Tim’s Ramblings

Too many pictures so this will actually be behind a cut.

Alas, today is my final night here in Kauai. Very sad… I dropped off my parents at the airport at the buttcrack of dawn (5am) which meant I had to wake up and hit the road earlier than the buttcrack of dawn…and I don’t really know a term for that…other than it was 4:15am. Then I had to drive all the way back. Oh, and did I mention this island is DARK?? It’s dark. Really really dark. And the roads are windy and hilly. FUN!

But anyway, got home, did some e-mail and passed out again. Then woke up and decided to go check out the Kilauea Lighthouse. It was gorgeous. It was awesome. It was beautiful. It was unbelievably crazy windy. Yow. Then did some shopping and just kinda chilled.

It was a nice vacation. This island is so…so desolate and so not a tourist destination. Very natural. No big gaudy hotels. No 500 people luaus. No obnoxious kids or gigantic Japanese tour groups or annoying retirees from the midwest. Just…nice.

Aaaanyway, off we go. To see the rest of the photographs or, as I have started to affectionately call them myself, my postcard shots, click on the link after the first photo!!! Oh, and of course, they are linked to a bigger shot too. Feel free to grab it (but if you use for anything please give me credit!!) (^_^)

Here is a shot of Wailua Falls. It’s actually 3 falls in one and it is beautiful!

So after going “oooh” and “ahhhh” at the waterfall, I leaned far over the railing and, oh look, rainbow!!

So today, as I mentioned, I headed out to the Kilauea Lighthouse. It was a gorgeous day but incredibly windy. That would be why all of the trees and the plants in a lot of these shots look a bit…fuzzy. Even with a super fast shutter speed it was waaaaaay too windy… But anyway. The view? AWESOME

And here’s the lighthouse off in the distance.

And the famous lighthouse upclose.

The lighthouse is actually in a Nature Perserve for birds and had an entrance fee. But it was worth it. From the end of the peninsula you can see Mokuaeae Island. A tiny island that is currently a perserve for sea birds and seals.

And I actually got to see a monk seal!! They are super rare and obviously on the endangered species list. Only a bit over a thousand or so left. But this one was on the shore below the peninsula sunning himself. They are solitary and it was pure luck that we saw it. The ranger was really nice pointer it out too. Here is a totally blurry shot…it was far away and my zoom isn’t that great… Oh, and it’s not dead…it’s SUNNING himself. Trust me. He rolled over after like 10 minutes :)

The peninsula also gave a fantastic view of the Kauapea Beach and the surrounding coastline.

And that’s it. So so hard to reproduce these in pictures. This is definitely a “you had to be there” thing. But I think these turned out pretty good too!

Hope you liked them!!!

Oh, and finally…some of you have asked if there are pics of me. Like they need proof I was here. I’m here dammit. I’m taking the pictures. But to appease you, here is a final parting self shot of me in Hawaii taken today by the lighthouse. Aloha Kauai (and in this case, the aloha is for goodbye!)