Vacation with my Childhood Friends
I join Steven and Chad on a whirlwind car trip to Massachusetts.
bicycle alaska
Vacationing between CCR&W and WesternGeco jobs
⊕ somewhere in Alaska | 2001.06.03 | Photos | Bicycle, Hiking, Vacation
hawaii vacation
Our Hawaii vacation (and yes, we did deserve it)
⊕ Oahu, Hawaii | 2003.06.14 | Photos | Hawaii2003, Vacation
puerto vallarta
Vacationing in Mexico with Julie!
⊕ Puerto Vallarta, Mexico | 2003.10.26 | Photos | Vacation
Vacationing (for free!) at San Diego
Lots of Water
⊕ San Diego, CA | 2004.08.19 | Photos | San Diego, Vacation
Paris in the Wintertime
GWEC, Julie, and I visit Paris.
⊕ Paris, France | 2005.02.28 | Photos | David's friends, GWEC, Paris, Vacation
Taiwan Visits
Some shots we took during our visit. This includes the infamous (as soon as I get around to posting it) karaoke night.
⊕ Taipei, Taiwan | 2006.11.26 | Photos | Taiwan, Vacation
Arrival
We made it. It’s almost 1am Seattle time and I’m exhausted. The travel was stressful but uneventful. I’ll write more tomorrow when I can manage full sentences.
⊕ Kauai, Hawaii | 2008.01.21 | Kauai 2008, Vacation
New days and light rain
My travel anxiety lifted early this morning as we started our first full day in Hawaii. We woke early (since we gained two hours it wasn't difficult), and after a Hotel breakfast, we headed out for a full-day adventure. We stopped at the local Walmart to stock up before jumping in our not-so-fancy burgandy Jeep, and hitting the open (and somewhat limited) roads of Kauai.
It was warm here with a mixture of clouds and sun. There were a few brief rain showers, all of which happened when we were eating or driving.
We stopped to take photos at Wailua Falls, but wussed out of the hike down to the bottom. Instead we drove to the Ho'opi'i Falls Hike, and went down the river, sliding some of the way on our buts down slick red mud (thanks to the rain), ducking under branches, and walking along steep ridges to catch the two waterfalls. The hike was invigorating and off the beaten path. We had to improvise a bit, as the blue book was light on details, but we managed to find both waterfalls, and even spend part of the hike traversing the edge of the river.
Here are a couple of photos (because of bandwidth issues, I won't upload the full versions until we return home):
We went to a hotel restaurant for dinner. Not the greatest choice, but we're fed and the hiking and the long day are pulling us toward the warming embrace of bed.
⊕ Kauai, Hawaii | 2008.01.21 | Kauai 2008, Vacation
SNUBA and rocks
Another beautiful day draws to a close. We started late this morning, grabbing the hotel’s breakfast buffet before heading to Lawai’i Beach for SNUBA. SNUBA is similar to SCUBA, except instead of carrying the oxygen tanks on your back, you have an air line connected to a raft that floats above you. The air line goes for about 30 feet.
Julie is a certified SCUBA diver, which just means she went through the boring lessons that are required before SCUBA diving. The way she describes SNUBA is like SCUBA but with instant gratification--no lessons required. We went with an older couple, and the dive master took video. We watched it at the end of the tour, and purchased it. I’ll upload a slightly edited version when I return to Seattle.
I’m not a strong swimmer and I was a bit concerned when going down for our thirty minutes of diving. Except for a brief panic about halfway through, I did rather well. Even when the panic almost overtook me, I remained calm, remembered to breathe out (which is supposedly the secret of diving: force yourself to breathe out slowly; breathing in will be done automatically), and regained control. The water moved from cold to warm depending on the currents. There were schools of fish and some coral under the water. It looks as it does on television. The colors are brilliant when seen up close, but look washed out when you move any distance away from the object.
After it was over, I was very cold and a bit confused. I didn’t remember time passing during the dive. I had to ask how long we were down because I had no idea. I’m not used to breathing so deeply or deliberately. Julie thinks too much oxygen went to my brain—something it’s not used to, which does explain an awful lot.
