Friday February 5, 2010

We woke up fairly early this morning - hard bed and strange dreams. We had breakfast at the hotel - toast and fresh pineapple - yum! We packed up the car and headed off to the grocery store in Lihue as we heard that the one in Waimea was smaller. We bought all of the dry goods that we would need for the week and then headed out for Waimea. We went past the town for a while to see what was out near the end. The road actually does end on this side of the island because of the topography, but we didn't make it all the way to the end - we will save that trip for another time. We came back into town past an old sugar mill and stopped at a small local craft fair where we got lots of suggestions for eating from the local women. We ended up eating at a small cafe right next to the grocery store. They were advertising a Furlough Friday special breakfast for teachers as Hawaii has just voted to have no school on Fridays for the rest of the school year as a cost savings measure. Not far from the cafe there were a dozen people protesting the new law - most of them looked like moms who were against the loss of time in the classroom. After lunch we picked up our cold items and fruit and then headed up to camp. The road to camp is 15 serpentine miles! We have never seen so many twists in one road! It goes from sea level to 3600 feet. The views along the way are spectacular, but it was a bit hazy so we didn't stop to take pictures. I can see why they call it the Grand Canyon of the Pacific - very impressive and beautiful. We got up to camp (one of the pictures) and found that we have two buildings. One is a communal kitchen, dining/living room, and library and the other has a computer room (with dial-up) - I still can't figure how to blog on it and bunk rooms. We have a private room with a bunk bed and a single bed. There are another couple from North Carolina and their daughter who have the other two private rooms and then there are two Japenese students with their tutor from Switzerland whom we haven't met yet as they went to town and missed their ride up to camp. The couple from NC said they saw the boys at the beach, but not the translator - so who knows what happened. There is another small cottage behind the office and a couple from Alaska are staying there along with a woman from Oahu who is renting our her house for the winter to make money so is working for the camp for housing. We had soup for dinner as we weren't all that hungry. We then checked email and read for a while before going to sleep.