Allerton Gardens

Kauai is not that large so we find ourselves visiting some of the same attractions we visited during a previous visit again. This is the case with Allerton Gardens. What struck me about our visit this year was the very different impression I got from previous visits. I decided the different perspectives resulted from the interest and focus of our tour guides. I remember a previous visit having a more botanical focus even to the point of walking through a greenhouse focused on the newest mission of the gardens as preserving tropical plants. This year was more focused on the story of the Allertons.

The Allertons had immense wealth with one being the son of a Chicago stockyards baron. The son never worked and spent a great deal of time traveling and in Hawaii. The son was gay and had as his partner a younger man that he adopted to allow for the passing on of his estate. The garden was created as an outdoor living space (their traditional home was far more modest) consisting of "rooms" the couple would use for entertaining and living their lives. Meals were enjoyed outdoors. You have to imagine the rooms shown in the following photos containing furniture and used for banquets, dancing, etc.

The rooms were planned very carefully and the trust that sustains the gardens is based on precise instructions for what is to be grown where. Hurricanes have done severe damage to the rooms and these instructions were followed carefully in the regeneration of the desired plantings.

Cone guys

Kauai is pretty much round. A road runs around much of the island except one stretch where the terrain does not allow. Side roads branch off from this ring road, but again cannot link across the island because of the mountainous terrain in the middle.

I think I mentioned in a previous post that they use an unusual approach to adjust what can be a heavy flow of traffic to and from Lihue (home of Costco). I finally was in the right place at the right time yesterday to get a photo. The road is three lanes moving towards Lihue. I mean a total of three lanes and not three lanes in one direction. After the morning rush and by rush I mean the number of vehicles and not the speed at which this traffic flows (max 40 for much of the trip), these cone guys go out an pick up these cones that signal they side of the road marked for two-lane traffic is now one lane and the second lane has been assigned to the other direction. There are multiple trucks in this convoy. The trucks in the back signal to traffic to be cautious and then move up when the truck in the front is loaded. Evidently some time in the early morning, this cones must be put down again. Five days a week. Steady work and I guess a cost effective solution.

Hibiscus

We have spent little time visiting tropical locations so I can't compare Kauai to other locations that are warm, fertile, and wet. The thing I find so impressive about this place is the weight and diversity of the biomass. Green vegetations everywhere. This is not the monoculture fields of agricultural areas and not the heavy timber growth of the area we spend so much time at in Northern Wisconsin. This is green growing on green with so much natural vegetation, variety and flowering species.

I frequently walk to or from a coffee shop I like to inhabit to read and write. It is a little over two miles away from the condo we stay in. With the exception of the golf courses that line part of this road, much of the rest of the hike is through areas lined with hedges of hibiscus. I don't know where the hibiscus can be grown and I understand these lengths of hibiscus plants were planted and are carefully maintained. The percentage of plant covered with flowers has been increasing in the last couple of weeks and the variety of the huge blooms has to attract your attention.

Cindy warned me.

This is not the type of thing you want to experience on a trip to the garden island. I have worn glasses since my teens and need them to function. 

For some reason Cindy suggested I bring a spare pair of glasses for this trip. Of all the trips we have taken, this is the first time we have done this. 

This is the pair I found in a desk drawer. I have no idea how long ago these were my daily pair. I think this was the same era in which I also wore a necklace of wooden beads. 

Oh, this photo also shows me sporting my new hair cut. 

Not all palms bear coconuts

How folks, including me, get strange ideas in their heads is interesting. I fancy myself having a fairly decent understanding of most things biological, but for some reasons I had assumed the palm trees bear coconuts and that was that. Somehow in this misunderstanding there must be some nugget of insight. All of us have limited life experiences whether we know it or not and those experiences we have not had offer the possibility of learning things we presently do not assume we do not know. I apologize for the last sentence, but I am not going to try it again.

So, we like acai bowls and know that the redish/purpleish slush that is the base of the acai bowl comes from a berry of some sort. The images that follow are acai bowls. You can't see the acai because it is located at the bottom of the bowl. I think you can get an acai bowl at the COSTCO food stand and this would be a way to taste what I describe. You can also purchase the frozen berries there to make your own (acai, granola, bananas, and peanut butter is a great combination).

Convinced these berries must be grown on the island somewhere I did a little online research. This is where I learned that the berry grows on palm tree and palm trees produce something other than coconuts. 

From my research I learned that the berry grows in this fringy type stuff I realized I had observed  below the fronds on palm trees. No berries, but the location seemed to match where the berries would appear.

We then spotted these berries. There were located in the right place on the tree. Natasha found one on the ground. It was obviously red and not purple, but also larger and more oblong than the berry we were looking for. However, again, we had not seen any alternatives to this palm so perhaps the berry had yet to ripen.

I use an app on my phone that allows the identification of unfamiliar plants. It is called Plant Snap. if you are an iPhone user and think plant identification is interesting the app might be useful. I loaded the image you see above into PlantSnap and the match came back as Manila or Christmas Palm. The color, size, and time of year for the berries and the information that this is an ornamental palm common in Hawaii convinced me that we have yet to discover an example of the source of the elusive acai berry. This is not the palm you seek.

P.S. - the acai bowl from Costco.

Kauai Coffee

I am a coffee guy. Some folks, probably more, fancy themselves wine people, I think of my interest in coffee in a similar way.

To my knowledge, Hawaii is the only state that grows coffee as a farm product. Contrasting coffee as grown on Hawaii (big island) and Kauai is interesting. We have visited multiple coffee "plantations" in the Kona region of the big island and these farms are small. None we visited would be viable unless they had some supporting activities such as tourism or coffee processing. The planation we have now visited multiple times on Kauai is huge - 4 million trees (coffee fact - a coffee tree produces about one pound of coffee). Size matters in some interesting ways. Kona coffee is picked by hand with the pickers taking the cherries from the trees at different times to focus on the ripe berries. Kauai coffee is picked once by special mechanical pickers. The overripe cherries float so immersing the fruit in water allows the fruit that is too ripe to be discarded. However, underripe cherries are processed along with the ripe cherries which could be argued to change the quality of the product. I am guessing few can tell the difference or care.

Loco moco

The loco moco is as Hawaiian as spam. Hearty would be the way I would describe it. A hamburger on top of rice covered with an egg and brown gravy. My capacity isn't what it used to be and it is now more than I can handle. Maybe Hawaiian comfort food or the type of food Guy Fieri would feature on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives would be a way to explain the dish (sure enough).

It probably looked more attractive before I forgot myself and started eating without first getting a  photo, but this way you can see the layers.

Here is the recipe and the origin story of the loco moco. I have noticed since first consuming the dish some years ago that there is a "put an egg on it" trend. Maybe this is where it started.

Least-Heat Moon

When you spend two months away from what you describe as your home base, it is a little different than taking what most would describe as a trip. You have decided to live somewhere else for a while. You do many of the same things you would do when at home because seeking new adventures on a daily basis is not the way most of us live our lives. Cindy might disagree as she sees daily life as an adventure, but I am not the same live each day to the fullest type person.

I spend about the same amount of time here reading and writing I would spend at home. The coffee shop changes and the route to walk there is different and warmer, but the core activities are very similar.

I have been listening to Blue Highways a book by William Least-Heat Moon I first read several decades ago. There are so many books I want to read that I have already purchased that rereading a book from "the early years" is very rare. Blue highways refers to secondary roads which at the time the book was written were blue on paper maps. My appreciation of the book is based on the quality of the author's ability to write very interesting prose telling the stories of his adventures linking to my own interest in travel by car for extended trips. Finding the book again as an audiobook available from one of the libraries I frequent was great.

One of the interesting things about my second exploration of this book is the addition of all of the life experiences I have accumulated since I first read this book. Least-Heat Moon's route roughly followed the perimeter of the country and he describing passing through some of the territory I have experienced. During this listen I appreciated his description of his journey through northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. I have walked across the origins of the Mississippi at the location he described and the town of Danbury is northern Wisconsin is the closest town to our Wisconsin lake home. He describes Danbury as dismal, but he may have passed through at night this time of year when he should have been in Hawaii.

I highly recommend this author's writing. His capacity to tell stories about the places he travels through is a gift I greatly admire. He has a way of describing people tied to their places in the country that offers many lessons. 

Kite boarder

The beach in combination with the warm climate are what draw many to Hawaii. I am not a beach person which I have explained several times before, but I do go along and find things to do to occupy the time. I captured several videos of this kite boarder during our last trip. Wait until the end to see an impressive jump. I am thinking that to get at this for a half hour so much take a lot of strength. Double click the video for a better view.

Fine Physique

The checkout lady at the grocery store said she really liked my shirt. She said that she couldn't wear it, but I had such a nice physique.

I thanked her and said not many women tell me that.

I took a photo in the mirror when I got home just to check things out. She probably didn't mean what I had hoped she meant.

Oleg and Natasha

Oleg and Natasha made the trip from Colorado Springs to spend a little over a week with us. Cindy first met Natasha when Natasha interpreted for her during an early trip to Russia and they have been friends since. We have traveled across Russia by car with them and also from Minnesota to New York. We know their kids and they know ours. Ours is an interesting friendship as they are nearly twenty years younger than we are. Our discussions of Russian and American politics are interesting and offer some insights into the similarities of the present administrations.

We have had such different life experiences that our interactions always generate something interesting. They both are excellent cooks and even our meals can end up as s very interesting fusion. Perhaps the most different on this trip was a combination of borscht and poke [as separate courses].

Bridges of trust

The roads of Kauai are interesting. They are often crowded and have low speed limits. There are many traffic circles and frequent zipper merges. There is one length of road we travel frequently that consists of three lanes. The lanes are divided by cones into a single lane and two lanes and this arranged is switched mid-day so that was the one lane direction in the morning is the two-lane direction in the evening.

The most interesting feature of the road systems to me is the one-lane bridges. It is like one-lane bridges were added at an earlier time when traffic was sparse and now they remain despite the number of vehicles that must use these roads and bridges.

The characteristic of these bridges that fascinates me most is the lack of a formal traffic control system. The approach reminds me of that trust exercise in which you fall backwards and trust others to catch you. I discussed this exercise with Cindy concerning whether it was real or just the basis for jokes. I have never been part of the actual use of the exercise, but Cindy assures me that she has and it is part of team building. 

So, the way these bridges work is people take turns crossing the bridge. There is a sign that recommends 5-7 cars at a time. There is no control of any type and it is not clear who is to count and whether it is 5 or 6 or 7 cars that go. The mystical basis for the decision is important because I know of one stretch of road that involves two separate bridges connected by a short stretch of land so a poor decision would result in a lengthy reverse drive by someone. Hawaii drivers are not necessarily any more courteous that drivers in other locations and they frequently cheat when participating in a zipper merge. The bridge thing, however, just seems to work.

One other comment on the road system. The island suffered extensive damage in the floods of a year ago and you can still see recovery efforts going on. Roads were evidently closed by hillsides sliding onto the roads and barriers are now being constructed to limit the damage of future heavy rain events.

With Kauai you get rainbows

Hawaii is the rainbow state with sports teams named the Rainbow Warriors. The claim is definitely legitimate as the frequent misty rain mixed with sun is perfect for rainbows. Rainbows come in many shapes - full rainbows, double rainbows, partial rainbows, flat rainbows. Here are a few examples from the last couple of days.

Spouting Horn

The Spouting Horn is a natural formation in lava rock on the southern Kauai coast such that a wave crashing at one location forces water through a lava tube to “spout” at another. The spouts were not spectacular when we visited, but it is challenging to time the spouts so you can get any picture at all. 

The claim is the spout can reach 50 feet. My shot was far from that spectacular. The spot is a location to view whales spouting in the distance (no photos) and also for some other nice photos. 

Libraries

There is a library in Princeville. I have walked past it many times in the years we have come here, but today I went in. Natasha had to print a couple of documents for the language instruction she does and I went in. One thing led to another and I ended up becoming a member of this library for five hears.

This makes a total of four libraries I now have joined. I donate to three of them each year. I paid my dues at the University of North Dakota and I receive library access as a Professor Emeritus. My University library card allows me to access the scholarly journals that I still need for the scholarly writing I do. Like all of these libraries, I seldom visit them in person, but I use the e-resources they make available. 

One of the things that caught my attention with the Princeville library was the advertisisement that library membership gives you access to the NYTimes. I always use my 10 free article views per month and then am left without being able to read full articles from the Time until the next month. Now for $25 I should have access for five years. This alone would be worth price. I almost feel guilty, but I know that a part of my membership will go to compensate the paper. 

Fish pond

It was a mixed day. We spend 2.5 hours listening to a presentation about purchasing a time share. Maybe you have been through the routine. You get to see a really nice place and are told you can exchange the share you purchase for others if you get tired of going to the place you purchase. Of course, you would be at a great advantage because the Hawaii timeshares are worth the most points and so in going elsewhere you would be get more for the points you have available.

Time share promoters have a bad name for exploiting old folks (like us). We explained that we had invested enough in real estate and now want to the money we have available in a flexible and spontaneous way. We also said we did not expect to be able to travel like we do now for too many more years so getting ourselves locked in did not make a lot sense. These pitches remind me of buying a car. After the salesperson who is always nice and patient gets to a certain point, the manager comes over and offers some opportunities the sales person may have overlooked (which seems to be the case). Once, you have said no to these folks, you are sent to the final guy who makes one final pitch and may offer a new opportunity. The new opportunity was actually interesting as it involved simply buying points for a couple years rather than signing a long term contract. He suggested this would allow us to evaluate time shares. Two things - I don't trust any pitch I must respond to on the spot. Why is this actually necessary? Secondly, the final proposal was of some interest, but they should have led with this. I might be interested if I had a taste of the time share thing, but when this is their final offer I am skeptical. Anyway - no.

The Menehune fish pond was created by indigenous engineers and laborers in approximately 1430. The people created an alternate pathway for the river and separated an ox bow that became a pond intended for raising fish for royalty. In recent years, the local are attempting to raise money to rehabilitate the site as a cultural treasure. You can kind of see the river and where the ox bow was from my photograph. 

One fine chicken

One way to spot the tourists on Kauai is to watch to see if they take photos of the chickens. I try to limit my chicken photography to one or two shots per visit so I don't stand out.

There are other birds to photograph here, but these chickens seem special (and they are abundant). These are not your standard white chickens or even Rhode Island Reds. these birds are big and beautiful.

The chickens in Kauai are far more abundant on other islands. I found this resource for those who would like to learn a little more or who are not willing to trust my story telling. These birds were brought in from Polynesians, but like other purposeful or accidental biological transplants, they have few natural predators to keep them in check. I thought last time we were here I saw more cats which would prey on the babies, but I don't see the cats this year. I have been told that the meat does not taste like domestic chickens so there is little interest in killing the for food.

The do crow in the early morning and to a lesser extent throughout the day. Loud.

It could be worse. They seem to leave behind far fewer droppings than the Canadian geese that are the plague of our lake place.

Port Allen Whales

We see many whales here from shore, but getting up close enough to take photos is another matter. It has been very windy and when we booked our whale watching excursions I was concerned about the wind and waves. There are not running the excursions to the Napoli Coast (the North Shore) because of heavy surf, but the weather varies greatly across the island and our outing was not terribly rough.

We were out for two hours and saw both whales and dolphins. I have no spectacular photos, but we did see the whales breach and fluke slap. My photos are mostly of the disappearing tails.

Here are some dolphin photos. They were close to the boat and do swim along we boats for a while.

Cindy and Natasha