After we finished SNUBA diving, we caught a late lunch and headed to the Maha’ulepu Beaches. The dirt road leading to the beaches was full of pot holes and tested our not-so-fancy Jeep and my sensitive stomach. We took many photos of this beautiful beach. It took a bit of hiking but not nearly as grueling as yesterday. The beach is covered with lithified rocks, which look like Swiss cheese after the years of seawater beating against them. The waves were vicious, and except for a few brave para-surfers on the tamer part of the beach, nobody was in the water.
After Julie finishes showering we’ll head out to dinner. I plan to sleep well again tonight.
Here are a few shots from today using Julie's new fancy camera:
⊕ Kauai, Hawaii | 2008.01.22 | Kauai 2008, Vacation
Potholed Roads
We started the day on the East Shore with the Jungle Hike off Kuamo’o Road. There were two parts to this hike: the first was getting there. Similar to the hike yesterday, a dirt road led to the trailhead. With the winter rains, the road was barely passable. Our not-so-fancy Jeep managed the potholes and mud rather well. There’s a photograph below showing what the road looks like. Each one of the potholes was anywhere from a few inches to a foot deep. The Jeep felt like one of those rides in Disneyland, where the car shakes incessantly but stays in place. I felt a bit seasick from the ride.
At the end of the road, we arrived at the trailhead that led to the Jungle Hike. We walked through a mixture of rain showers and sun. Our hats kept most of the rain out of face, and we scavenged walking sticks at the start of the hike to more easily traverse the muddy roads. The hike itself led along a ridge and up a nice if slippery hill where it ended at a man made waterfall. We have many wonderful photos. During the summer, there’s a large drainpipe that hikers can use to cut through the hill instead of climbing over it. The drainpipe lets out at the top of the waterfalls. During the summer, there is a few inches of water in the pipe. When we stuck our walking sticks into the path leading to the pipe, we found a good couple of feet of water.
Parts of the Jurassic Park movie were filmed at this location. We saw three Movie Tour vans that took tourists up and over the very bumpy road leading to the path. We don’t think they hiked the muddy and dangerous path (like the majority of tourists on Kauai, the Movie Tour tourists were older), and instead likely hiked along the main road to a few side hikes that overlooked the hilly surroundings where they shot parts of the movie.
After finishing the hike and the bumpy ride back in the late afternoon, we headed north. We stopped at yet another hamburger joint (our third of the trip), and shared Boca and garden burgers, and a order of fries—what’s turning out to be our normal lunchtime fare. We drove for a while and arrived at Queen’s Bath in Princeville. Princeville is a recently constructed Golf community. The entrance has a large marble fountain that leads to the golf course. There are many timeshares, condos, and houses along the road.
Finding the trailhead was a bit difficult. The street where we had to turn was not labeled (there was a sign for the road coming from the other direction. We saw it after making a U-turn—guests of the Princeville Hotel, which is at the far end of the main road we followed, would have no trouble finding the trailhead). The parking area was full of cars and we pulled our not-so-fancy Jeep in the last empty spot. The blue book mentioned that before they listed this trail, it did not receive much traffic. Since everyone we spoke with agreed that the blue book was the guidebook to get, it seems all the trails listed will soon be overrun.
We grabbed our bag and headed down the muddy and slippery path that led to Queen’s Bath. It was a short if treacherous hike down to the rocks. Once there, we ran into the first of many people on the path. An older gentleman with a cane greeted us, and told us that he visits often in the winter, and this was the first time he was here that the path leading to the Bath was open. Usually it was covered in seawater.
