I thought today would be rainy and gray and not exactly great. Silly me. 

We drove to Ke'e beach, at the far end of the road that goes north, then west around the NW side of the island. We will go this way again in a couple of days to hike the Napali Coast. Today was a beach day. We got there in time to find a parking space, close. The beach got more crowded as the day wore on, but it was amazing. In addition to people, there were lots of (free range) chickens. And roosters. And baby chickens…

Folks, if you have body issues, you really need to come to the beaches on Hawaii. Yes, there are some lovely bodies. But way more than half of what you see are exactly what you would see if you walked through Walmart and saw everyone in a swimsuit. It's amazing what becomes normal. That said, this guy really needed to pull up his trunks. I joked that he must be a plumber, but plumbers everywhere might disagree that they have been unjustly profiled…

In all seriousness, we women need to let go of what we look like in a bathing suit and just enjoy life. Here's Hunt, in the water at the beach area. In the winter, this beach is way too rough to swim in. Today, there was a protected area that was perfect. Outside of that and you were risking death. 

We walked down the beach, away from here to see what there was to see. When we turned around, this was the spectacular view…

After lunch we headed back toward 'home'. On the way we stopped at Hanalei beach to wave to Lola and Elanor…

We messed around for a while more (Karen and I shopped for earrings) and then we went to see the Ukulele Underground play for happy hour. 2 hours of what turned out to be the most fun EVER!

Aldrine Guerrrero is playing the ukulele, and Aaron Nakamura is on the guitar. They formed Ukulele Underground and have taugh thousands of people how to play the ukulele over the internet. Hunt is one of these folks and he was so very, very happy to be there for a live performance.

I went thinking that it would be 'nice'. I had no idea how much I would enjoy it. I wasn't alone. Everyone was loving it and I could not help but take this photo of the family next to us:

Here are Aldrine and Aaron with Hunt…

They play again Friday night at another place and we four will be there.

PS – Hi, Mom. We're fine. We'll be hiking on Thursday and Friday. I'll post pictures so you can see :-).

Hunt shopped for, and bought, a ukulele! Truth be told, as I was choosing photos for this post I realized that Hunt was in most of them – so let's see today through Hunt's day!

I'm not counting, but this is Hunt's 2nd new uke :-). He is a happy, happy man.

Hunt is also incredibly fond of chickens. Kauai is chicken heaven. We went to Spouting Horn and Hunt became the chicken whisperer…

There are chicken, and roosters, all over Kauai. Look at the mama chicken below. There are chicks around her…

I count 5, or 6. They blend in. I asked Steve is this was chick season and we both thought about it. We think it is always chick season. I'm not sure why we aren't stepping on chickens everywhere we go.

Poipu Beach is usually a great place to swim on Kauai. Flossie had an impact today. There was a small area to swim, but we didn't. This was the adjacent beach…

There was one spot around the bend from Poipu where you can see what sort of waves were out there. Just to the left of this 4 kids were out on boogie boards. Nuts.

We shopped and looked at nature today instead of getting into nature. FYI – The Walmart in Lihue has great hawaiian shirts. Made in Hawaii even. I also bought some earrings in Koloa Town that have a good aura. Or something like that. Not being able to see auras (or chakras) myself, I just like the orange color with the little colorful beads above.

Karen took this photo of Hunt early today. We all agreed that he looked the best in all of the pics today. Every one of me was very delete-able. Steve and Karen too. Tomorrow the rest of us are going to have to work harder :-).

We woke up to a beautiful rainbow outside of our hotel on Maui this morning. We took lots of photos, but I like this one Karen took the best.

As we were driving to the airport Hunt noticed how lovely the West Maui Mountains looked. I stopped the car and got out and looked both ways before carefully crossing the highway to get this picture. It was worth it.

Tropical storm Flossie caused a lot of flight cancellations, but not ours. In fact, I think that most of the inter-island flights were not as affected as flights to and from the mainland. Our flight was uneventful. Either I worried just enough to stave off disaster, or I worried for no reason at all.

The weather service is predicting a couple of days of (possibly heavy) rain – which has already started. So far it is not constantly raining.

We are in a condo outside of Lihue, on the 3rd floor. Our view is nice and the condo is spacious, clean, and comfortable.

