the rack for sets to exhaustion of whatever I could think of or invent to do with a dumbbell or two in my hands. It was fun. After that I sat in the hot tub listening to the livestream of Genna from my Church back home. Genna is the Ethiopian Christmas (the name means “Genesis” and refers to the birth of Christ), celebrated on the old calendar date that all Christians used to use in the Julian era, which is now January 7th of the West’s Gregorian calendar. Usually this is one of my two favorite holidays of the year, when we gather for a “midnight mass” on the 6th (we call it Qedasse). After fasting all day, we stand in prayer for hours, sing, hold candles, and joyously celebrate the birth of the savior of the world, breaking our fast around 3:30 in the morning of the 7th. But, this year I’d inadvertently booked the Hawaii trip overlapping with the Genna holiday (I just impulsively booked the days with the cheapest tickets) and so here I was still on vacation and missing out on one of the humble joys of being home. But, thank God for YouTube. I listened to the celebration, read my books (some research about the island, and more research about non-fiction films), and then read the opening chapters of all four gospels before going to bed quite late in the night.

Day 9

Tuesday, January 7th, 2025. We woke up that morning with no time for workouts, or beaches, no pool, no hot tub, and no breakfast spots. We just had to quickly pack our bags, get ourselves together, take out the trash, bring the jeep around, load it up, and check out. But, we still had the whole day to enjoy Kaua’i because our checkout time was 10am and the flight wasn’t until 10:30pm. So, we headed North, visiting a waterfall, some special viewpoints, and more beaches on our way towards Hanalei. We were looking for an Acai bowl to eat for late breakfast, but stopped at place after place just to find that all the Acai bowl spots on this side of the island were closed today. We even got a hot tip on the best Acai place around, and it was closed too. We did finally get that Acai bowls, all the way in Hanalei, but it was underwhelming and nowhere near as special as the ones from G’s Juicebar in Waimea. But, you know what? It was still a delicious and healthy treat and we enjoyed it.

After that we did the most important and essential last day of the trip thing we could have done, the thing we should have done on day one and maybe every day since then: We took naps on the beach. Yes. We drove up past Lumahai beach to Ha’ena Beach Park, checked out the dry cave, and then laid out on the sand and fell asleep. It takes only a few words to say that, so it’s hard to emphasize how long this took and how great it was. We’d finally, finally relaxed. Then we woke up, continued driving up the road, turned around at the entrance to Ha’ena State Park, and swam in the little swimming hole there. After that, we headed into Hanalei town again, picked up a gluten-free pizza from Tahiti Nui (which was stellar), and sat out on another beach to eat it. Took another beach nap (if I’m not mistaken). Then we returned to Turmeric food truck and this time ordered the Fish Vindaloo, extra spicy. It was so good that even though we didn’t finish it, we carried it carefully onto the plane, brought it home, put it in the fridge, and Chelly ate it the next day.

In between the beginning and end of that journey of the Fish Vindaloo, we drove back through all the jungles and past all the charming little towns on our way to the airport. We returned our rental car, did all our boring business of checking bags at the airport–but not completely boring because there was a little fiasco when the airport security made me throw away a bottle of aloe and a camping firestarter with a flint that I didn’t even know was attached to my water bottle (why don’t they go over this stuff with you when you’re checking your bags and still have a chance to repack some things?). Then we got on the plane and we flew home. Even though we had only a 5 or 6 hour opportunity to sleep on the plane before landing in Seattle at 6 in the morning, I made the decision to watch a worthy film on the plane ride. Something important, something with gravitas. And I found it: Zoe Kravitz’s “Blink Twice”. Yes, the daughter of rock musician Lenny Kravitz and the Cosby Show’s Lisa Bonet is now a film director. And what a film. The description had me thinking this would be something like another “Glass Onion”, and it WAS similar to Glass Onion in a lot of superficial ways, but where Rian Johnson’s film is quirky and fun, with only enough of the dark and serious murderous tragedy stuff to put it into the same category of “Clue” or “Murder on the Orient Express”, Kravitz’s film is a truly disturbing psychological thriller. This send-up of billionaire Silicon Valley techno-fascists and their entourages was less “Great Gatsby” and more Epstein island. Suffice it to say, I didn’t get any sleep that night.

Home

Wednesday, January 8th, 2025. And just like that, we were at the end of our trip. We arrived in Seattle a little after 6am, got our bags, got our truck, and took turns driving on the way home. Then we spent the better part of the day sleeping and the rest of it unpacking. Home now, so that means the travel blog’s done. It was a welcome break from the Washington winter. Doing a lot just to do a little. But, isn’t that what vacations are for?