Hawaii.10

Saturday morning Lyle and I were up bright and early and enjoyed our coffee (well my coffee, Lyle had his milk) out on the back porch.  The crazy thing about Kauai is there are chickens EVERYWHERE!  Who would have thought chickens would take over Hawaii.  We read in our travel books that there was a shipment of mongooses (a natural predator) that were supposed to be introduced to the island, but they got pushed back into the ocean after one of them bit a deck hand.  So now chickens are in every ones yards, all over town, and on the beaches.  Lyle loved to watch them out the windows, and chase them when he got the chance.  We tried all week to get him to learn what they say, but he still thinks they say "ruff ruff!"

Lyle and I went for a walk around the neighborhood until everyone else woke up.  We decided to devote a day to explore each of the different areas of the island, so once everyone was ready we headed to the west coast.  There is only one road that goes around the island, but it doesn't connect completely.  There is about a six mile gap.  So even though across the map we were about 10 miles from our final destination, we had to go alllll the way back around the island to get there, taking probably a good two hours.

Our goal/destination was to go to Waimea Canyon (the grand canyon of Hawaii, but much much greener :) ).  If you ever go, you have to drive all the way to the end of the road.  It was awesome!  By the end you are above the clouds, and if they clear away for long enough, the views are incredible.

Lyle was O-U-T!

We took turns at this lookout since Lyle was sleeping.  This was what I saw when I went to look.  

This is what everyone else got to see.  I even tried to go look twice, and the clouds came back each time!  LOL

We headed back down to find some food, looking for the brewery, but discovering it was closed.  In desperation we stopped at L&L Barbecue.  (Probably my fault we were desperate to eat...sorry guys!)  Barbecue apparently doesn't mean the same thing in Kansas as it does in Hawaii because we found
Chinese food inside.  Worst meal of the trip, but we survived. lol. 

Our next stop was at the Kauai Coffee Plantation.  This was one of my favorite stops.  We went on a walking tour of the plantation, did some coffee sampling, and found some awesome souvenirs. We walked a bit through "Old Koloa Town", finding some awesome art galleries, but most of the other stores were closed, so we headed toward home. 

The "MonkeyPod Tree" in Koloa.  Planted in 1925.

We picked up pizza and a movie and relaxed at home for the rest of the night.