Day 4 - a comedy of errors

Today started off inauspiciously. Listgirl was awake by 5:30am (boo).


She still missed the beginning of the sunrise though

When I finally got up we had a quick cereal and went out for another run. It had become pretty hot just like on Monday. We got in our 3 1/2-ish miles but it was hot! Not sure we're going to try it again while we're here. But we got it done which was a victory, right? Surely the rest of the day would pick up now that the tough part of the day was done!

We headed out for lunch at Zelo's Beach House in Hanalei. (Note the lack of hyperlink.) As always, I had called ahead to make sure the place still exists since our guidebook is a few years old. They are still there. But we couldn't find it...and Hanalei is a very small town - basically a few blocks. Another call and we knew to look for the large blow-up Santa. We saw two but they weren't too far apart so we walked between the two of them. Still no sign of Zelo's.

Hey, wait, down the street...there's another Santa! Next to that was a place called Kalypso but no Zelo's. By now we were suspicious. Turns out Zelo's is now Kalypso. And the place was pretty good! We're back on track.


A member of the Santa posse



We forgot to bring our multivitamins on our trip. I like to take a calcium pill since I don't drink milk. Without that pill, I figured I'd best eat either pizza or shave ice (with ice cream) every day here. It's only logical, don't you think? Well one of Kauai's top shave ice places happens to be in Hanalei. What luck! Oops, it was closed for the day. Why? Well, the sign says closed Mondays and days with bad weather. I guess 80 and sunny counts as bad weather! So we picked up our shave ice at a random spot down the street. Perseverance is our middle name.



Onwards to Ke'e and the Kalalau trail. Ke'e Beach is at the "end of the road" in Kauai. Going north and then west, that's as far as one can drive. If you go the other way (south, then west) you can only drive a bit past Waimea which is what we did on Monday. Anyway, there we were at the end of the road ready to head down the trail to whatever sights it would lead us to.


Driving to Ke'e


The Ke'e beach




The mountain on the other side of the beach

Uh oh, problem #4 (is that right?)... The trail was quite steep and rocky. After 10 minutes or so we gave up and headed back. Whatever was over there was not worth 2 miles of that each way. Not to mention Listgirl added a couple more bug bites to her collection. That's 14 by my count.


When we still thought the trail would be fun



I have no bites so far by the way. Why do bugs like her better than me? Her theory is her hairless legs seem an easier target than my furry ones to the critters. My idea is that she smells sweeter.

OK, that too was a bust. So we'll head back and catch a couple of sights we had skipped on the way out (too hungry). Perhaps we'll enjoy walking through the ritzy hotels of Princeville. The buildings over there are tres fancy (and sell $10 hotdogs - more than the Hotel Del Coronado!). So we drove in... and suddenly found a gate. Turns out we were welcome to visit but we had to park via valet. I'm not sure how much that costs because we passed.

One more thing to try before heading back and eating dinner. The sun was still shining (rain is in the forecast) and the Kilauea lighthouse beckoned. We had gone there 6 years ago and enjoyed the views.

Today was a bit different. Now it's a wildlife preserve (read: lots of birds and bird poop) and it costs $5/person to enter. Maybe it's always been so but we didn't remember that. And...it closes at 4PM even though the sun does not set here until 6. Seeing that it was 3:55, we did not enter. We did take a few shots from the best view we could get from the street.



Finally, we stopped by the Hanalei lookout.





For dinner, we just wanted something pretty quick and close to our resort, so we went to Pacific Island Bistro in the Safeway shopping center.  We had eggplant with black bean sauce, and mushu chicken wraps.  It wasn't too bad, but definitely not the best Chinese we've ever had.  And we forgot to take photos.

Well, what can I tell ya...sometimes things go wrong, even in paradise. But at least I was able to relax, enjoy the views and time with Listgirl. There are worse situations to be in.