Kauai on my Mind

So after a near death experience at work where I fell 5 yards and was extremely lucky that I was for the most part ok, it was off to Kauai for a work trip. If you remember back to January, I went to the Big Island for a Forest Stewardship Advisory Committee Meeting. Well we meet quarterly so this time it was off to Kauai. While I felt a little more comfortable about this one, as timing would have it, my boss who was running that meeting was out of town for the weeks before the meeting and the one in the office wasn't going to be able to go. Which meant I was doing a lot of prep for this meeting by myself. While I do appreciate the confidence my bosses have in me, I am human and did make a couple of mistakes. One was missing some documents we could have used at the meeting, the other being forgetting leaving a car at the airport for my boss. Ugh. I have to accept that I am still learning this job and am going to make mistakes and just learn from them, which is a bit hard for me.

Anyway, I stayed after the meeting and got a ride from Lihue to Waimea to stay with my friends. I arrived at my friend Christine's and my jaw dropped. She literally lives on the beach, with a cute pier right there. It was so nice that we had a couple of beers on the beach before we drove to her aunts house where they had a little garden. It was pretty much what I aspire to someday, some herbs, lettuce, papaya, bananas, sprouts, carrots, pretty much you could ever want, all in a little greenhouse and part of the property. They even had a little loi. We picked some eggplant, herbs, and lettuce to have for dinner before getting some local beef from the market. Once we got home, her bf cooked it all up and we had a delicious dinner just hanging out and talking the environment, travel, and good food. It was the kind of hanging out that I have missed since leaving college and was desperately in need of.

Next morning, I woke up to the sound of the ocean, and unfortunately, chickens! They are all over Kauai.  Our friend Tess came over and after gathering all we could for a day of adventure, we were off to the North Shore. I got to see a lot of Kauai on this drive since there is only one way to the North Shore because of the Na Pali coast which has no roads. We went through Lihue, which is where the airport is and is a small town, then you went through some touristy beach towns, the resorts, open ranch land, then finally the north shore. After some showdowns and a bit of luck, we snagged a coveted parking spot near the famous Na Pali trail. The trail is 11 miles and most people will only do small portions or camp part of the way. Today we were going to do the first 2 miles in to the beach and then hike out. It was pretty easy most of the way and followed the coastline allowing for some beautiful views of the mountains jutting out of the ocean. When we were almost to the beach, we passed a sign saying how many people had died getting caught in currents. We chose to ignore it since the currents were only bad in the winter and trekked down to the beach.

It was crowded with people because the hike isn't too hard in, but we found a nice spot tucked away next to the cliff and went in for a swim. I am always impressed with how clear the water is here. Its nice to look down and actually be able to see your feet. We played in the water and waited for the weather to improve so we could get out of the ocean and bask in the sun. Once it was sunny, we had lunch, caught up on fashion in our Elle and Marie Claires and studied native plants. Unfortunately, it was short lived since after a while, we felt the ominous water droplets. After a quick pic in the cave on the beach, we threw our backpacks on and began the hike back in the rain. We soon got out of the rain cloud and once again got to enjoy the sunshine and views, though if you looked behind us, it was pretty crazy seeing the grey cloud where we had just been.



Once we got done with the hike, we took up camp at the beach right at the bottom. It was a sheltered cove and had really smooth water so we just swam around and took naps in the sun. Next up, we found the wet cave where they filmed Pirates of the Caribbean 4. We had to hike up to the entrance and then down into this big dark cavern. The water that was inside the cave had all trickled down through the rocks. It was so quiet and dark down there that it took Christine and I some time to convince ourselves to go in the water. It was cold at first, but in a refreshing way. Apparently theres a cavern you can swim to called the blue room, but after hearing some weird noises our waves caused, we just stayed in the main place. Especially after Tess said "this is how every horror film starts." After that, we quickly took off to go to happy hour at Kalypso, where we downed mango daiquiris, coconut shrimp, nachos, and crab quesadillas. My incredible day came to an end at a pier near the airport, drinking beers and singing disney songs. Pure perfection.

Five down, Three to go

Thats right, this island hopper got to count one more island off on my island hopping adventures. But first,  my birthday. So I started off my week with Earth Day events last weekend and unfortunately had my Monday birthday over shadowed by Mother Earth. I guess if I was going to be over shadowed by a holiday, Earth Day was acceptable. So because I worked last weekend and my birthday was on a Monday, I didn't really have time to do anything to celebrate. Plus one of my bosses is out of town, so taking a day off wasn't really an option. I think the only true birthday celebration that occurred on my actual bday, was getting 25% off on lululemon pants I've been wanting at my yoga studio. But such is life as a full time worker.

But back to Kauai. Wednesday morning involved a 4am wake up time, which I despise. And due to unknown circumstances, I managed to not fall asleep till midnight. As we flew in, the first thing I noticed was the way the mountains just jut straight up on the coastline. No gentle slopes or flat beaches for tourist to overrun. The topography was so vastly different from Oahu that I could finally understand how Kauai is just a bit calmer than Oahu. Next thing I noticed, the damn chickens. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! Seriously, no one could go hungry on Kauai because if they needed protein, all they had to do was go outside and catch a chicken.

First up on the site visit schedule was the National Tropical Botanical Garden. It was an incredible property, filling up an entire valley and starting with a very nice LEED gold building. They went through their plans of how they would like to develop the site to be a sort of plant tourist attraction. They hope to have sections for their canoe trees, agroforestry, traditional plants, medicinal plants, pretty much a great botanical teaching garden. Our role in all this was to see if there was anyway their goals would align with one of our programs so that we could help them plants some trees. They could possibly qualify for the programs but after discussing the different things we could help with, it didn't necessarily seem like they matched what we could provide. Either way, I am excited to go back in the future and see how they achieved all that they planned.

The next two sites were also not the best fits, since one floods every year and would inevitably wash out the fence we are required to put in and the other being a wetland, which we can work on the outskirts but not actually in the wetland. I think a lot of discussion was about how most of the sites on Kauai aren't going to fit the programs as well as some of the other islands. But that is one of the things that makes working in Hawaii unique. That despite being in one state, the circumstances can be very broad. And finding different ways to help people means that we will always have to think outside of the box.

Once I got back, I attempted to celebrate my birthday in other activities. Art after Dark, an event put on at the Academy of the Arts was up first. I was super bummed that I didn't bother to look up the theme before going because it was Heroes and Villains and I totally would have loved to bust out my Violet from the Incredibles costume. I would have definitely won the costume contest. But either way, My friend Kristen and I had a great time making a superhero flip book and pictures while wandering around the museum. Its such a great monthly event bringing out all different types of people in Honolulu. And whats best, its free with my Academy of Art membership.

My last "birthday celebration" was really just Cinco de Mayo which I went on a great hike to Mariners Ridge in Hawaii Kai which I will definitely be going back to do some trail running, and then to Kailua to hang out with my friend Shealin and her Great Dane, Grateful. It was one of those overall nice day where I truly took advantage of living in Hawaii.