Mud, Food and Island Life

At first I was really caught off guard by all of the differences between the Island and the mainland.  Now, I think we have both, oddly enough, gotten used to it.  Although we have been here before it’s easy to forget how different the lifestyle and the rules are here.  First off, we have come to appreciate the slow pace of the island...literally - much of the North Shore consists of 15-25 mph speed limits.  When we have headed down into the ‘city’ on the East Shore we feel like an out of control maniac going 40-50 mph!  At one point on the highway Ryan was driving really fast- 40 mph! Then I looked at the speed limit- we were supposed to be going 50 - no way! That is dangerous we thought (don’t worry it only lasts for a few miles, then goes back down)!

Another thing that makes you feel as if you are in another country is the fact that there is no helmet law on the island.  I don’t agree with this one, but hey, I guess it’s their life that they are endangering, right?  The one thing I really didn’t like that I saw was a guy down the road from us that would take his baby/toddler on the front of his scooter- no helmet, no special seat- just holding onto the baby! Yikes!

The one lane bridges are a trip at first too! It’s kinda funny to see how flustered some visitors get when trying to cross the bridges.  Sometimes they don’t even look and just start going and then end up having to back up off the bridge because there is already a car coming in the opposite direction.  Good thing the speed limits are so slow, right?

You also see many people riding in the back of pickups here (completely legal) and a lot of locals hitchhiking (especially on the North Shore).  Another great thing about Kauai specifically is that there are no high rise buildings.  There is a regulation that prohibits the building of any building higher than a coconut tree- yes, I said a coconut tree- that is how they measure here.  Gotta love the Hawaiian rules!

The weather is so unpredictable on the north side of the island.  This is due, in big part, to the fact that Mount Wai'ale'ale (which means overflowing water in Hawaiian) is in located as the ‘backdrop’ of the Northshore.  This is noted to be the wettest spot on earth.  You can see multiple waterfalls cascading down the sheer edges of the mountain.

So due to the unpredictable and quickly changing weather we have tried to just do what we were planning on doing and go prepared for rain and mud.  We had read that the views from the Powerline Trail were pretty amazing so we decided it was worth exploring.  It had rained most of the morning and we knew we were in for mud but we were up to the muddy adventure!  A muddy adventure it was! We both almost fell several times since the trail was so slick in areas.  This gave it an extra challenge.  But with challenges come rewards, right?  And the fact that we were the only people hiking on the trail (we passed two mountain bikers) was pretty awesome as were the views from the ridge we were hiking on. (see Ryan's photo above)

Oh, I forgot to mention, we actually ended up getting another car too!  This one was the best yet- ‘Dodge-It’! Our affectionate name for our special, old-school van that we used to try and dodge the numerous pot-holes on the trail. Oh yeah, did I share that we actually drove in on the trail part of the way.  Unfortunately ‘Dodge-It’ quickly became ‘lodge-it’ and got stuck in a nasty pothole.  We tried for an hour tirelessly to get her de-lodged.  No luck!  Good thing this part of the trip is just made up! Dodge-It was not our new ride, but we did find her along the trail and pretend to push her out (see pictures below).  Makes a good story, right?

Want the real story about Terra on the mud hike?  Well the trail head is about 3 miles up a pretty remote street.  Like I mentioned, we were the only people walking the trail so there were no other cars in the lot.  When we got back from the hike poor Terra wouldn’t start.  I thought, geez, how many lemon cars will we get to try out this trip?  Actually, we realized that it was our fault that Terra we dead- we had failed to turn off the lights before our hike.  The car gives no beeping warning that your lights are left on.

We really lucked out because there was a big water tank we were parked by and the company in charge of maintaining it drove up about 10 minutes after we were trying to figure out what to do.  While we were waiting we had called a nearby place that wanted to charge up $65 to come out and jump the car...no thanks!  Well we asked these guys if they had any jumper cables and they checked and they didn’t but they we so kind that they said they would drive back to the shop and go pick them up and be back to give us a jump.  What nice guys! They followed through and came back and gave us a jump.  We gave them all of the cash we had on us at the time as a thank you.  Now we have learned our lesson to always check the lights when we get out of the car and also always carry around enough cash to bail us out of such situations!  Oh, and also to pass on the ‘Aloha’ spirit to someone else in need when we can.

If you know us you know that we love food! We enjoy trying new things on trips and finding special places we can go back to.  This was a challenge due to the fact that the North Shore has limited dining options.  We have had fun barbecuing a good amount at our place.  Our specialty has been ahi fish tacos.  We found a fish market and a good deal on their ahi trimmings and have been enjoying them immensely!  We also found that taking dinner that we make down to the beach for a sunset dinner is really nice and relaxing.

Some of our favorite restaurants: Kalypso with live music and a great happy hour, Bar Accuda which was a tapas bar which has the best ever tropical sangria and awesome coconut shrimp! Then the Kilauea fish market has amazing korean barbecue and fish wraps. The Dolphin Fish Market not only had great fresh fish to take and cook but they also had an amazing fish salad sandwich for lunch and good sushi rolls.  Ryan has been impressed that I have enjoyed fish so much this trip.  I have told him, as long as it does not smell/taste fishy and it is fully ready to eat (i.e. the head or the bones are not on it) then I usually love it!  I just don’t want to eat any seafood that is staring at me!

Well we just recently arrived to the sunny, south shore of the island.  We feel like our time here is quickly coming to an end...only another week and we will be back to ‘reality’.  More to come on our adventures on the south shore soon!