Until I moved to California, I went to the local county fair in Illinois with my dad every year for as long as I can remember, and my favorite thing was always the animal barns. My dad jokes about taking a deep breath before entering the swine barn and trying to hold it until we were out, but I just couldn’t get enough. To me, a county fair is synonymous with farm animals.

Back when I was a child, it seemed like access to the animals was much easier and I would pet the pigs, pat the cows’ hindquarters, and look soulfully into the goats’ eyes. Oh, the goats. How I loved the goats. Going back as far as I can remember, probably back to that first trip to the county fair when I was a toddler, I have always wanted to have a goat.

These days, walking through the animal barns is very much an arm’s distance affair.  The individual corrals have high fences to keep hands out and there are people around to discourage passersby from petting the animals. I understand why – imagine the stress on the animals having hundreds of what are basically American Tourists intruding on their space all day, not to mention the possibility of spreading diseases. But it can be hard to resist when a goat comes up to the fence, stands on the bottom rung and pushes its head towards you.

Fortunately, there is often a petting zoo set-up at the local fairs so people can get up close and personal without man-handling the animals in the barns.  Unfortunately, it is usually a madhouse, extremely crowded with people. For the last few years, we have decided to walk by rather than stand in line in the hot sun for 10 minutes only to get in and find every animal occupied with someone, or find a potential friend only to have a young child run up to it. Because you have to yield to the child.

This year, the fair didn’t seem to be crowded at all and the petting zoo only had a few people in it.  This was our chance for some quality time.  All of the goats can be a bit pushy when it comes to the food, but there are usually a few who are incredibly persistent, pushing their way through, around, and over the other animals to get to the feeding hand. As you can see, this black and tan goat was a very pushy beast.

I quickly had a crowd surrounding me and I was happy as a clam.

Even when I was out of food, I was able to find a friend willing to accept a scratch instead.

I love the goats, but pigs are decent, too.

And this burro loved having his nose rubbed.

Loving the beard on this guy! As I told Steve as I was giving this guy a firm chin rubbing, if you’re going to pet the animals, really get in there and pet the animals. You’re going to have to wash your hands either way.

Yes, it is true, I love the goats. My dad often tells me there is nothing going on in their heads, pointing out that their skulls provide very little space for their brains. This year I really took a look past their eyes and noticed that, indeed, just over their eye ridges, there is a rather precipitous drop in their skulls where a larger brain might otherwise go. But I just don’t care. I choose to gaze into their eyes instead and see a sweet soul that just wants a scratch and a place to rest its head.

It remains my dream to someday have a house with a proper amount of land so we can have a large raccoon foster care enclosure, an attached outdoor cat run, a couple of hound dogs, and a pen of 2-3 goats. Steve desperately wants a duck pond.  Here is our current “love duck” and I am sorely tempted this time. She is undoubtedly the most beautiful duck I’ve ever seen. 

 We totally need to move to the country.

On a side note, we also took in a bit of the judging. I get a kick out of watching this for a little while, but all I can think is “for the love of god, would you please milk that cow!” 

As we were driving up the mountain, we came to an overlook of the bay that was really cool and pretty much shows what happens to San Francisco in Summer. That’s not snow down below, but a vast thick swath of fog flowing over the bay and into southern Marin and the City through the Golden Gate.

Actually, I do regret one thing: not getting started a bit earlier. We didn’t know the weather was going to be so awesome, so we didn’t plan on going on a hike. We just decided late in the morning. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite take into account the driving time to our chosen hike. Since we had an appointment at 4pm that afternoon, we had to abbreviate the distance of our hike a bit, but we did make it to Cataract Falls on Mount Tam and ate lunch next to the rushing water. It was marvelous.

As I snuck closer to get better pictures, a third turkey vulture flew overhead and landed next to the other 2. 

This was obviously prime real estate: a great place to catch the sun as well as having a fantastic vantage point of the field in front of them.

This was the direction we had to hike to get back to our car, so we were going to have to disturb them eventually. I crept ever closer, taking more pictures every few feet.

One of the vultures took off when I was about 15 feet away. 

The other 2 left as I got within 10 feet.

Perhaps not quite as cool as if there had been a line of hawks perched on the fence, or a mountain lion lounging under a tree, but pretty neat nonetheless.  Respect the Turkey Vulture!

After taking a few pictures of the seal, we set-up our beach mats and umbrella and considered heading into the water.  Once again, the wind was quite brisk and it was rather chilly.  In fact, after sitting on the beach for a few minutes, we watched a rather menacing cloud come toward us.  Within minutes, we were huddled together under the beach umbrella during a heavy, but mercifully short, downpour.

Cold though it was, I really wanted to snorkel again, so I summoned warm thoughts and started into the water, taking my time getting acclimated.  Once I was submerged, I found that, although the water was a bit choppy and cloudy, there were a whole lot of fish swimming around me, including this cool trumpet fish that I followed around for a while.

I stayed in the water for about an hour before my teeth finally started chattering and I decided I’d had enough.  I knew I had been having trouble getting fish in the frame of the camera (I blame the cloudy water and my hands shaking from the cold), but it was really ridiculous when I started looking at the pictures later.  I took many, many pictures, and ended up with many, many pictures of rocks.  Most of the below photos have been suitably cropped to feature the intended target.

And that’s it. We leave for home tomorrow and go back to work on Friday.  It’s been a fantastic trip and I’ve been able to check several activities off of my list.  Thankfully, I think there just might be enough left for another vacation in the future.

There has been another trailhead that has called to me during our previous trips to Kauai, but we have never ventured onto it until today.  This morning we drove to the end of the road on the North Shore to hike the first portion of the Kalalau Trail. 

When we first got to the Ke’e Beach area and found parking, we were approached by a slightly timid puppy that was standing in the road.  We called to it and it came over happily, gratefully accepting our attention. Thinking it probably belonged to someone at the beach, we continued to gather our hiking gear and the puppy wandered away.  As we started walking to the trail, a young couple was walking toward us and the woman had another puppy in her arms.  Apparently, they had just been up on the trail and this little dog was up there and almost fell off the cliff.  They brought is down and asked the lifeguard if he knew whose dog it was; he said there were 3 or 4 puppies that had shown up a few days earlier and he thought someone had dumped them. This wonderful couple had decided they wanted to try and adopt this puppy and fly it home with them; there plan was to take it to the island’s humane society to see what they needed to do.

Now, Steve and I have been in this situation ourselves. On our first trip to Hawaii together, we rescued a stray cat, and picked up a dog that had been hit by a car the same night.  This is a long story that I’ve told before on this web site; ask me if you’re interested. Long story short, we warned this couple to find out what the humane society’s policies were regarding strays before they turned the dog over to them.  We also told them about the other puppy that had approached us.  This couple was so much like us in their concern for the animals, it was really nice to meet them, however briefly. 

I thought about the puppy that had come to us throughout the hike and, at the end, asked Steve if he thought we should call the humane society and see about bringing it in, too.  We did not see the dog again and Steve suggested the other couple had taken it with them, too.  I certainly think that is possible and I choose to believe that is the case.

As we have driven around the island, we have seen signs in places advising us not to feed the chickens and feral cats. I know what damage feral cats can do to the local bird population in Hawaii, but the first thing we do when we get to Hawaii is buy a bag of cat food that we keep in the trunk of the rental car in case we find some stray cats, which we always do.  When we had our first encounter with the stray cat and dog population on that fateful trip in 2000, I discovered that, while the population gets out of control very quickly due to the temperate climate, the genesis of the problem lies in the attitudes that many people on the islands have toward their animals. I’ll make the people of Hawaii a deal.  If they can start treating their pets responsibly, get them spayed and neutered, and not toss them out on their ear if they get pregnant, I’ll stop going around feeding every cat I see. 

Anyway, off my soap box now, and onto the trail. The wind has really been fierce these last few days and today was no exception.  In fact, all of the beaches along the North Shore were closed today because the tide is so high.  I don’t know if this was a contributing factor, but there were an incredible number of people heading onto the trail when we got there.

The Kalalau Trail is an 11-mile coastal trail that leads from Ke’e Beach to Kalalau Beach.  Hiking the whole of it is an all day event which requires a permit, and people usually camp overnight in Kalalau Valley to make the 11-mile return the next day.  Honestly, there’s very little chance that Steve and I will ever hike the whole trail. But, we could do the first 2 miles which does not require a permit.  So, up we began to climb.  The trail rises about 400 feet in the first quarter mile.  I had no idea what that really meant until we started the ascent.  These pictures were taken on our way back down, but they give you an idea of the angle of the trail, which was a pretty consistent for that first leg. 

At the top of this initial ascent was a beautiful outlook back over Ke’e Beach.  You can see how heavy the surf was in the area.

We continued on, with the trail rising another 200 feet over the next quarter mile.  After that, it leveled out a bit before beginning to descend to the first beach and the end of the first 2 miles.  Really, it is a beautiful trail and I’m so glad we finally got out onto it. As we were heading back off the trail, I told Steve the good part about going on the hike was that, now that we’d done it, I wouldn’t be pestering him about it on future trips.  I wonder if that’s a promise I’ll be able to keep. . .

Shortly before the alarm was set to go off, the phone started ringing in our room.  No one has the number where we’re staying – people just use cell phones – so I figured it was a wrong number and stayed in bed.  Besides, they could leave a message that I’d check in 20 minutes when I got up.  Well, there was no message, but shortly after getting up we turned on the news and saw there was a tsunami warning for Hawaii.  Minutes later, a condo representative came knocking on the door to be sure we knew what was going on.  It was about 7:30 and the tsunami, if there was going to be one, was due to hit around 11:00.  So we had time to pack up all of our stuff, including food, water, and a blanket, before heading to the evacuation center.  We were out of the condo by 8:15.

The evacuation center was a very nice middle school campus.  All things considered, it was not a bad way to have to evacuate.  There was a cool mountain/ocean breeze, plenty of shaded lawn areas to sit on, a book to read, and even free wi-fi.  Even though FB, Twitter, and all other social networking sites, including my webmail, were blocked by the Department of Education, I could still get caught up on my RSS feeds.  Of course, the fact that there wasn’t a major tsunami event contributed to the goodness.  There were a few tvs set up and tuned to a local news station, and people gathered to watch the surge begin in Hilo, but the wave action was pretty minor.

The warning was called off just after 1:00 and we were back at the condo shortly thereafter.  Not much else to report on the day.  We had lunch, did a little shopping, and sat by the pool.  Our horseback ride has been re-scheduled for Monday morning, so we have rearranged our schedule a bit to accommodate everything.  Fortunately, we had one free day built in, which we will just have to call today.  Tomorrow, we head out on a hike I’ve been trying to convince Steve to do for years!

This morning we headed south to Poipu intending to do some hiking and snorkeling in the area. Unfortunately we had a similar mishap as on our first snorkel excursion in Kona. Only this time instead of forgetting one mask and driving to a beach 15 minutes from the condo, we forgot all of our snorkel gear and were about 40 minutes away. Fortunately, we will be back in Poipu tomorrow for a horseback ride so we did our planned hike today and shifted our other planned post-horse activities to today; we’ll just do the snorkeling tomorrow instead. We put the gear in the trunk tonight so we wouldn’t have to remember it in the morning.

We started the day down by the Spouting Horn blowhole. We had stopped at this site on our first trip to Kauai several years ago, but we had been hurriedly making our way to Waimea Canyon so didn’t spend too much time there. Also, we have better cameras now. : )

After lunch, we headed out on our hike. We started at Shipwreck Beach (where lies Shipwreck Cove and the town of Shipwreck!) and headed east climbing into the sandstone cliffs of the Makawehi area. The wear of the ocean waves against the cliffs has created some fantastic pillars and key holes and just beautiful stratification. Yes, I am a geek, what of it?

There was one really neat area where there was a HUGE tidepool. Really the whole beach was one big tidepool. With the tide out, you could sit on the edge of it and watch the waves hit the shore right at eye level, but a good 50 yeards or so away. It was a little surreal watching the waves crash at this angle.

We had a lovely hike, not very strenuous, with frequent stops for picture taking, and there was a nice breeze coming off the ocean to keep it from getting too hot. For those who may consider this hike in the future, I would advise not going past the heiau that you will come to about a mile into the hike. The guide book (the wonderful Ultimate Kauai Guidebook) lists this hike and another one just a bit further east along the shore as two separate hikes, but mentions that you could merge them into one. But I think there’s a reason they have them listed separately. After the heiau, you have to walk across a golf course, which is fine, but when you get to the next bluff, there just isn’t much to see there. Not to mention, the golf course path is sheltered from the ocean enough that the breezes stop and the temperature rises what feels like 10 degrees. The problem was that we had been looking at this one bluff throughout the entire hike, just getting closer as we walked and I wanted to see what was on the other side. That’s the bluff behind me:

Once there and seeing nothing of interest in the walkable distance, we turned around and headed back. I think the second half of the hike would be just as wonderful as the first, but you’d be better off hiking back to your car and driving to the starting point of the second half. After all, unless you have someone to pick you up at the end, every step you take east will have to be followed eventually by a step west.

Back at Shipwreck Beach, I stood in the ocean waves for a few minutes to cool off. The waves were coming in pretty rough and I think the tide was coming in because I noticed the waves getting higher as time went on, so I didn’t really go in. I just stood on the wet sand and let the waves come in, going anywhere from my ankles to my butt. It was lovely.

On our way back to the condo, we stopped in Old Koloa town and had a very over-priced but tasty gelato to get some of our energy back. All in all it was a very nice day even if we did manage to forget all of our snorkel gear.

There is only one way to get on this hike.  It is given every Wednesday at 12:30.  Only 12 people are allowed on the hike.  To reserve your spot, you must call at 7:45 am local Hawaiian time the Wednesday prior to your desired hike date to get on the list.  The tour usually fills up by 8:15 local time.  Now, a week ago I was frantically trying to call the park. When I got to work, I found that the power was out throughout the city due to a small plane crash that took out a transformer; our office phones rely on electricity.  My cell phone didn’t work as well; either some cell towers were down or the network was simply overloaded.  A co-worker with a working cell phone kindly allowed me to use it to make the call.  Even so, it took me 20 minutes of trying before I was actually able to get through the jammed network.  Just as I was about to give up, I got through at 8:10 Hawaii time and got on the list.  I’m sure we were the last people on.  But on we were.

When we got to the park, we found that there was a bit of activity within the main crater. Halema’uma’u, the crater within Kilauea caldera, and the home of Pele, was venting lots of gas (heh-heh).  I guess there was some lava breaking through and bubbling within, too, but we certainly couldn’t get close enough to see it and the gaseous clouds obscured the view from a distance.  It was neat to see, though. 

The park was debating cancelling the hike due to the fumes, but fortunately the winds shifted away from us and we were able to do the hike after all.  After a 2 mile hike in, we climbed into the lava tube.

It was beautiful in there with lots of features you don’t get to see in the more heavily-trafficked lava tubes.  The lava tube is named Pua Po’o, “Flower head”, for a particular feature. Geologists have been unable to explain how it was created.

We spent about an hour to an hour and a half inside the tube before starting the hike back.

For anyone going to the Big Island who likes to explore cold, damp holes in the ground, I highly recommend this tour.  Just remember to call the park at the appointed time because you won’t get on the hike otherwise, and you won’t be hearing the location of the lava tube from me! (808-985-6017)

It turns out that this area, down the road to the Natural Energy Lab, is a great place for whale watching because the shelf drops off into deep water very close to shore.  We spent about 30 minutes or so at this location and saw several whales in that time.  We even saw a whale breach, but the camera was not even close to ready, so we’ll just have to rely on our memories.

From here, we headed on up to ‘Anaeho’omalu Bay where we ate lunch on the beach.  A short walk along the shore brought me to the thing I had missed when we were snorkeling at Kahalu’u Beach Park – Green Sea Turtles!  I love these guys. I just sat for long time looking at them.

When we finally moved on, we saw another turtle swimming along the rocks eating the algae.

This was a good sign for snorkeling, so we went ahead and got our gear out of the car.  Unfortunately, the bay itself was incredibly cloudy.  Close to shore, you couldn’t see anything more than 6 inches from your face.  It was very disorienting  and I was freaking out a bit, having trouble controlling my breathing.  My one moment of swimming with the turtles came when I was flailing about trying to calm down; I was about to put my hand on the big rock next to me, and turned my face to see it was a turtle just inches away.  I surfaced quickly, not wanting to disturb it with my hairless beach ape awkwardness.

The water did clear up a bit as we got further from shore and Steve spotted another turtle.

But overall the water was pretty crappy and hard to enjoy.  We didn’t stay in long before deciding to get out and move on.

It was getting close to the end of the day, so we started heading back to Kona, deciding to stop along the way at Kiholo Bay to check out the Queen’s Bath that was supposed to be a short hike down the beach.  Well our short hike turned into a long trek down a pebbly beach that made for very difficult walking.  While we could keep saying maybe it’s around the next point, we finally decided to turn back. Steve joked about how we had probably passed it just at the end of the walking trail before the beach.  Well, it turns out that’s just what we did.  I had reviewed the guide book rather hastily and didn’t register that it was right at the end of that walking path – if you got to the beach, you had gone too far.  I have 2 things to say in my defense. First, when I said it was about 300 yards down the coast, Steve thought that was a much longer distance than it was so we thought we had to go further.  Second, even the guide book said it was easy to miss.  In the future I will take the time to focus on the directions before we head out on our quest.

Our past trips to Hawaii have all been in the October to November time period, so we’ve never actually been here during whale season.  Just as we were leaving the harbor, we heard a big splash and turned to see the plume of water where a whale had just breached.  Unfortunately, we didn’t see (or just miss) another breach on the trip, but we did see plenty of whales.

We also found a huge pod, or maybe it was several pods, of spinner dolphins in one bay.  At one point they literally had the boat surrounded.  There were some lucky people snorkeling in the bay at the time.  I was rather envious.

As we were heading back to the harbor, I saw something in the water.  I wasn’t sure what it was at first; was is a whale, another pod of dolphins? It turned out to be a manta ray.  Kind of a bonus of the trip and I’m really glad I spotted it.

As you may know, I tend to turn our vacations into death marches, so we had a bunch of stuff planned for after our early morning whale watching; after all, it was just about 11:00 when we were done. But we were both so tired, we decided to go back to the condo and take an hour-long nap.  Afterwards, we headed into “downtown” Kona to stroll along the strip and visit the shops.

I am aware that there are people who bemoan the fact that Kona has gotten so “built up”. This is such a relative term when you realize we’re talking about 5-6 blocks of the ocean front that have restaurants and souvenir shops.  Well, those people must be happy now. The recession appears to have hit Kona hard and half of the store fronts in this area are now empty.  It is really amazing how many shops have closed.