83.  Picked up the little Cobalt and it was hot.  Sunny.  Clear.  Prediction is kids in the pools, old folks in the jewelry stores and bars.

Left the cosy confines of Camp Grand Hyatt for Lihue about 2PM.  This turned out to be the time everyone else on Kauai decided to go to Lihue.  My timing treated me to a traffic jam on an island with 58,000 people.  sigh.

At Borders (the concierge told me there were no independent bookstores.  sigh again.) I bought a few gifts and picked up Alan Watts, The Watercourse Way, a book reccommended by my teacher, Jihian Hang.  Then over to Long’s, a drugstore which carries almost everything a guy could ever need plus drugs.

Flip-flops, a mailing box, bubble wrap, People for Kate and some spray-on sun block.  Back in the car.  Again, everybody that had headed to Lihue now turned around and left along with me.  Second traffic jam.   The scenery, though, more than compensates.  Cook pines, old eroded mountains covered in green, Eucalyptus trees, an old sugar cane warehouse with rusted I-beams.  An American flag flying in the middle of a pasture on a tall pole.

Full moon.  Clear night sky.  70 degrees.

Kate and I ate at Dondero’s, an Italian place.  Her illness is back on its heels with dayquil and antibiotics.  We now share most of our meals, cuts portions and expenses.  Makes the meal more intimate, too, since we have to agree on what we want.

After dinner we went upstairs to the Robert Louis Stevenson Library which advertises itself as martinis and sushi.  It’s also a jazz bar.  An eclectic band played old favorites.  We sat out on the balcony and ate artisanal cheeses. 

These kind of days and meals make for the memories which build and sustain our relationship.  We’re lucky to have them.

This is my third try on this post.  Two have been lost due to gremlins here at the Hyatt.  Don’t ask.

Last night.  9PM.  Night.  A nearly full moon, Orion high beside her and a quiet beach.  I’m a night beach person, alone with the convergence of land and water, an open sky above and a black lava rock for a seat. 

Waves roll in and in and in, persistent, ceaseless.  Wearing away at the land until Kauai becomes a seamount just like the others ahead of it in the long Hawai’i archipelago.  A wonderful place for meditating about liminal zones.

Last night Kate had a miserable time fending off what seems to be an attack of sinusitis following her cold. We drove into Koloa to see a doc and get a script for amoxycilin.  Then into Lihue to Long’s Pharmacy to get the drugs then back over here to get Kate back to her lectures.  She hates to miss anything.

A cool night by Kauai standards, 72.  When we drove up to Koke’e State Park, the park that includes the Waimea Canyon, the temperature dropped to 59.  With the rain it was uncomfortable.  These changes are how folks end up with so many sweatshirts from Hawai’i.

Kate and I ate dinner overlooking the 18th green of the Grand Hyatt golf courses and some dinner plate sized yellow hibiscus.  We discussed the tendency we have to want to live where we’re vacationing:  Ely, Denver, Hawai’i. It occurred to me that a large part of this sentiment comes from relaxing together and re-connecting with the love we feel for each other.  To the extent that that feeling drives our wish to live here, it means that where we already live is best.  As Emerson said, we take ourselves with us wherever we go.

Kate’s picking our itinerary for the weekend since it’s the only fully free time she has.  Tomorrow we head toward Lihue.

A rainy day here on Kauai.  The roosters and their flocks sought shelter under the spreading philodendron and the tall Cook pines.  Waimea Canyon, the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, hid itself in shrouds of white clouds scudding along at the 2,500 foot level.

Hanapeppe, an artist’s colony had not had time to wake up when we pulled in hunting for lunch.  We ate at Bobbie’s, a local food restaurant.  This includes lau lau pork, locomoco, lomin and various fried foods done in a style similar to, but fattier than tempura.  The androgynous cook, think muscular and broad shouldered with a cute hair do and hot pants, asked if we’d ordered enough food.  This because #8 and #9, our orders, came with a lot of food.

Hanapeppe, off Highway 50, the main and only highway headed toward Waimea Canyon, had the look of old Hawai’i, a look fondly remembered in guide books, but, since its primary ingredients seem to be rural poverty, I suspect not much missed by the locals.

The bantam roosters and hens found their liberation in the 1991 Hurricane I’niki.  The winds tore open the chicken huts and yards, freeing most of the islands population of chickens.  Now they roam everywhere.  At the Big Save in Port Allen, as I put groceries in the trunk, a rooster ran by me, headed to another place with great determination.  It surprised me.

We’ll dine tonight at Yum Cha, an Asian fusion restaurant on the golf course.