We took that as a good sign and continued to head over wet rocks. The ocean hammered outcroppings of holey rocks as we made our way further out, where the gentleman had told us we would find the Bath. We passed a few more people heading back, and after a bit of scrambling made it to the Bath. A family had just climbed out of the Bath, which turned out to be an elliptical area that was partly enclosed by rocks. The water in the Bath was calm when we arrived, but after a few minutes, a huge wave broke over and across the rocks sheltering the Bath and the frothy white water streamed into the otherwise calm water. I had already decided I would not climb down and swim in the ocean water. The water outside the Bath looked treacherous and the clouds had rolled in and ocean water is scary: it’s salty and there are riptides that lead to the deeper parts, and unlike my last trip, there may not be dolphins to save me if something went wrong.
I didn’t enjoy this hike as much as our morning hike. I like it when we don’t run into many people. In the morning, except for the trailhead and a few stragglers leaving while we were entering, we didn’t see any people. Julie, who is doing a wonderful job planning our days, decided to take that into account for the remaining days. She immediately thumbed the index of the blue book looking for secret hikes and waterfalls. She found one. We’re going to try it tomorrow.
Finally, we stopped at the Opaeka’a Falls Lookout and snapped a few photographs. This is another one of those side-of-the-road stops, where there’s a small parking area off the side of one of the main roads. There are only a few main arteries through Kauai, mostly having one or two lanes. Julie has managed to navigate with only the blue book as our guide.
We went to a local Sushi restaurant for dinner tonight. We have not left the hotel area for dinner since we arrived. While we planned to explore restaurants away from the hotel, we end up doing so much driving during the day (today we drove for almost two hours, all told) that the last thing I wasn’t to do is get behind the wheel of the not-so-fancy Jeep for another drive.
⊕ Kauai, Hawaii | 2008.01.23 | Kauai 2008, Vacation
Relax the Day
On our first day in Hawaii we did what all tourists do: we stopped at the local Walmart to stock up on important supplies. Included with those supplies were two sets of snorkels, masks, and flippers. Up to this point, we did not have much chance to use them: the waters were either too rough or it was too cold (relatively speaking) to go in. We decided that this morning we would get our money’s worth. We stopped in Lydgate Park. Well, we tried to stop. The entrance to the park is a semicircle that leaves the highway and returns to the highway. You have to turn off of it to arrive at the beach. I managed to complete the semicircle and return the highway. After a twenty minute U-turn, we made it to the beach and parked.
The blue book tells us that Lydgate Park is perfect for the beginner snorkeler. It’s an enclosed area of the ocean with (man-placed?) rocks forming a half circle around a large swimming and snorkeling area. Beyond the rocks is the ocean with the scary winter waves crashing but not overtaking the swimming area (unlike Queen’s Bath yesterday where the large waves broke and flooded the Bath). There was a smaller half-circle area to the left of the main one, presumably for the smaller children. The park had as many children playing in the sand and water as chickens and roosters. This is saying a lot in Kauai, which is overrun with poultry (they were released after the last hurricane and seem to do well on their own—like stray dogs but without the animal control). Besides the children and chickens, there were a number of snorkelers who worked their way along the outer rocks looking for the three schools of fish that live off the fish food and bread that snorkelers inevitably bring with them to ensure the schools swarm around them. (I decided we were too cool to steal bread from the yummy breakfast buffet, and had to make do with the fish leftovers from other snorkelers.)
With our recent SNUBA experience in mind, we outfitted ourselves in our regalia, and headed into the water. We dunked ourselves immediately to get over the initial cold shock of the water. We then slipped on our flippers and grabbed hands and swam out toward the fish. We found a few schools and paddled around for a while. It was similar to the SNUBA experience except with less fish and rocks, and no post-swim induced euphoria/memory loss. The fish mostly ignored us and we followed the two or three that we found. We lasted a good fifteen minutes before our leaky masks and the cold wind did us in. We spent the rest of the morning lying on the beach, napping, and snapping photographs.
After our morning snorkel, I made the executive decision to take it easy today. We had spent the previous days adventuring and hiking, and I woke with sore muscles and a deep desire to sit by the pool and read. We returned to the hotel for lunch, continuing with our garden burger and fries theme, and followed our lunch with a quick dip in the oversized (and misshapen) hotel pool, and a delightful soak in the hot tub. We relaxed by the pool and did more napping before returning to the hotel room for even more napping.