Hunt found a great place for dinner on Trip Advisor – Chicken in a Barrel! It's a BBQ shack by the side of the road in Kapa'a. It was so very, very good!

Karen inspired me to find fun settings on my camera… this looks lke the 1950s, don't you think? That's Karen, Hunt, and Steve at the window, ordering.

Hunt took this picture of me. It's funny, I think I can see a bit of my sister, Christy, in my face in this photo. I don't usually see that.

We can't see the ocean from our condo so after eating, we walked to the nearby shore. The waves were up farther out. Here's Hunt, on the rocks, contemplating taking it in.

We're not really sure what we're doing tomorrow. The hikes we had planned are not good on rainy days. We're batting around a variety of ideas and surely by morning, something will rise to the top.

Tropical storm Flossie is headed our way. I am the designated worrier – no need for all of us to worry. I did my job and worried all day yesterday. This morning is blowy, no rain yet. Lots of warnings. We should fly from Maui to Kaui before the storm gets here. Our flight is still on schedule. But I am scanning the sky – and internet – for any signs if trouble. It may be that we get to the airport and then don't go. If we do go I'll continue to do my job and worry us all the way to Kaui.

We went back to Kahekili beach to snorkel yesterday. Karen took some underwater photos. That's Steve, or part of him…

Hunt gave us a scare, but managed to survive…

Karen was very impressed!

We have visitied happy hours, every day. Mai Tai's are very nice.

And we all took pictures, except for Steve. He's mostly enjoying life without feeling the need to do a lot. It's refreshing. He has, however, fed us more than once. What a man!

I have to go pack now, for the flight that I hope does take us to Kauai.

We went to a fantastic beach today. Ka'anapali beach park is over by all of the more expensive resorts. No wonder – the beach is amazing. There is one part that is better for snorkeling and that's where we went today. I didn't take many pictures, but a few are really nice.

This one of Karen is fantastic. It makes me wonder why I so seldom strike a pose. I really need to do that!

We went to the very fine mall next to the beach after lunch. Here's Steve in front of the Louis Vitton window. We're going back for more photos here tomorrow. Doesn't this look minty!

Karen's camera has a cool feature where you can tell it to see one color and shoot everything else in black and white. Here, she had programed it to see blue…

And here we are with the same camera setting. Cool, don't you think? We're going to do that more tomorrow too.

We have one more day on Maui, then it's on to Kauai! 

There are bumper stickers and t-shirts that declare "I survived the road to Hana!" We did and we all want the shirts. From Lahaina we estimate that it was about 80 miles to the Maui Stable where Hunt and Karen were supposed to be at 9:45. We left at 7:15 and arrived late, by about an hour. 

What is it about this road? I drove on the way out. It is insanely windy, and narrows to one lane often. The speed limit is 35 tops. The average speed might be 18 miles an hour. Or less. I have driven this with 12 students in a 14 passenger van during a wind storn where trees came down across the road. This was way better but still, it's not a Sunday drive. I have no pictures.

After dropping Hunt and Karen off to ride the horses (we are not horse people) we went to the black sand beach.

Then we went to the red sand beach, a place we had never visited. It's small, out of the way, not easy to find, and there were very few people. Luckily we met some folks who were leaving as we got there who point us to to the easy way down. 

We sat and admired the veiw. There wasn't a place to really swim but there was a shady place to eat lunch. We enjoyed it. 

At 1:30 we went back to get Hunt and Karen. They had had a great time on the horses. Not being a horse lover all I can do is be happy that they are happy. And I was.

Charles Lindbergh is buried within walking distance of Maui Stables so we visited his grave. Then we went back to the black sand beach at Hana because, really, they needed to go there too. We all got in the water except Karen, who sat with our stuff and emabraced not moving. She was still a bit nauseated by the Hana Highway drive in and was not looking forward to the drive home. This time the Dramamine helped. The next photo was taken on the way out.

80 miles. On the mainland, in Texas, that is 1 1/4 hours, tops. Here it can be a whole lot longer. We were gone almost 12 hours exactly. Tomorrow is a relaxing beach day. Perfect.

As I type this, Karen is asleep. Steve is reading. Hunt is playing the ukulele. After I post this, I am showering and going to bed. It sounds really nice, just like a vacation….