A Little Break from the Action: April 22 - 28, 2024

      This will be a little different kind of mission post.  One of the advantages of serving a senior mission in Hawaii is that we are allowed, if our Mission President approves, to take a little time off and travel to the other islands. 

     With our 46th anniversary on April 25th, we planned a couple of months ago to take a little trip to Kauai.  We haven't done anything big for our anniversary for several years and we've never been to Kauai, and being only a 20-minute flight away, how could we pass up on the opportunity?  We asked our mission president for permission to go off island for an anniversary get-away and he gave us his blessing.  As we were making our travel plans, one of the office missionaries, Elder Olsen, got us hooked up with a friend of his that got us a sweet deal at the Westin Princeville Ocean Resort on the north side of Kauai.  Mission blessings for sure.

      We worked our assignments at the PCC on Monday and we also went in on Tuesday for a couple of hours before we had to go to the airport to catch our flight. 

It's an hour drive to the Honolulu airport and then you're supposed to be there 2 hours before our flight, which seems silly since the flight is only about 30 minutes from take-off to landing.  While we were waiting those long two hours, we discovered an outdoor garden travelers can enjoy while waiting for their flight to leave.  The picture on the right is part of the Japanese garden area at the airport.  There is also a Hawaiian garden section and a Chinese garden section. 

    While we were sitting at our gate waiting to board, a bird walked around the terminal totally comfortable with all the people around.  It came very close to where we were sitting.

 

   It was a very non stressful flight.  The plane was only half full, so we both got a window seat because we both wanted one.  I know, a funny way to start an anniversary trip by not even sitting together on the flight.  Go figure :)

   

   We landed in Lihue around 4PM, picked up our rent car, and headed towards our resort in Princeville with a stop in Kapaa to pick up some groceries at Safeway.

     We got checked in to the resort and settled in just in time to go out and see this sunset.  It had been raining, but the clouds parted just enough and at just the right time.  It's a good thing we went outside and got to view this sunset because we didn't get to see another sunset during the rest of our stay because of the cloudy, rainy weather.

  

   Here's another view of the coastline along the resort.  The resort was situated on a cliff right next to the ocean.

      On Wednesday, our first full day on the island, we had a long list of places to see and things to do.  We decided that our plan of action would be to first go to the farthest place from our resort first and just start heading back towards our resort and stop at as many places as we had time to that day.  The farthest place was the top spot on our list of things to do - Waimea Canyon State Park. 

Waimea Canyon is also known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific.  It stretches 14 miles and is more than 3,600 feet deep.  Waipo'o Falls is in the Waimea Canyon, it is a 800-foot-high cascading waterfall which we viewed from several lookouts.  I wish we could have done the 3.4 mile round trip hike to the falls, but it would have taken several hours which we felt we didn't have that much time.  The pictures to the right are just a few of the views we had as we drove up to the top of the canyon.

    

 We did see this fun little guy up close and personal.  He scampered off the edge of the cliff right after I took these pictures.

  It's also fun as we are out and about to have members of the church come say hello and ask us where we are from and where we are serving.  We had a couple talk to us at one of the lookouts in the canyon.  They never fail to say what a fun mission we must be serving in.  I don't know if I'd say fun, but it is definitely not a typical mission.

       We were disappointed when we got to the top of the canyon.  The picture to the left is the view we saw from the top of the canyon.  There were too many low hanging clouds to see anything in the valley below.

Next, we headed to Hanapepe to the swinging bridge.  It's a small town with one main road, so you would think it would be easy to find, but we had the hardest time finding the way to the bridge and a place to park.  After spending about 20 minutes looking and almost giving up, we found this cute sign on the main road (how we missed it I'm not sure).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Notice the signs posted on the bridge.  Doesn't instill very much confidence in crossing the bridge.  It was built in 1911, so it's over a hundred years old.  IT was built to allow pedestrians to cross the Hanapepe river.

                                                                                               Here's a view of the entire bridge.  Elder Rappleye is standing on the nearest side.  I've marked him with the box around him.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       It was a popular tourist stop.  There was also a mural of Lilo and Stitch, a popular Disney movie.  We didn't stop to take our picture.

This is where we finally found a parking spot, behind this cute painted old truck.  According to Google, it had a Bougainvillea gladra shrub growing in the back of the pickup truck.

Since it was around lunchtime, we got a quick bite to eat at a small local outdoor eatery called Longies.  Elder Rappleye just got a hot dog and lemonade, but he should have got DaCharlie, one of Longies Picks.

 Nothing on the menu sounded good to me, so I just got a shaved ice.  We haven't had a shaved ice since we arrived here in Hawaii.  They are very popular, and you can find places that sell shaved ice all over the place.  We saw a place on Kauai that sold Korean shaved ice.  Don't ask me how that is different than regular shaved ice.

The next stop was Glass Beach, a definite bust.  Thumbs down all the way.  It was close to the swinging bridge so we thought we would check it out, but it ended up being a pain to get to and not anything like the pictures or reviews online. The beach was small and there was hardly any glass on the sand that was supposed to make it sparkle. It wasn't worth the time.

The next stop was spouting horn near Poipu Beach on the south coast of Kauai.  It's a blowhole that shoots the ocean water up into the air through a hole in the lava rock.  This was a fun one because every time the water shot up in the air it also caused a loud blowing sound like whales make when they breach and come up for air.  

It was very beautiful down on the south coast.  I can see why it's a popular tourist spot on the island.  The weather was forecast cloudy and scattered rain, but we had very few showers and at spouting horn it was warm and sunny.  One of my favorite stops of the day.

By now it was late in the afternoon, and we still had an hour's drive back to the resort, so we headed back with one more stop on the way.

A tree tunnel along the road home.  Of course, this isn't my picture because there were cars coming the other direction the whole time we were driving through it.  In fact, I wasn't even sure it was the tree tunnel (although I thought it might be) until we had driven almost all the way though it. That's because Google Maps hadn't said, "You have arrived" 😁😁

On our drive home we passed this beautiful mural on the side of on apartment building.

When we returned to the resort, we decided to take a beach access trail down to the beach below the cliff.  There were signs posted saying if you take this trail you go at your own risk.  It was a bit steep, but not too risky.  We made it down just fine and had the beach to ourselves.

 

Thursday was our anniversary.  We splurged and booked a helicopter tour of Kauai.  On the way to the airport to get on the helicopter, we stopped and viewed 'Opaeka'a Falls.

Here is where we saw the most chickens and roosters in one place on all of Kauai.  We had to drive right through the flock(?) to get past them.

  We have been looking forward to our helicopter experience for a couple of months.  Here's a picture of us by the helicopter with our pilot, Steven.  We have a yellow inflatable life vest around our waists in case the helicopter goes down.

All smiles as we wait for our turn to take off.  Actually, I was a little disappointed to get put in the middle seat.  I really wanted an outside seat.  I was the only one that didn't get a "window" seat.  Everyone has to get weighed when you arrive and then they group us and put us in certain seats depending on weight distribution.  I was the lightest person on the helicopter, so I guess the front middle seat is reserved for the person that weighs the least.  There were three separate helicopters heading out at the same time.

The first place we headed to was Waimea Canyon, the place we had explored the day before, only at ground level.  It was so much more amazing from above.  We flew over the parts of the canyon we couldn't see from the road.  Tons of waterfalls!  The waterfall picture on the top left in the collage is Manawaiopuna Falls featured in the movie Jurassic Park.  As we flew over this area of waterfalls, the Jurassic Park theme song was playing in our headsets.  It was the first WOW moment of the ride.

As fans of waterfalls, we were in waterfall heaven.  There were more waterfalls in along the Na Pali coast mountains and Mt. Wai'ale'ale crater.  Almost everywhere you looked you could spot a waterfall, many inaccessible on land.  The only way to see them is by air.  The pictures don't even compare to the actual views.  Mt. Wai'ale'ale crater was another WOW moment.

     We also flew right by Waipoo Falls. We viewed this waterfall yesterday in Waimea Canyon, but from a distance.  It was so cool to get an up-close view of this waterfall.

Next, we headed for the Na Pali coast.

The Na Pali Coast was simply stunning.  You can't view these amazing geological formations without acknowledging God's powerful hand in creating the wonders of this world.  In a helicopter we were able to fly into the valleys to view the rugged steer cliffs up close. There were a lot of low hanging clouds so we couldn't view some of the peaks. The helicopter pilot gave us a little history lesson as we traveled.  It's hard to imagine thriving communities in some of these valleys hundreds of years ago.

Here's a link to a short video Elder Rappleye took of one of our excursions into a valley of the Na Pali coast. https://photos.app.goo.gl/angaCM8bsYBd4Suf7

The helicopter tour lasted about 50 minutes.  It went by so fast because there was so much to see on both sides of the helicopter.  I would love to do it again with a true "window" or outside seat.

After the helicopter tour, we had a couple of hours before our next scheduled activity.  We decided to get a quick cheap lunch at Costco.  Hello, the helicopter tour was pretty pricey, so we had to cut corners in our anniversary celebration somewhere, right?

After our lunch, we realized we had just enough time to go view the Lihue Lighthouse.

Our next adventure was to the Fern Grotto. It was on our list of things to see while in Kauai, but somehow, I missed the fact that the only way to get there was by boat.  I had in my head that we could hike there. I realized the night before that we needed to book a tour in order to see it.  Luckily when I got online to see if there were any tickets available for the next day, there were tickets for the 2 PM boat tour.

We rode on the Johnny-Mac boat.  It's a family owned and operated company that's been in business for 79 years.

While we rode upriver to the fern grotto we were entertained with music, dancing, and history of the area.

Some views as we traveled the 2 miles upriver to the Fern Grotto.

It was a short walk from the boat dock to the Fern Grotto.  The top picture was taken from the trail as we approached the Grotto.  Native Hawaiians use to leave food in the grotto as an offering to their Gods.  It became a popular wedding destination in the 1970's and 80's, and they still perform weddings there.  So, it was a pretty appropriate place to visit on our anniversary.    

