2/11 Our First Day Off

We woke up this morning to guess what? (rain, of course) and 60 degrees. I showered and stubbornly put on my shorts with a sweatshirt as we were going down the mountain today. We cleaned up a bit after breakfast and then went down to the Plantation Cottages verandah to post the blogs. The temperature there was 73 degrees and sunny so the sweatshirt came off. We successfully published the blogs for the week, but couldn’t get on email so decided to check it when we get back to town. We then went to the Habitat Restore, which is located in the next town and bought a couple of drinking glasses and teaspoons, which are in short supply at camp. From there we decided to drive up towards the North shore to explore a part of the island we haven’t seen yet. Our first stop was Kealia beach where we saw boogie boarders in the 3-5 foot waves. It was a little misty there and in fact the whole day was mist, cloud, rain, sun at various times. We drove on to Anahola where we passed Kalalea Mountain, which is also known as King Kong Mountain because of its unique profile – it really does look like King Kong! Actually, it is quite appropriate as the remake of the movie was filmed here in 1976. We stopped for lunch at Duane’s Ono-Char Burger – a small spot with very good burgers, even better onion rings, and a wonderful mixed berry shake. We continued on and stopped at a place called Hawaiian Hardwood where the artist does wonderful things with driftwood (Lana would have been shipping tons of stuff home) and native woods including Koa and Monkey Pod. He did carvings as well as furniture. Everything was quite stunning. We then stopped at the National Wildlife Refuge at Kileaua Lighthouse. The lighthouse sits on a bluff that is the northernmost point of the main Hawaiian Islands. The lighthouse itself was quite picturesque, but the surrounding cliffs and sea were stunning (see photo of waves smashing against the cliffs). We saw hundreds of red-footed boobies, an albatross, some gulls and 24 whales (or maybe 3 whales 8 times each). The whales were spouting and breeching just off the coast. We stayed there for a good long time, as it was a wonderful place to see and visit (see photo of unknown purple flowers). We decided we had better head back so we stopped at Banana Joe’s for a fruit smoothie and then headed back toward our new home. It is a good thing we started back when we did because the traffic was awesome! We stopped again at the Plantation to check email and then headed up the 15 miles of twisty and foggy in places road back to camp. This is not a road that you would want to drive at night! It was 76 in Waimea and 62 at the camp when we got back at 5:30. We fixed a quick dinner and I think we will just read tonight. It is not raining yet, but it is foggy and I’m sure it will rain in the night as usual. We will try to post this blog tomorrow if we go down the mountain again.