Kauai. , HI

Sunday 11/12/11

The alarm woke us up at 7am for our relatively early start for the day. Today was to be a day trip from 9-6 to see Waimea Canyon, Fern Grotto and Wailua River.

BTW: The weather has been mixed. It’s their winter so temperatures are around 17-25 degrees or so. We’ve had a bit of rain but it never lasts for long. One quick down pour and then the suns back out. It doesn’t limit what we do at all though. It’s actually a great temperature for allowing you to get out and about at all times throughout the day. There’s no need to hibernate during the middle of the day at all. Today is like the others so far, warm enough but a bit cloudy with the odd rain shower.

This place does funny things to you. It transports you back in time. We’re waiting out the front of the hotel for the bus to pick us up for our day tour. The Hawaiian music, the whole scene etc just has Brady Bunch stamped all over it. I keep expecting Marsha and Greg to come running out at any moment to try and find Alice to warn her about some other tiki danger. Remember that episode guys? And, when it’s not Brady Bunch, it’s Hawaii 5 O and Steve McGarret. Every time a guy in a Hawaiian shirt turns around, which is all the time, I expect to see the rugged, but handsome, face of Jack Lord looking back at me. This place is 70s city, it’s quirky and kitsch all at the same time.

Anyway, our day trip finally got going. Well, it was a nice day out with some interesting venues but they all paled against the great scenes of yesterday. The most fascinating part of the day though was not the tour, or the various stops, but the guys who were on the tour with us. There was a friendly interesting guy, Alan with his wife, Maria, and her sister, Gina. They were from Rhode Island. They were larger than life and quintessential American. The guy that kept all of us entertained throughout the day though was the musician / trumpet player Tony Horowitz. He played as musician with many of the greats…Ray Charles, Kenny Rogers, Lionel Ritchie, Barry White and Germaine Jackson to name just a few. Think ‘Danny de Vito’ but taller, quick witted, super smart and very authentic (not smarmy) friendly. He was great value. Just one grab from him…we’re walking along the board walk through to the Fern Grotto and he’s musing over where he’d seen this particular, exotic flower before. He then quips….”oh…I remember….it was at Hugh’s house”. Hefner that is! There were oh so many more but he was the nicest, nicest guy. We had a great day chatting and laughing with these guys and this was the magic that made the day….you can’t ‘buy’ these kinds of days!

We made it back to our hotel just in time to catch the 6pm sunset. From there we headed back down to the Lava Bar for dinner where Tom had, yet again, a BLT for dinner. And, yes, Mark started the night with a beer!

Tomorrow is our last full day in Kauai. We’re going to see what the weather brings before we decide how to spend the day.