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. 

Sunny this AM. Warm.  Birds twittering.  Kids voices, giggles, then splashes. 

The lanai here is private and large with comfortable chairs.  A great spot to read, meditate.

Kate has two days without classes so we’re trying to figure out what to do today.  Good rest last night, we both slept till 8 AM.

I’m on island time.

Night.  Rain, steady.  “Not good when you have to mow the grass and cut the weeds,” said a Japanese maintenance person here at the Grand Hyatt Kauai. 

Kauai is another country, the oldest of the main Hawai’an Islands.   It lies furthest to the west, in roughly the path the mid-Pacific plate has crossed over the hotspot now under Kiluaea and Mauna Loa on the Big Island.

It is far from the oldest.  The trail of islands whose formation came on the hotspot stretches to the north and east.

The Hyatt, too, is another world.  It has 52 acres of resort including a PGA championship golf course, two wings of rooms and 9 restaurants plus pools, tide pools, and an archaeological excavation on the grounds.

Our lanai here faces the pools and the grounds, but does have an ocean view though nowhere near as good as the one at the Westin.  Still, there are compensations.  The Stevenson Library is a bar cum sushi bar cum jazz club.  Sounds good.

Flew here this afternoon in a twin prop plane with wings on top.  When I stood on the runway getting ready to board, I felt like I was in Casablanca.  This was two seats on either side of the middle aisle.  One stewardess and pilots who looked like they might play in high school band.  We had a flight delay because of a switch on the instrument  panel had gone out, but the captain said, “Since it belongs to the de-icing sensor, I don’t think it should impede our progress.”

More tomorrow.