We awoke to a rainy Sunday morning. Unfortunately in Kona, we had sent our rain coats home via the post office.
We said our good-bye’s to the Garden Inn owners, Steve and Lis Layne. They are good people and hopefully we will keep in contact.
We noticed a number of churches filled with people. Hawaii is religious. Any type of gambling is outlawed and that means Cruise ships too. Sunday is definitely observed here, but the tourist spots are open.
The Kilohana Plantation was our first stop after visiting a Starbucks. Gaylord Parke Wilcox built this huge Tudor home in 1935. It is now several shops and a restaurant.
Another house has “rum” tours. Ironically, there were “Rum Tours” for 9:00 A.M. on a sleepy Sunday morning. The Kilohana Plantation served the large sugar cane industry. A train still operates tours around the plantation. This was the place to be in the early 20th century.
Ten miles down the road is the Kauai Coffee Company and Museum. Kauai coffee is in competition with Kona—the Big Island coffee. We thoroughly enjoyed the free samples.
Outside the Kauai Coffee museum I spotted this beautiful “roster.”
Chickens rule Kauai. After the 1992 Hurricane Iniki —which hit Kauai on 9-11 , a week after Hurricane Andrew hit Florida– the Kauai chickens were allowed to run wild.
It is against the law to kill the chickens here. The roosters can really squawk at all times of the day. I made a joke about eating “chicken” here in Kauai, and now Kathie refuses to have any meals with chicken. You may think Key West is bad with chickens; come to Kauai to see chickens running wild.
On the flip side, though, there are no raccoons, squirrel’s, bears, alligators or even snakes in Hawaii. There is allegedly very large crouch-roaches in Hawaii, but we have not seen a single one. Our Botanical tour guide, Hal, made a joke about “when you leave Kauai, please take a few chickens with you.”
Just down the road is Port Allen. In “The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook,” by Andrew Doherty, he discusses a beach near Port Allen filled with glass—known today as “Glass Beach.” Today, there is but small pieces of glass still left on the beach.
I walked up a small cliff and came across an old Japanese/Chinese burial ground. It was rather surrealistic with graves, a beach and oil drums in the distance.
We found the historic town of Hanapepe. It is known as the art district of Kauai. Many of the wooden buildings date back to the 1920’s. Kathie found the “walking bridge” which was originally built in 1911. Kathie went about half way across and came back—she didn’t like the swinging.
We went into a store called, “Jacqueline on Kauai.” She is opened seven days a week. The only time she is closes is when there is” a hurricane or a tsunami.” Jacqueline actually makes her own Hawaiian shirts.
Her walls are decorated with many pictures. An actual letter was written to her by Willard Marriott. There is a picture of Jacqueline with Tom Selleck.
Kathie and I have had a running argument if Tom Selleck is gay or not. He is NOT!
We rode to Waimea Canyon. Mark Twain called this place, “The Grand Canyon of the Pacific.” It is definitely like the Grand Canyon, but greener. You can see helicopters in the distance.
One of the world’s most outstanding overlooks is Kalalau Lookout. At times it is clouded in. At other times it makes an outstanding picture to post on Facebook.
We decided to go back to “The Beach House” for lunch at Lawa’i Beach. It is of great happiness when you find a good place to eat when you are traveling. We really do enjoy their stir-fry.
Leaving Lawa’i Beach, we came across an endangered Monk seal sleeping away:
