Well, we’re halfway through October, and this morning it was finally cool enough for a long-sleeved shirt. Of course, I’m so used to throwing on a t-shirt in the morning that I just automatically dressed as usual… and then when I stepped outside to head over to Starbucks, I was slightly taken aback by the chilly temperature and the misty rainfall. Autumn is here! (Maybe… it’s never really a certainty in Austin… but I am tentatively saying that autumn is here…)
So in an effort to escape this endless dreary, cool weather (I mean, it’s been like this ALL MORNING) we have a trip to Hawaii planned for next month. We’re going to the island of Kauai, and I can’t wait – especially because we finally convinced Eric to come along with us. After years of making up excuses like, “I’m highly allergic to pineapple” and “beach sand gives me a rash” and “I’m afraid of those guys who twirl fire batons at luaus,” he is at last coming with us to our lovely 50th state. And in addition to Eric, Eric and Debbie will be joining us, as well. Which is great, because they have had an absolutely INSANE few months, and nobody deserves a few days of lying on a beach and not worrying about anything more than they do.
I’m really looking forward to seeing Kauai… I think there’s a perception that all the Hawaiian islands are pretty much the same, and once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. But they’re actually all very different. Maui was the first island we visited – it’s popular, so it’s more “touristy,” and surprisingly crowded. Maui is interesting because the island is sort of divided by the Haleakala volcano – everything west of the volcano is desert, and everything east of the volcano is rain forest. And at the top of the volcano, it’s only about 40 degrees because of the high altitude – something Rick and I failed to account for the first time we visited. I think I have a picture somewhere of me at the top of Haleakala in a tank top and a pair of shorts, smiling painfully in a way that says, “just take the stupid picture so we can get back down to sea level where it’s warm…”
We visited the Big Island a couple years ago, and like its name implies, it’s the biggest of all the Hawaiian islands. It’s much less touristy than Maui, so you get more of a sense of being out in the middle of nowhere. The island is the youngest of all the islands, so much of the volcanic lava that formed it (and is still forming it) hasn’t yet turned into soil of any kind. There are huge fields of black lava, and when you’re driving around on the island, you get the sense of being on another planet at times. It’s like you’ve landed on Mars and Mars happens to have some great resorts and an ocean – who knew?
And last year we went to Oahu, which I think has been the least “Hawaiian” of the three islands we’ve visited. It’s the most populated island, of course, with Honolulu right in its midst… so you don’t always feel like you’re out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean thousands of miles away from the mainland. In fact, the traffic in Honolulu is HORRIBLE, and if you have to drive through it, it feels more like plodding your way home through rush hour traffic than a drive to an island resort. And Honolulu is just like any other city in the country – except they have Hula Pie (which, as I mentioned in my posts when we were on Oahu last year, is a dessert created in the heavens by the fire goddess Pete herself…)
And what I’ve heard about Kauai is that it’s much more “Hawaiian” than some of the other islands. It offers much of what people think of when they think of Hawaii – more lush greenery, and flowers, and waterfalls… and fewer deserts, and traffic jams, and moonscape lava. So it should be interesting to see a new island. I mean, it’s tough to visit all these Hawaiian islands and report back on their unique qualities, but if someone has to do it, I guess I can… :)
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