Before dark we went to the beach area around the pool and watched a fabulous albeit short hula dance with traditional drum and singing. The two male hula dancers stood around looking Hawaiian, while the two ladies did all the work.
We then headed to Caffe Coco, a restaurant that the blue book could not describe. The food was interesting and strange: a mix of Indian and Thai and perhaps a bit of Jamaican thrown in for good measure. It was the type of place we were glad to have visited but probably would not return. A live band started its performance as we began our dessert. We lasted through a few songs before escaping. They played a strange mix of blues, blue grass, and country. The instruments included a steel guitar, an acoustic guitar, a guitar-shaped bass, an electric ukulele, a banjo, and a wood saw—the type you play with a violin bow.
⊕ Kauai, Hawaii | 2008.01.24 | Kauai 2008, Vacation
Hiking up the giant
We climbed the sleeping giant today. It is so named because when viewed from the right angle it looks like the face of a giant. The local people tell many stories about this mountain. (All of which we heard by way of cardboard cards that the hotel leaves with chocolate during its evening turndown service.) The latest one goes like this: A large giant lived in the Wailua area. At his command the people in the local village fed him large amounts of fish. Fed up with feeding the giant so much of its fish, the villagers hid rocks within the fish and gave them to the giant. He grew tired from the large meal, and fell into a deep sleep on the mountain ridge between Wailua and Kapaa.
The blue book describes this hike as moderately challenging. It took us a little more than an hour to climb through the well-maintained switchbacks that lead to a picnic area near the peak. A short hike from the picnic area led to the summit of the sleeping giant. It’s a narrow path with a rather perilous ridge crossing with a straight drop on either side of the rocks. Julie had no problem crossing over. I abandoned my highly polished walking stick and crawled across the ridge on all fours. I don’t like heights, especially when there’s a stiff breeze or the possibility of a stiff breeze. I described this to Julie and asked her what her fears were. It took her a while to come up with one. She said she was afraid when falling. I explained to her that’s not really a fear: it’s like being afraid of a bullet after it is shot toward you.
We summated the sleeping giant and documented it in the this photograph.
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About halfway up to the summit, there is a small trail that leads to the “mouth” of the giant. It is a small cave-like opening on both ends of the head. Others call it the nose or chin of the giant. We crawled into the cave opening and snapped a few photographs. While it may look like I’m being brave, I’m actually huddled at the center of the cave, afraid to move toward either end for fear of the stiff breeze.
After we finished the trek down (which was much easier than the hike up), we went to a delicious Mexican restaurant before returning to the hotel for much napping. The hike exhausted us, and we slept and read until nighttime. We ate at the hotel, and played a game of chess before heading back to the room to write up this report. This was Julie’s first chess game and she played quite well. I eventually managed to kill off all of her pieces, leaving her with just her king and two immobile pawns. She refused to resign, and we played out the endgame. I somehow managed to stalemate her king while growing greedy with a second queen. I guess she was right to wait me out.
I’m still tired from the hike and the bed calls me. We only have two more days in Hawaii before heading home. I’m not sure I’m ready for that.
⊕ Kauai, Hawaii | 2008.01.25 | Kauai 2008, Vacation
Garbage Sea
We spent the day exploring the West coast of Kauai. This was the only coast we have not yet visited. We started between the south and west shore at the Glass Beach in the industrial part of Hanapepe. It was named because the beach is covered in shards of glass. We saw many tourists combing the beach for the glass and ceramic pieces that cover the beach. Following the blue book, we spent little time on the beach, and instead ventured off to the rocks running along the beach, to the source of the glass and ceramic shards.
Along the side of the beach is an old dump site. This may not sound interesting but it is surprising what the sea does to the old machinery that the locals dumped (and continue to dump) along the side of this former garbage site. Over time the metal and garbage become interwoven with the lava and rock. If someone managed to pack away some of the rusted equipment to a New York museum, they would have little problem convincing the curators of their value as modern art.
The blue book calls the hike past the Glass Beach the Melted Metal and Keyhole Cave at Swiss Cheese Shoreline. The Swiss Cheese refers to the holey lava rocks that like many rocks along the shoreline have worn away under the wavy barrage of seawater. We’re not sure we made it to the Keyhole Cave. There were a few caves we passed as we climbed over the rocks and garbage, but at one point, when the remaining wall of the dump site rose ten feet, and we were surrounded by rocks and garbage, the smell became overpowering and we decided to end our hike early instead of carefully picking our way over the rocks and garbage, trying to avoid the many glass shards and battle that still covered the site.
At one of the holey rocks, Julie came across two fish trapped in a small pond from the last high tide. They were pretty fish and Julie wished she had a bucket to help them return to the ocean. I patiently explained that when the next high tide came around, the fish would swim over the rocks and return to the ocean. Julie nodded in agreement and still wished for the bucket.
After leaving the Glass Beach, we drove along the west shore to the beginning of Waimea Canyon. It is said that Mark Twain dubbed the Waimea Canyon the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. The blue book sets the record straight: although it’s a nice story, from Twain’s biography, it turned out that during his visit to Hawaii he never set foot on Kauai. Even without Twain’s blessing, the canyon is still quite large and majestic. It is a four-thousand foot ascent to the highest point of the canyon. While I would like to say we hiked up it, it was our not-so-fancy Jeep that did all the work. There are well-paved roads leading through state parks up through the canyon. There were a few hikes that led down into the valley, but we did not have the proper clothing for the hikes—and we were tired and the bugs were biting and Mercury was not in the right house.
Along the drive up Waimea Canyon, there are beautiful vistas every few miles, and we shot many photographs of the canyons. To tell you the truth, once you see one photo of the canyon, they all look about the same.
At the very top of the canyon we did find a different and quite beautiful vista. A light mist had followed us up through the valley, and when we arrived at Pu’u o Kila Lookout, the mist cleared to reveal a beautiful rainbow cutting across Kalalu Valley and the Pacific Ocean. While it was a long forty mile round trip (mostly stuck behind very slow cars), it was worth it for this picture alone.
When we entered the canyon, the temperature was around 70 degrees. As we worked up to the peak, it dropped to 60 degrees. When we returned to sea level we entered Kekaha. It was a toasty 80 degrees in Kekaha, the last town on the western side of the island.
Leaving Kekaha, we drove to the end of the highway 50 with the hopes of seeing Polihale State Park. The park was closed, but we did find a few roads leading to Ka-Boom Mountain. That is its name, Ka-Boom Mountain. There are many military bases along the western end of Kauai, and the military dug manmade caves along Ka-Boom Mountain to store explosives and ammunition. Suffice to say the large fences did not allow us to get very close to the mountain. It was here that we decided that our exploration of the western side of the Kauai was complete.
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by Kipu Falls. We planned to visit these falls on our first day in Kauai. When we asked the parking valet to check our directions to the get to the fall, he told us that he wasn’t supposed to tell us how to get there. It’s a liability thing: many of the sites in Kauai are not run by the state, and when people get injured, they blame whomever helped them get there: the land owners, the travel books, and the hotels. To show that we could, we stopped at Kipu Falls, walked up through the muddy path, and arrived at the falls. They were smaller than the other waterfalls we had seen, and a group of locals were toweling dry. There was a ladder leading from the bottom of the falls to the rocks above. It is likely they had spent the day jumping over the falls. We did not stay long, as we learned from our first hike in Kauai that the mosquitoes have a real affection for red mud, and there was plenty of red mud around the falls.
⊕ Kauai, Hawaii | 2008.01.27 | Kauai 2008, Vacation
Big and scary waves
We spent our last day in Kauai revisiting the North Shore of the island. We’re sitting in the airport now waiting for our redeye flight to board. It takes off a bit before midnight. Thanks to the late flight, we had a full day of activities, taking our time to ensure we weren’t at the airport four hours before our flight (as I’ve said before, I prefer to get to the airport early to avoid anxiety—just not that early). We traveled up highway 50 for most of the day, reaching its end.
