Kauai Me A River
Last week CK and I went to Hawaii on the invitation of our friends Steve and Sara Urquhart. (That sounds like the start of a journal entry I would've read in my nana's journal entry from the 60s.) We were on Kauai. When we arrived at the Lihue airport the Urquhart's greeted us with leis. Also like the 1960s. Loved it.
If you've been to Kauai you know there are chickens all over the island strutting around everywhere. EVERYWHERE. But they're the most gorgeous chickens you've ever seen in your white, mostly-suburban life. Then they wake you up by crowing at 4am and their charm goes down about 20%. But still...loved it.
We drove to Waimea Canyon and looked into the vastness of what they call the green Grand Canyon. A collective of misty clouds were moving rapidly through the expanse obscuring our view. Occasionally the fog would give us a clearing and we'd cheer and I'd take a billion photos. Then the clouds would shift and we'd being back to peering into a gigantic steamy cauldron. Loved it.
CK got incredibly car sick on the journey up to the canyon and couldn't even walk to the view point. He missed entire thing. Didn't love it.
(But we can laugh about it now.)
One day a monk seal washed up on shore to for a sunny nap in the sand. It was close enough to our beach spot that we became the defacto wildlife rangers, asking people to back up and give the seal a respectful amount of space. Two young twenty-something ladies ignored us and continued to get closer and closer until the seal started hissing at them. And yet, they CONTINUED ON. At this point Steve fetched STAY AWAY FROM MARINE LIFE signs from the lifeguard tower (closed for the day) and posted them all around the perimeter, then turned to us and flexed his biceps. Suddenly the crowds and the imposing girls obeyed and stayed a good 15 feet away. So we called him Hasselhoff for the rest of the trip. He loved it.
The first day we were there Erin called in tears to tell us her pandemic-acquired beta fish Carter Mike Kendrick died suddenly. We talked her through her bereavement. She explained to us how much it hurt when she would walk into the kitchen and see Carter's fish bowl at the sink where Ama our beloved babysitter had cleaned it out. "I am so sad, I don't know if I'll ever recover!" she said to us MAYBE two minutes before she texted to say, "Ok, so now I want a CAT." And then, about 40 single-sent emojis of a cat, causing our phones to explode with notifications. Didn't love it so much.
Ceviche by the beach in Kapaa. LOVED IT.
Watching the ocean glow with late night local spear fishers. Loved it.
Snorkeling in the warm water, being exposed to thousands of tropical fish. Loved it.
Drinking mai tais with fresh pineapple. Super loved it.
Ordered spam musubi. Tried really hard to love it.
Trying to find a tropical bucket hat at the request of Ever at a time when bucket hats are unbelievably trendy was really hard. The cheapest I saw was $40. That's in American money in case you thought Kauai wasn't in America (there are a lot of oblivious tourists on that island) (thinking of you, ladies who got to close to the seal). Anyway, I wish I had the income to spend that kind of money locally but man I couldn't do it. So I ordered a bucket hat for $7 off Amazon and it was waiting for us on the doorstep when we arrived home. I picked it up, took it out of the Amazon branded package and stuffed into our luggage with the other kids' prizes and walked into a cheering crew of posterity. Ever will never know this unless she reads this entry someday. Hopefully by then it we will live in a post-capitalist society where everything is fairer and she will understand why I had to buy her hat from the great global plague that is Amazon.Com.
Anyway...she loved it.
