We had Kashi cereal and papaya for breakfast this morning.\u00a0 They no longer stock the refrigerator with absurdly expensive items and wait for appetite to increase their income, so we loaded it with stuff we want.\u00a0 Much better.<\/p>\n
Outside Lihue we went into a\u00a0shopping center and bought some supplies:\u00a0 water, Zicam (for me) and yogurt.\u00a0\u00a0 Headed north we passed the airport and found Wailua where we turned mauka (toward the mountains) and headed up to Opeeka’a Falls.\u00a0\u00a0 We ate our yogurt there and discussed\u00a0the day.\u00a0 Kate decided we should head back toward Poipu beach and stop at the Gaylord Plantation.<\/p>\n
Way over-priced.\u00a0 Some nice stuff, but boy they did see us coming.\u00a0 We bought nothing, but did\u00a0meet Luke, a Clydesdale who was on carriage duty.\u00a0 What a great animal.\u00a0 Gentle, soulful, big.\u00a0 He reminded me, a lot, of our Irish Wolfhounds. He’s way too big to fit in the suitcase.\u00a0 Darn it.<\/p>\n
Lunch was take-out eaten at a pavilion overlooking a long, bare expanse of Pacific.\u00a0 It was high-tide so the waves lapped up further and further.\u00a0 Several Bantie roosters shared the pavilion with us.\u00a0 After lunch a couple of young Hawaiian girls came along and picked up the roosters who seemed to like being carried, their red-wattled heads going this way and that.<\/p>\n
While hunting for shells, I slipped into the water and went on,\u00a0only in ankle deep water.\u00a0\u00a0 Found a couple of gorgeous shells, a cowrie, brown with speckles, and a spiral shell with little horns along the spirals.\u00a0 A bit of beach glass worn smooth by the waves and a nice piece of drift wood.\u00a0 Beach combing, for some reason, can occupy me for hours on end.\u00a0 I love trudging along, looking down, finding this or that.<\/p>\n
After lunch we went to the visitor center of the National Tropical Botanical Garden, http:\/\/www.ntbg.org\/<\/a> .\u00a0 We will tour Allerton Gardens next Saturday.\u00a0 They were the royal gardens when Hawai’i was a monarchy.\u00a0\u00a0 Around the visitor center are several garden beds with various local and endemic plants:\u00a0 sugar cane, plumeria, bougenvillea, Sumatran cherry, banana, many palms.\u00a0 Of the plants native to Hawai’i over 80% are endemic and all of these are under pressure from encroaching environmental change.\u00a0\u00a0 Most of the plants we associate with Hawai’i like palms, ginger, plumeria are not native and they have tended to crowd out the local species.<\/p>\n Tonight there is a large welcome dinner for the crowd here to study infectious diseases. I’m invited. Oh, boy.\u00a0<\/p>\n Later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We had Kashi cereal and papaya for breakfast this morning.\u00a0 They no longer stock the refrigerator with absurdly expensive items and wait for appetite to increase their income, so we loaded it with stuff we want.\u00a0 Much better. Outside Lihue we went into a\u00a0shopping center and bought some supplies:\u00a0 water, Zicam (for me) and yogurt.\u00a0\u00a0 … Continue reading Meeting Luke, the Clydesdale<\/span>