Yikes! I haven’t written anything for a week….so here’s a catch-all entry.
After the Road to Hana last week in Maui, we spent last Wednesday with Andi from Italy and Helen from Germany. They’d rented a car and wanted to drive the (some say) even narrower road along the coast of west Maui, the Honoapiilani Highway and Kahekili Highway. Although it’s all paved, we had to back up several times to allow cars coming in the other direction to get by. I read later that some rental car companies don’t allow you to drive that road…oops!
What impressed me the most was the changing scenery. It seemed that it changed with almost every turn…at some points rolling and green, other points jagged with ravines. But always to my right was the turquoise water (with no guard rail!). Two particularly great spots were Honolua Bay and Honokohau Bay, where we saw whales.
We continued on around the north coast and down the west, settling at Black Rock Beach, which looks out over the island of Lana’i. Lots of snorkelers, some brave people who climb out over the jagged black lava to jump into the ocean. We spent most of the afternoon there, then headed back after watching a beautiful sunset.
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Thursday, Tammie and I flew back from Maui. Our flight wasn’t direct, which seems so funny to me. We flew from Maui to Oahu (Honolulu) and then to Kauai. Two 20-minute flights! The upside was the beautiful scenery. I’m looking forward to spending 2 days in Honolulu on my way back to Denver!
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Friday, I had fun meetup in Kalaheo (south part of Kauai). Some of you know I use the site paperbackswap.com; within that site is an online tea swap that I’ve participated in for a couple of years. Anyway, one of my fellow tea swappers lives here on Kauai, so we had tea at Rob’s. He and Jeff live in a spectacular home high up in the hills of Kalaheo with beautiful views of the mountains and ocean. Rob’s family has been on the island since the 1860s (one of the original missionary families), so his knowledge of the island is amazing. He showed me three of his great-grandmother’s quilts, which were stunning.
What a spread they put on for me! A full afternoon tea…We moved outside to the lanai where there was a lovely trade wind blowing. After enjoying a fresh spinach salad and our first cup of tea we started the tea sandwiches. They included date and walnut with cream cheese on cinnamon raisin bread, egg salad with sprouts on white bread and smoked salmon on whole grain flat bread. More tea followed and then it was time for scones with Jeff’s crème fraiche and a selection of preserves.
Rob had made a fab grapefruit sorbetto from grapefruit trees in the yard! He had scooped out the insides and mixed it with mint from the yard, blended it all together, put it back in the rind and frozen the whole thing, serving it in the rind! SO GOOD! Finally it was time for the tea cookies. We had lemon ginger, maple walnut, and Russian tea cookies. They very generously wrapped up the extras for me to bring back to Tammie.
We then went on a tour of their garden, which includes plumeria, lemons, limes, bananas, guava, grapefruit, well….many more things I’ve already forgotten. They have about an acre. They also have a mule!
I’m the first tea swapper to make it all the way to Kauai!
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The weekend and this week has been lazy, beach days and reading (and doing some work; I hate that part). I did get to see the Kauai Stupa the other day; quite beautiful.
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Last night, Tammie and I went to a local club called Trees (how the locals say Threes). Lots of local musicians play there and we had a blast. Several of Tammie’s friends joined us during the course of the evening; it’s always fun to meet more of Tammie’s friends!
Steve Mu provided last night’s music, a mix of local and cover music. Really enjoyable. After that was open mic, which was a surprisingly good mix of everything from folk to Santana. Fun!
Rhodio 