The Shrimp Station
This day, we did the West Shore Prowl. The guidebook defines the west shore as everything from Hanapepe (7:00) around to where the road ends at Polihale Beach (9:00). The west shore tends to be more sunny, less rainy, and hotter than the rest of the island, because it's in the "rain shadow" of the mountain.
The first thing that we did was to drive up Waimea Canyon again. The previous Saturday, remember, when we got up to the Kalalau Lookout, there was too much fog for me to get a view of the Na Pali Coast. Well, it was the same today. All I could see was fog. Very disappointing. So we visited a museum, bought some books at the gift shop, and headed back down.
One thing I noticed on the drive up was the change in vegetation. It's all tropical at the bottom, of course, but as you get higher up, the vegetation changes, until by the time you get to the top, it's less tropical, and more like what you might find in the mountains on the mainland.
We had gotten a late start that morning, so by the time we got back down, it was time for lunch. There was a restaurant in Hanapepe that we wanted to try, but when we got there, we discovered it was out of business. So instead, we went to a place in Waimea, at the mouth of the canyon, called...
The Shrimp Station
I won't insult your intelligence by mentioning what we had to eat. Anway, while we were there, we decided it was time to check in with the folks at home, so we called our friend Morgan, who was living with us at the time.
Talking To Morgan
Across the street we found a little shop called Aunty Lilikoi, which sold all kinds of products made from passion fruit. We bought some passion fruit syrup, passion fruit juice, passion fruit bubble bath, and passion fruit body spray.
We then proceeded to drive to The End Of The Road - again. Actually, that's not quite accurate. We drove to the end of the paved road. A dirt road runs on for another 17 miles from where we stopped and turned around. If I'd been driving my own car, or even a rental, we would have gone all the way to the end. But Ron had asked us to stick to paved roads, so we did.
There's a large military facility on the west shore, and there's a mountain in which the army has dug out storage facilities for bombs and ammunition. The mountain is popularly known as...
Kaboom Mountain
Of course, you can't drive up there. But the road does go up pretty close to the base of the mountain. On the way, I saw this on the side of the road -
Looks like someone got too close to the mountain
Driving back, we went up a side road to check out the Menehune Ditch. The "menehune" are a mythical race of little people said to inhabit the islands. Except they might not be so mythical, after all. There is apparently some evidence that there was a race of people who lived here before the arrival of the Polynesian ancestors of the modern Hawaiians. This water ditch is thought to have been constructed by the Menehune.
Menehune Ditch
And across from the ditch was...
ANOTHER Swinging Bridge!
We kept on driving up the road, and I was amused at this sign's attitude...
Hawaiian 'Tude
And eventually, we came to...
The End Of The Road
This is a picture of the Makaweli Post Office. I'm not sure, but it may be the westernmost post office in Hawaii, if not in the U.S. This really is...
The End Of The Road
That day, I also took several pictures of Kauai's red dirt. Unfortunately, due to technical deficiencies on the part of the camera, as well as deficiencies on the part of the photographer, the pictures really don't capture the true redness of the dirt. But here they are, anyway...
Red And Redder
On the way back, we stopped at a little cafe for some liliko'i chiffon pie. This is a delicious pie made with passion fruit juice (here's the recipe).
We had dinner that night at...
The Lihue Barbecue Inn
We also went to Borders and bought a paperback copy of Gone With The Wind. After watching the movie, we decided we both wanted to re-read the book. So I started reading it to Terry. As of this writing (the following January), we're almost halfway through. It's a long book, too.