Sunday, August 21, 2016

Travels With Cactus

Kauai:  August 2016

  Finally, it's time to get away.  We are the poster children for "cabin fever" and Kauai is one of our favorite "get aways."   Starting with the local foods like Loco Moco (Beef patty over rice with gravy)
to Bubba Burgers.  We stay at the beautiful Courtyard at Coconut Beach.  Not you common Courtyard however, This one is more on the lines of a fine "smaller" hotel, with all the amenities and a view that is outstanding.  It sits on a shoreline that juts out slightly into the sea on the windward side of the island.  This means you get to see the sun come up and the Trade winds blow all the rain into the central part of the "Garden" island.
   We were upgraded to an ocean view, over sized room that was to die for.  The people at the hotel  are wonderful.  They serve Mai Tais every afternoon and the music is very Hawaiian. We visited a local potter who uses a different technique and who has gotten very little notice in the ceramic world.  I posted his pictures om my Facebook page and there were many potters who saw them and liked them.
    I used to be a "Hawaii snob".  I felt that people who go to Hawaii just thought they were better than the rest of us, who went tent camping.  One day we won a free trip to the Big Island and from the time I left the door of the aircraft and smelled the flowers I was hooked.  We actually got so relaxed that we forgot to check out of our hotel and had to be given an extension.  We have been coming back to the islands for the last 15 years, at least!  I guess you could call us "Kamaina"  by now.
 We have visited the Islands of Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and of course, Hawaii, "da big island"  We love the Sun,  the foods, the music, the rain (that isn't rain), the sound of the surf,  the flowers that scent the air and mostly the ocean.  The ocean is the life of the islands.  Without the sea, there would not be the moisture in the air that is caught up in the clouds, that drop it our as rain on the top of the
volcanic mountains, that pours down as waterfalls and make the islands green.
Aloha