Aloha!
Now that we’re back home, it’s time to pull up a chair and kick back as I fire up the projector to show my vacation movies.
I’m actually old enough to remember it being a big deal when Dad got out the screen and set up either the movie or the slide projector. I loved watching home movies, especially of things that happened when I was much younger that I couldn’t remember. When Hal and I split up Dad’s records and papers and things, I grabbed the movies. Our public library just set up a digitization lab where you can convert almost any format of analog media to digital. I really need to get the movies down there and start converting them.
At any rate.
I’ll be doing a short series of posts about our Hawaii vacation separate from the regular Sunday posts.
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, our trip down got interesting in Salt Lake City. We had an unplanned aircraft change that took just about all of our layover in Seattle. I’d planned on calling my brother to chat but ended up having only enough time to make a pit stop, refill our water bottles, and board the next flight. Such is life.
We got to Lihue just after 8:00 PM. It took a little longer than I’d have liked to get to the Budget rental counter, but that was a function of the reduced staffing at that hour. We picked up our Kia K5, tossed our bags in, and made the ten-minute drive to our condo/apartment/hotel. Because they only staff the front desk between 8 AM and 6 PM, we had to call the on-site security guard to get our key. Steve was super nice, getting us settled in quickly and giving us a list of about a dozen or so restaurants we could check out during our stay.
I’m not really sure what to call the Kaha Lani. It’s part of the Castle Resorts company. They have a dozen properties across Hawaii. It’s called a resort, but they don’t have a restaurant or a lot of amenities that other Kauai resorts do. There’s a pool and on-site laundry along with a small number of books available to borrow. I’d guess the selection was about twice what you’d see in a Little Free Library. I might see about donating a few copies of my books.
Our place amounted to a one-bedroom apartment, about 600 or so square feet. The kitchen was well-furnished with plenty of cookware and place settings for four people. As we explored the closets, we found the typical iron and ironing board, but we also found a vacuum cleaner, two beach chairs, a boogie board, and some pool noodles. The lanai had chaise lounges and a patio table. I ate breakfast out there Sunday morning. There was something very vacationy and beach-life-like about sitting there with my yogurt and apple, staring out at the surf.
The grounds are beautiful. The resort is right on the east coast of the island, just a few miles north of the airport. It’s about midway between the airport and Kapa’a. Our unit faced the water, so we got a beautiful sunrise view every day because the chickens woke us up so early. More about them later.
Because we landed so late, by the time we got to the resort, most of the local restaurants had already closed for the evening. We ended up heading to the Safeway in Kapa’a to grab sandwiches for a late dinner, and some fruit and yogurt for my breakfast Sunday (Diana brought almost enough of her protein bars), and some drinks.
I mentioned last month that I’d pretty much quit drinking my cherished Diet Dr. Pepper, and I maintained my relative abstinence. I did have a couple of Diet Pepsis during the week though. Turns out Diet Dr. Pepper was in short supply in the parts of the island we visited for some reason. I didn’t find any, in bottles or fountain drinks, until the day we left.
Sunday
We didn’t plan anything specific on Sunday, figuring that we’d take that day to relax after 23 hours of travel. After we got ready for the day, we explored the east coast of the island, driving as far as Kilauea, and stopping at a few scenic overlooks to watch the waves for a while.
If you’ve never seen the surf, the waves constantly and relentlessly crashing against the beach and rocks, it becomes mesmerizing very quickly. The rhythmic noise calmed parts of my soul I didn’t realize were hurting. I could have stayed on any beach for hours, my mind completely blank, surrendered to the water’s cadence.
“The Night I Painted The Sky” (the music starts at about 3:46) is a favorite Jimmy Buffett song (I’ve got a lot of favorite JB songs). He sings at one point that he’s on the shores of St Martin to “restart the fire, a dreamer’s remedy.” And for a long time—the song came out in 1995—I thought I understood what he was talking about. Heck, I’ve been listening to him since the early 80s. I knew he was all about the water. He was, after all, the son of a son of a sailor, and he’d wanted to sail since he was three feet tall.
And this wasn’t the first time I’ve experienced the ocean. The year I graduated from high school, my parents and I visited Dad’s brother in Austin, and we took a side trip to Galveston and Corpus Christi. Dad was thinking about retirement at that point and had it in his mind that they might end up down in that area since he’d briefly taught there between college and the Army.
That trip, I swam in the Gulf of Mexico for a few hours, but I was just 17. I didn’t have the appreciation for the power and the immensity of water that I gained later in life. That, and my priorities were different. There was a girl…
Where was I?
On yeah. Kauai’i. Waves.
Like I said, I’d long thought I understood the kinds of things that drove so many people to write songs and stories about the ocean. I thought I had a grasp on that whole concept.
But standing there on the coast of Kauai’i, watching the water pound the rocks and the beach, that finally made everything click.
And I’m not sure how to explain it to you.
It occurred to me as I watched breaker after breaker land against the volcanic rock that makes up large portions of the coast that no two waves are ever the same. The wind is constantly changing directions and speed. And because the waves are unrelenting in their attack on the shoreline, the bottom changes with every surge, reshaped by the water and itself reshaping the next wave.
And the cycle repeats. Endlessly and eternally.
There were places in those rocks that would never dry out.
That boggles the mind.
Man, but it’s easy to get very philosophical when you’re watching the surf. Time on the beach leads to some deeply metaphysical contemplation that I’m not sure I’m ready for, even at 58.
Maybe I’ll never be in this lifetime. I wonder if I can get another one to go back over some of the things I’ve learned.
Youth truly is wasted on the young.
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