This trip served as a substitute to our annual pilgrimage to Flagstaff, Arizona. Our buddies, Art & Megan from Flag met us on the island for Art's 40th birthday. In addition, they invited some more friends from school, Dave & Jenna. Dave also had a birthday on the trip. The six of us set out to explore all parts of Kauai.
Note: Dave, Jenna, Art, & Megan are PhD students. A 2-week trip to a tropical island is expensive; our group made the most of it by tent camping in various locations. Jason and I took a couple of opportunities to splurge on a hotel which I'll document below.
Day 1 - The plane ride & car rental. Somehow we miscalculated our wake up time and got a late start. Coming up on crunch time, we parked in the garage at the new aiport with minutes to spare. Doh! Our vacation expenditures just increased with this luxury parking. Nevertheless, we made our plane to Chicago then proceeded on a 9-hour flight to Honolulu followed by a short jaunt to Kauai. I couldn't help but remember this You Tube video I had seen about the magic of flight. Too funny.
In the constant effort to save $$, our group decided to rent 2 vehicles @ $20/day with Island Car Rentals. Knowing before hand that these were "not nice vehicles," we were imagining what POS cars we would get. After our arrival, we called Island Cars and Joel picked us up from the airport in a Chrysler Sebring convertible. Some hubcaps were missing, the top was frayed, and the inside of the car was wet. Knowing the chance of rain was high, I kept thinking, "please don't let this be our car. Please don't let this be our car." We drove back to an industrial area where Island Car Rentals resides; it was an urban junk yard. Joel sees his dog in a parking lot and starts cussing at a guy standing in the lot, "Don't let my $@%*
Our first night on the island rewarded us with our first of 3 nights in a hotel. Ahhhh sleep. Sort of. Around 2 a.m., we heard a rooster crow. The cock-a-doodle-doo continued through the morning hours. Were we near a farm? I was confused.
Day 2 - The others arrive. Jason and I walked to breakfast at a little hut that overlooked a bay. We noticed some chickens milling around the parking lot scrounging for a scrap. Those must be the perpetrators. While waiting on the rest of our party, we checked out one of the many waterfalls that grace the island--Waimea falls.
We met the others at the airport; Megan & Jenna left to get their rental car--a Corolla that was also dry. However, of the 4 doors, only 1 had a handle on the inside--the driver. Upon parking, they all had to sit in the car until someone opened their door from the exterior. The sedan also had a weak battery which proved troublesome a little later in the trip.
We camped at a county park--Hanalei; all county parks had running water and flush toilets. Additionally, cold, outside showers were available to the beachgoers to rinse off. These showers were quite useful to the campers like us and presumably the homeless people that liked to spend their days at the park. Apparently, the county parks provide much fun to the locals who like to come to the beach in the middle of the night. One game they play is "let's see how much noise we can make on the beach in our car or truck." Also in abundance at the county park is chickens & roosters who serenaded us starting around 2 a.m. in the morning as they did every morning throughout the rest of the trip. You would have thought the feral cats could have put up a fight to get some dinner. We were starting to see a pattern with the chickens. They were EVERYWHERE--in the parks, on the beaches, on all the roads and highway, etc. It was quite clear; the island has a LOT of chickens. In fact, we learned it's open season all the time for chickens. It's legal to kill them via any means.
No comments:
Post a Comment