Day 8 LA to Hawaii Cruise

Day 8 Wednesday January 23, 2013
Partly Cloudy, Sunny
High 77 low 70
Sunrise 7:17 Sunset 6:21
Nawilliwilli,  Kaui, Hawaii
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We had reservations to rent a car.  Sue's back was pretty wipped out. She encouraged me to go ahead without her.

The Thrifty shuttle to the airport rental office was pretty painless. I had reserved on-line the same SUV category. Again we scored another Chey Traverse. It was completely tricked out and a pleasure to drive.

I asked the county lady how long the drive is to Wiamea Canyon. She said that it was 2 hours. She was right. The drive one way is about 40 miles. The first part, getting out of lihue, the major city on Kaui was pretty easy and fast. After that the roads are not divided and only 2 lanes. The speed limit is 35 miles an hour for most of the trip. There was plenty of traffic and the speed limit is appropriate.

As the road enters the little towns along the way, the speed drops down to 25. At many intersections the speeds drops down to that too. There are many well groomed houses with big lawns on this side of the island. People have little fruit boxes where they give away the extra fruit they have on their property. Papayas, oranges, and other tropical fruits. The foliage was very green on this side of the island. It changed and became much drier as the road got closer to Wiamea.

Wiamea on Kaui is a thriving little sea coast town. It was the entry spot because of its great natural harbor for Captain Cook. It was a lot of sea port (small boat) attributes.

From the middle of the town of Wiamea is a nondescript sign in a rural residential section that points to the Wiamea canyon road. Its 13 miles of 2 lane was not dissimilar to the road to Lick observatory out of San Jose, California. On several turns you could see yourself coming from where you had been. The elevation gain to the first overlook was 3500 feet. A careful eye had to held for the tourists buses coming at you. It seemed like this is the one destination on everyone's plate. The lookouts dubbed this place the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. They were a part of the state park system and had restrooms and plenty of room to see over the edge. I had to drive around the parking lot twice at one of the spots to find a place to park.

The feral chickens were out in force. They looked a lot like domestic chickens. They scoured the parking lot . One parking lot had a mother hen and four little baby chicks gathering all the cell phone attention that they could muster out of the cell phone photographers.

The view was really worth the drive especially if you are not prone to car motion sickness.

I stopped on the way back in the little town of Eleele. It had a McDonalds and a pork rib sandwich waiting for me. The rain started to come down about half way back to Lihue. The return canopy was welcome and made returning the car painless. I filled it up in Lihue where gas was $4.45 a gallon. I had comsumed $22.00 worth of gas at the 76 station. The shuttle took me back to the ship was provided by Thrifty rent a car. I waited about 5 minutes to catch it.

The navigational system in these rental cars is a must if you do not the roads and where you need to go. The signs and the location of the airport in Lihue is pretty obscure and without confirmation with the navigational system I would not be sure that I was on the right road for the return. The Lihue airport is situated on a long plateau.  The turn offs before getting on this plateau could provide some confusion as they look very similar. The navigation was also great for the blow by blow commentary as I traveled across this rather small island. It pointed out history and interesting places to stop and look around. I was pretty sure that that navigation add on was leading me astray but it wasn't. It would be really nice to have a human beside you to help read what the navigation system was broadcasting so that you would not have to take you eyes off the road to anticipate its messages.
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Dinner:
Pat
Appetizer: ceviche scallops and fanned avacado slices
Soup: lamb and vegetable
Entree: Prime Rib
Desert: Grand Marnier Souffle  (another person at our table ordered the black forest cake with cherries

Sue:
Rolls with cheese, fruit salad, chocolate covered strawberries, eclair, and a slice of papaya

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Our dinner table friends from England had never heard of shaved ice. We were looking forward to our day on Maui. Debra ordered a cup of Irish coffee as an after dinner drink. She was sort of shocked in disbelief when the waiter brought her the drink. It is essentially coffee with a shot of whiskey in it. It has an inch or two of whipped cream on top of this not coffee drink.  This drink came in a parfait like clear mug with a side cup of whipped cream. on the whipped cream was a maraschino cheery. In our discussion we realized that there were more classes of cream in the UK than in our culture.  This would not fly if you ordered it in the UK.  But what could you do... this probably was okay for most Americans.