We even got some entertainment at the Grotto.  They sang us the Hawaiian Wedding Song in English and in Hawaiian.  Elvis Presley made that song famous when he sang it in the movie Blue Hawaii.  The natural acoustics is perfect for singing and music.

Pictures of the beautiful surrounding as we walked back to the boat.

After the Fern Grotto tour, we drove back to our resort.  We were hoping for nice enough weather to get to take a dip in the pool.

We did get in the pool when we got to the resort.  A few minutes after taking this picture it started to rain but it didn't rain too hard or for too long.  Not the best pool weather, but how can you not enjoy a swim when you have this view of the ocean from the pool?

This is the view we had from our balcony looking out to the ocean and pool area.  We ate breakfast on the balcony the last morning we were there.  We should have relaxed on the balcony a little more during our stay, but it seemed to be always raining or about to rain.  I'm missing the view already.

A few views of the resort.  The picture above is the waterfall and koi pond near the main swimming pool (not the pool by our villa.)  The collage of pictures to the right is at the main entrance to the resort. The picture at the beginning of this post was also part of the main entrance.

                                                                                                     This statue and water fountain was in the surrounding neighborhood.  We drove past it every day as we were leaving and coming back from our adventures.

Check out was at 10 AM, but our flight didn't leave until 4:30 PM, so we had several hours before we needed to be at the airport. There were several places we wanted to visit up on the north shore near our resort.  Our first stop was Hanalei Bay and the historic pier.  The pier was built in 1892 out of wood.  In 1921 the wooden pier was replaced with a concrete one.  It's 340 feet in length.  This pier and bay are featured in the Rodgers and Hammerstein movie South Pacific.  

The bay is crescent shaped and has 2 miles of beach.  This would have been the best place for a beach day if it was a sunny warm day.  The low hanging clouds are obscuring the view of the mountains that surround the bay.  The top picture in the collage to the left is the middle part of the bay.  The lower left picture is the far end of the bay (extension of the top picture right side) and the lower right picture is the near end of the bay by the pier (extension of the top picture left side). Even with the cloudy overcast skies, it was so beautiful, and definitely a shame we could only spend about a half hour there.

This cute little church building, the Wai'oli Hui'ia Church in Hanalei is the oldest established church in Kauai. The church was established in 1834, but this church building was built in 1912.  Wai'oli means "joyful water" in Hawaiian.  We couldn't see the inside of the church because it's still being used as a church today.

We next drove to Ha'ena Beach, but it was so crowded that we could not find a parking spot even though we drove past the parking area several times.  This picture I found on the internet.  We were wanting to see the mountain tip on the far right in the picture. It is Mt. Makana, more commonly known as Bali Hai in the movie South Pacific. 

 But we did get the view of the mountain from the back side.

  Across from Ha'ena Beach is the Maniniholo Dry cave.  Because we couldn't find a parking spot, Elder Rappleye just dropped me off and I ran across the street and quickly went into the cave and snapped some pictures.  The cave goes about 300 feet into the mountain, and you can stand up in it, but the ceiling does get lower towards the back of the cave.

  Here's a view from the inside of the cave looking out to the opening.  It was too bad that Elder Rappleye never got to go into the cave.

      It was now time to head to the airport for our short flight back to Honolulu.  It was a wonderful 3 days of exploring the garden island of Kauai.

   We got back Friday night.

      Saturday morning was the Island of Samoa Devotional.  The island devotionals are always very good.  The theme of the devotional was Elder Carl B. Cook's talk in April 2023 General Conference, "Just Keep Going - With Faith".

     The program began with the singing of the Samoa national anthem.

  President Grace, PCC president spoke and then 4 BYU-H students/employees at the Samoa village spoke.  

A musical number, "Have Faith, My Friend" was sung.  I have never heard that song before.  The spirit really touched my heart when I heard it. I wanted to get the words to the song after the devotional, but I wasn't able to.  I did write down a little bit of the words while I was listening to the song: 

 "We must be strong, for the road is long to eternity.  Let's help each other to make it to the end."

After the devotional they served Cocoa Rice and eggs and homemade bread.  The cocoa rice is pictured in the bottom left picture on the right.  The top picture is one of the speakers, the one with the red flower in her hair.  The young women in the picture on the bottom right radiated the spirit.  Her smile was welcoming and contagious.

After we all grabbed a bite to eat, we returned to our seats, and we enjoyed a performance by the University of Hawaii Samoa Club.

When the Samoans dance, they are always joyful, smiling, and put their whole souls into it.

We were doubly blessed to then get entertained by the Samoa village employees.

You can't celebrate Samoa without including the fire knife dancing.  It was awesome to see a female fire knife dancer included in the group.  I am always amazed to watch the fire knife dancers perform.  It takes a lot of practice to be good at it.

It was a longer devotional than normal, but glad we were back from our little trip to attend and didn't miss it.

Even though it was Saturday and normally a day off for us, we did have an Ask Me assignment that night at the Shaka statue at the PCC.

Attendance at church was smaller than normal.  It is spring break and in between semesters, so some of the students were gone.  There is usually a turnover between semesters with students moving to different hales, leaving school for missions or some of the mainlanders going home to work for the summer.  We'll see what happens in the next couple of weeks.