Christmas and New Years

OK so I did not take any pix of the fantastic white Christmas we had in MN. Mike and I piled more than you can ever imagine in the car and headed to Florida. Had some nice days with my side of the fam and then we flew to MN on Christmas Eve for mikes side. All the while leaving Bella with Grandma and Grandpa in her winter fur coat for a Florida vacation. The day we left Bella found her way to the top of the kichen table and ate the top of a huge apple strudel, she knows she has different rules at grandma's I guess. I wish I had seen the dog standing on top of the table, I know she is a bad dog, but really, wow. Balls. What I do have pictures of are from New Years Eve where we had a good time at the Magic Kingdom. Day started with Funnel cakes for breakfast, and ended with some giant turkey legs. Gross to pick the meat off the big leg, but tasty smoked turkey meat was good rewards. Disney has done up the castle to look like it is covered in ice very nice job of lighting and fireworks when the time was right. Happy New year to everyone who reads my words. Oh and we had a sober new year, that is sprite we toasted with, and it made the drive home on New Years day to be a lot more barable. We listened to 1000 Splendid Suns on the drive, and I would highly recommend it to you all.

Kauai bonus tracks

This is the misc category...

There are chickens all over Kauai, people have many excuses for why, who cares, when this guy is watching you eat, you kind of wonder when they are gonna take over.

Second trip to shrimp station lead us up to see waimea canyon and this is what we saw. If you have been there, you know what we are missing, if you have not look up the image and see how sad this is.

We did not take a pix at jojo's because it was pouring rain and we ate inside and it was dark, here is some shave ice photo evidence, from a less delightful but still consumed shave ice place.

Random picture of a moment that the blue sky showed. seriously random and that is why there is a picture.

Hula Pie, a famous dessert that my friend Keahi loved to talk about. We tried it and loved it, it is true that sailors would swim to shore for this. You can find this at Duke's restaurants, they have a bunch on Kauai and Maui.

Whoever owns the land that the Coco Palms hotel is on I hope you get to develop it, Mike and I will be playing the lotto and hoping to be the money behind the magic because it is a shame that is decaying on such a nice spot. If we do not win we will come stay when you open it up. Our wish is for malasadas, shave ice and shrimp on site so we do not need to really leave.

Food on Kauai

Navigated by stomach lead us first to the shrimp station where we found 4 different kinds of peal and eat shrimp and 2 kinds of fried shrimp. First we tried garlic and spicey thai both were good. two days later we were back for more and tried the cajun and sweet chili again both good. We did not want to mess with the less work fried variety and focused on the mess making kind. Down the street from Shrimp Station is JoJo's shave ice, the best we had on the island.

Luau on Kauai

We went to the Smith family Luau on our trip to Kauai. Here is what you need to know, you get there, you look at beautiful gardens, which on a nice day are probably fabulous, for us it was muddy. About an hour after you arrive they remove the pig from the Imu and then the bar is open from about 6 to about 7:30 when they move you to the show portion of the night. Food is ok, if that is your reason for going. Mai Tai's are decent, and you can get a pretty mean chi chi that is on the rocks from the bar. If you have a lot of these free drinks the dancing portion looks a little funny. We liked the way the lady dancers kind of sang along and chanted. Money well spent.

Tiger man

OK I admit people amuse me. The guy I got to sit next to on the plane from Minnesota to LA for our flight to Hawaii was over the top and needs some time spent telling you all about him. First off we are boarding the plane and looking for overhead bin space and there was a guy coming up the aisle as everyone was trying to come down and I said to him, can you step into a seat so we can get past you. He was kind of frantic and was yelling at someone further up in the plane so I tried to just disregard him all together. I went to row 30 where we were sitting and put my butt in the aisle chair waiting for Mike to come down the aisle to take the window and I would move to the center seat. The "guy" yells down the aisle to me "hey that's my seat" I was like is this guy for real, I yelled back I would be moving over and to keep his shirt on. Really I should have said pants because then I realized he was wearing tiger striped zooba pants. Mike and I went through our "sorry roger you tiger now" giggles and settled in. Tiger guy comes and takes his seat on the aisle and is leaning over me to look out the window, when he informs me that they are loading his dog on the plane and he is sitting back here with us so he can watch and make sure they do not drop any dogs. Automatically I am like OK this guy is worried about his dog, I can simmer. Further inspection shows this guy has a ponytail and has put on tiger striped reading glasses, more giggles. So of course we start talking and he tells us he is a taxidermist in MN and I had to ask, does he have a tiger. Apparently yes, but it is a rug, in a box and an antique. He is on his way to LA for the Ultimate Dog Championships and his dog is a champion in the agility category. Celebrity sighting this early in our trip, so lucky am I. Over time I learn his wife makes his zoobas because they do not make them anymore, and she likes to find the crazy fabric for him, because it is his schtick. sure. Zooba pants were created in MN so he is just a home town guy going to a big city to show off his champion dog. We wished him well and I can not find a picture of him on the internet or I would have one here for you, because seriously he was a genuine character.

Mountain Tubing

First of all when we signed up to do this, it was a warm sunny morning before we went to our Helicopter ride. As you know from the helicopter ride the clouds came in and started to ruin our Kauai parade, just like Maui. Needless to say we woke up to clouds and rain on Friday and knew we were committed to sitting in cold mountain water, great. After being outfitted with helmets, headlamps, and gloves we got to ride in a cool Swiss mountain vehicle that had 6 wheel drive up to the drop in area. Once there we got to walk into the cold mountain stream and put our butt in the tube and were given the instructions to keep your ankles crossed, arms and elbows in and away we went. The canals and such were made in 1860-1874 to fuel the sugar plantations with the needed water for growing. The water looked like the chocolate river from Willy Wonka but taking water in the face on a "rapid" proved it to taste not good. There were 5 tunnels we got to float through the longest being 3/4 of a mile long. Tunnel 5 has some kind of indigenous endangered bat living in it so we rode through with no lights. I felt like I was going down a side tunnel and away from the group and had a moment of serious panic where I almost freaked myself out enough to fall out of my tube. Lucky for us a kid was more scared than I was and he kept turning his light on which showed me that I was still with the rest of the group. Mike relays that the kids face was priceless, so scared, and he would get yelled at to turn out his light, and a few moments later it would be back on. I was to busy calming myself down to see this. So to recap water cold, but a very cool ECO tour and worth your time and money. If you are going to go to Kauai this is something you might want to make a reservation for before you go as apparently it is booked up months in advance. I bet it is awesome when it is 80 and sunny, but even 70 and raining was fun. And now that you know, when you go into tunnel 5 just put your hand on another persons tube so you do not feel so alone.

Kauai from the air

Things were looking up in Kauai. We arrived to sun and went to try Hula Pie. A dessert often mentioned to me from Keahi. It was good. We tried out the pool at our hotel and actually saw stars when walking on the beach at night. After our orientation breakfast we booked a helicopter ride around the island thinking we needed to maximise the sunlight. As we were waiting at the chopper pad the sky was getting dark and they still let us go up in the air. It was a beautiful and amazing ride and kind of scary too. We got to look at the Jurassic park waterfall and they played the music while we were doing that and got to go kind of around the island. The rain was coming east so the pilot did some fancy maneuvers to get us around to the Na Pali coast and the only thing we really missed was the Wailea Canyon which we can try and drive to if it ever stops raining.