Everybody's Doin' It!

Now even Mary's paper dolls have their own blog!

Spouting Horn

After leaving Waimea Canyon, we drove to see the Spouting Horn. When a wave comes in, water is forced through a small hole in the rocks, creating a water spout. Mary has a cool video on her blog.

Last time Scott was here, he and Mom H. just walked right out on the rocks to the Spouting Horn. Now there's a fenced off overlook. I guess too many tourists were falling into holes. To get there, we first had to walk through a gauntlet of souvenier carts. On the way back we bought Mary and Audrey necklaces. They're pretty well-made for dollar necklaces.

Waimea Canyon

Mark Twain called it "The Grand Canyon of the Pacific", and yesterday we drove all the way around the island to see it for ourselves. It was about a two hour drive from Princeville, where we're staying, clockwise around the island to Waimea Canyon. It would be shorter if we could go counter-clockwise, but there are no roads through there, because it's all rugged cliffs (so it actually wouldn't be shorter).



Scott and Mom H. went to see the canyon when she visited him in Hawaii when he was in the army. They drove all the way up to the lookout and it was so foggy they could hardly see past the guardrail. We lucked out this time and had pretty good visibility. There are only a few days a year when it's really clear, and that's when they take the tourism photos. We were able to see all the way across the canyon, and it was just a little cloudy. It really was spectacular. Birds flying on the other side of the canyon looked like little white dots. It looked a lot like the Grand Canyon, only with lush green vegetation.

Audrey was more interested in our picnic lunch than in looking at the canyon.

Luau Night

Last night we went to the Smith Family Garden Luau. No, we didn't just show up to some family's backyard barbecue. The Smith Family is a big tourism company, running tours and luaus for over 50 years. We arrived at their garden paradise along the Wailua River, where we started our kayak adventure the other day. They greeted us with shell leis and had us pose for a picture (available for purchase later) with two hula dancers in costume. A whole tour bus full of people in Hawaiian shirts pulled up about the same time we arrived. After checking in, we wandered through the gardens. There were also narrated tram tours, but we thought the kids would rather walk. Besides, we already knew what most of those exotic tropical plants were, since they grow in South Florida (more landscaping ideas).

After some time in the garden, everyone assembled for the imu ceremony. The host described what was happening while two young guys in sarongs dug the roasted pig out of the pit. They peeled back the banana leaves and tossed the hot lava rocks back into the pit with their bare hands. The host said normally at home they use tongs, but the guys noticed some pretty girls in the crowd and wanted to impress them.

The meal was served buffet style. The shredded pork was delicious, and so was the mahi mahi, and just about everything else. None of us cared for the poi, which is taro root paste. It's purplish gray goop without much flavor. It's not too bad if you eat it with the salty pork, but it's not something I'd want to eat a lot of. Our kayak tour guide said at his nephew's birthday party last weekend, the family served 300 pounds of poi, and only had 5 pounds left over after the party. So apparently Hawaiians eat a lot of this stuff.

During dinner there was a trio playing and singing Hawaiian music. After a while, they brought up one of the cousins to demonstrate some hula moves. She asked for volunteers to try a dance with her, and you just knew Mary was going to end up on that stage, didn't you? After she was done, Mary showed us all the hand motions and told us what they all meant. She was still running through the story when Scott took her to the bathroom on the way to the after-dinner show, so all the men waiting in line for the urinals got to hear the story of how the fish came to Hawaii.

The show was in an outdoor amphitheater. The audience area was covered, which was good, because it rained a bit during the show. They put on a big production, with a live band, real stage lights and special effects of a volcano erupting. They performed dances from Hawaii (ancient and modern dances), Tahiti, New Zealand, China, Japan, Philippines, and Samoa. In the New Zealand dance, the women twirles poi balls on the ends of strings. Mary got to try that at her Girl Scouts Thinking Day a couple weeks ago. The Girl Scouts didn't twirl flaming poi balls, though, like these dancers did.

The grand finale was the Samoan fire sword dance. I couldn't believe some of the stuff this guy did. He didn't just twirl flaming swords. He put them on his face, laid on them, stood on them, you name it. He started with one sword lit on one end, and when he wanted to light the other end, he didn't light it from a torch. He just grabbed a piece of fire from the lit end and put it on the other end. Mary liked his performance the best. Audrey didn't see any of the show. She went to sleep right before the show started, and nothing woke her up, not the erupting volcano or the firecrackers for the Chinese lion, or being carried out to the car.

Hula girls

The grocery store sold these hula girl kits cheaper than the souvenier shops. We put some Hawaiian music on the radio and the girls performed a hula show for us.

Tropical landscaping

This morning on the way to the grocery store I took some pictures of landscaping ideas for the backyard.

Kayak tour

Today was the big kayak adventure. We took a 5 hour kayak and hiking guided tour to see a remote waterfall. First we paddled two miles up the Wailua River. It was smooth and easy most of the way (except for the fact that it's a lot more paddling than we're used to!). In fact, the river is so slow that paddling upstream is easier than paddling downstream, because of the breeze coming off the ocean. When we got close to the head of the hiking trail, we had to get out and pull our kayaks through shallow water. The current was stronger there, and the rocky river bottom was pretty slippery. The guide told us to leave the kids in the kayaks because it would have been to hard for them to walk there. Then, we parked the kayaks, waded across the river and started our hike.

The trail followed the river through the jungle. It was beautiful scenery, but we didn't get to appreciate it fully, because we had to watch our feet carefully. The ground was muddy and very slippery, and parts of the trail came very close to the edge of the bluff. The guide carried Audrey most of the way, but Mary managed the hike with just a little help. She did great, and the couple on the trip with us said how impressed they were with her. She sang most of the way there, until near the end when she was tired and muddy and hungry. She was crying by the time we got to the waterfall, but lunch and a rest perked her up, and she sang the whole way back to the kayaks.

The trail led us to the base of a high waterfall, with pools for swimming and wading. We ate lunch there, played in the water a bit and enjoyed the view. When it was time to head back, I carried Audrey in the backpack. It was a lot slower hiking back because the trail was a lot muddier from all the tourists, and I had to be extra careful with Audrey on my back. I wiped out once, but she didn't even wake up.

When we got to the waterfall, there were only a couple other people there, but by the time we left, it was getting pretty crowded, and when we got back to where we started huge groups were setting out, ten or more kayaks in a group, with two or three people per kayak. We were glad we got up early to go on the morning tour.

UPDATE:
Mary reminded me that our tour guide said three words you never want to hear your tour guide say: "Check for leeches."