Before we arrived at the North Shore, we stopped at the Pools of Malakae. You reach the pools by driving along yet another dirt road. The entrance to the road has signs warning that the road is closed and it might be a federal violation to trespass along the road. The blue book told us it was okay, and since it is a higher authority than the U.S. government, we trusted it and made our way along the rough road. Our not-so-fancy Jeep did quite well on what was the slipperiest path it has driven. Let me clarify: the Jeep was a wonderful choice. It allowed us to drive on roads that we would have been fearful with lesser vehicles. I call it the no-so-fancy Jeep because it’s a Jeep: it’s not supposed to be fancy. The windows roll up and down with a crank, and except for the A/C, it has base everything. Perfect for what we needed it for, namely driving through hugely potholed roads and over red slippery mud.
Once we arrived at the end of the path, we hiked along a fence separating the bird-protected (and therefore illegal to trespass) part from the rest of the beach. We walked down from the fence to the lava rocks that ran along the edge of the ocean. The blue book described pools and swimming holes, but there was to be none of that today. The ocean was angry throughout the day. There was a high wind and an even higher tide. We stood on the rocks next to where the ocean pounded, trying its best to get to us. It was a bit scary as we hiked as far as we could before trekking back. Besides a few locals sitting in trucks at the end of the road, the hike was deserted. We passed a few joggers as we drove back, but there wasn’t a person on the rocks with us.
We next stopped at the Secret Beach. We mentioned a few days ago that we were going to use the blue book to find a secret beach, which only we would know about. You get to the beach by hiking down a steep wooded trail. (The hike back up was much more difficult.) The beach was surrounded by beautiful houses overlooking the oceans around it. The beach was large and well worth the hike. It had the most sand per person we had seen since arriving in Hawaii. There were a couple of families on the beach, but even so, it was quite secret and mostly deserted.
From the Secret Beach we tried to find the Secret Lava Pools, but because of the high surf, we didn’t get very far. We snapped a few photographs and called it good, hiking back up the steep path that led to the Secret Beach.
We left the Secret Beach and headed west along Highway 50 to Hanalei, a picturesque town with many rice paddies and postcard views. We grabbed lunch at a cute seafood place called Dolphin something, with an outdoor seating area that overlooked the Hanalei River. As we left town, we saw a few cars pulled over and people snapping photographs. I joined them and Julie caught this beautiful photograph.
They just announced that the plane is boarding, so I’ll speed this up a bit. After we left Hanalei, we continued the drive west to the end of highway. It ends at the beginning of the Na Pali coastline. There is an 11 mile hike at this point, but because of the time, and our lack of preparation, we decided to forego the hike, and instead stopped at some amazing beaches, where we watched (and even took video) of a few brave surfers on the waves.
The plane beckons us, and we plan to sleep a few hours before arriving at Seattle and rescuing Ziggy and Button (we have decided to call them the Biggies when referring to both dogs).
⊕ Kauai, Hawaii | 2008.01.28 | Kauai 2008, Vacation
Our Honeymoon!
Here's the culled photo album for our trip. It was a difficult process removing enough photos to bring this album a shy under 200 photos (I know...who would look through all these photos except my mother and Julie?).
For people looking for even more photos, there is good news: I plan to upload all the photos into separate daily albums. Once done, I'll link them here, so as not to clutter our photos index. We're also putting together all the videos we took into a small movie. No ETA on that project but we've at least talked about it.
⊕ Kauai, Hawaii | 2008.01.28 | Photos | Kauai 2008, Vacation
The Hamptons Vacation
We visited Julie's sisters and Steven in NYC, and then went for a weekend in the Hamptons with my family. We celebrated my mother's 60th birthday, and spent much of the time at the beach and pool.
There are lots of photographs. With six nieces, I found most of the photographs too cute to delete.
