Family trip to Kauai

We’re back from our vacation in Kauai, HI. This is the third time Dawn and I have gone there – but the first time the kids have gone. It’s a bit strange to me that we have never really been to another Hawaiian island besides Kauai, but our first two visits were so great that we decided to go there for our winter vacation with the kids. I suppose some of that is just knowing where things are helps facilitate the vacation to some degree. By all accounts it was a great vacation, Kauai delivered once again.  

The vacation started poorly, before we left the house we got a call from United Airlines saying the first leg of our trip to Dulles was canceled due to bad weather. We were told they could get us there on January 5^th at the earliest (the trip was scheduled to start on the 3^rd!). We booked four tickets on Amtrak to Washington and white knuckled the drive to New Haven to catch a “red eye” train (absolutely miserable!). It turned out getting to Dulles was the easy part, getting a plane out of Dulles was much harder. After six hours of messing about in IAD we finally got on a plane to LAX. Unfortunately it landed too late and we missed our connection out to Hawaii. We got four seats on the first plane out in the morning and United paid for two hotel rooms for us in LA. It was disappointing, but really only cut 6 hours or so of awake time out of our time on Kauai.

On to the good stuff: 

We rented a house in a resort area in the Poipu Beach area, it was a beautiful area and a nice house. The sunrise was beautiful from Poipu, and easy to see considering our body clocks were five hours ahead

What we would call a deck, the Hawaiians call a lanai, and this house had a huge one - we spent a lot of time out there.

"Shave Ice" is a popular treat in Hawaii, we had it a couple of times, good vacation food:

We bought snorkeling gear for everyone before we left, we spent many hours on vacation snorkeling off Poipu Beach,
which was within walking distance of the house we rented.






Locally grown rambuten:

Excellent Mexican close by:

Hanging out

Classic Hawaii scene:

Another sunset, ho hum

Walking to beach for a snorkeling session:

It’s hard to describe just how many fish and how many different types of fish are in the water there. It was really like swimming in someone’s well stocked fish tank. Fish of every size and color swam around in the reef protected waters. I kind of wish I had an underwater camera just to show what we were seeing, it really was incredible – just think of any undersea nature special you’ve seen, it was like that, really.  We also went on a guided snorkeling/whale watch tour, we didn’t take any pictures but it was a good (though cold) time and we got to see whales up close and swim with green turtles. That said we saw way more fish at Poipu Beach than we did on the boat. 

Scampering amongst the tidal pools was another favorite activity:

Various times during our visit we saw Monk Seals and Green Turtles resting on the beach. They seemed to have no worries about the people all around them, interesting that they have little fear of humans. 

I would be forgetting a big part of the wildlife in Kauai if I didn't mention the chickens and roosters, they are everywhere and LOUD

The first day we took a hike down to Mahaulepu Beach, it was a great hike along the coastline with excellent views. On your first hike in Kauai you take a hundred pictures in the first five minutes, slowly you realize that this beauty is everywhere in Kauai, the pictures don’t do it justice and it’s impossible to capture it all, regardless of how many pictures you take. 

 One of many rainbows we saw in Kauai, however this one brought us a pretty good downpour during the last few minutes of our hike (enough for us all to get soaked!).

 The trail runs along side a golf course at one point, Aaron was dying to get out there and hit a few, at $240 for a round it was slightly out of our price range: 

How is this for varied terrain? One minute you're looking at this amazing mountain range, 

then next you're walking through tall grasses

and then you're walking on volcanic rocks. Amazing! 

Our next adventure was a horseback ride along that same coast we walked the previous day – we were in similar spots a few times, but we were mostly on a different trail with entirely different views. 

I have been on horse back rides like this three or four times, despite that (and Emily owning horses for a few years) I am not comfortable on top of a horse. I just can’t seem to get the rhythm, at speeds faster than a slow walk it’s pretty uncomfortable. 

Emily and Dawn seemed to fall right into it and even Aaron seemed to have a lot easier time than I had. 

We all had a great time, it was a good three hours, the guide was great I loved hearing about the land and the history.

We did an ATV tour on Kauai as well – we weren’t sure what to expect, the guide prefaced the ride saying it was a slow tour on easy terrain (which I found a bit disappointing). While the ATVs had governors on them, the terrain was rough enough to keep my interest. 

We all had a great time (again), we got a good history lesson on the land and got to see several famous movie sites. 

Raiders of the Lost Ark - where Harrison Ford swings on the vine and jumps into the river to catch the plane while the natives are chasing him:

The Descendents - where George Clooney is standing at the top of the hill and showing his kids the land they own:

 Jurassic Park - where the small dinosaurs were running through the field:

We saw some wild pigs on the tour (though they seemed a bit less than wild to me:

I'm probably using the word "beautiful" too much:

A quick video of Dawn on the ATV 

 

The last two days we did somewhat serious hikes. I’ll admit not everyone in our party was excited about the prospect of hiking, but at the end we all had a good time on both. We found a really good groove on both hikes where we were power hiking at speeds I haven’t really done before, I’m happy we’re all in good enough shape to do that kind of thing for that length of hike. 

The first hike was on the Na Pali coast (north shore), this is the first two miles of an 11 mile hike that Dawn and I have done twice about 15 years ago. 

It was as beautiful as we remembered. Four miles of fast-hiking over extremely slippery rocks proved to be quite a work out. Those rocks are covered in a thin layer of really slippery mud.

 I'm going to have to go to the thesaurus for a new word:

 At the end of the hike we had to cross this river to get to the "beach" and our picnic spot, again there's that slippery mud on all the rocks, it was quite challenging:

It was interesting to see the contrast between the conservative/upper class trappings of Poipu and the hippy/gritty feel of the north shore, it was quite a dramatic difference. 

The beach at the end of the hike was a small inlet where the waves came crashing in, the noise here is incredible, the sign by the beach said that 83 people had died there to date, I can't imagine anyone going in that water! Ok this picture doesn't do it justice, these waves are at least 10' high.

The second hike was Awa’awapuhi Trail in the western part of the island. On the way to the hike we stopped at Wimea Canyon - pretty impressive hole in the ground (nice win-doo).

Dawn and I had looked briefly at the Awa’awapuhi Trail on one of our previous trips to Kauai, but hadn’t ever hiked it. The trail starts at 4,700’ and descends from there to 3,500’. We fast-hiked the trail both directions, but on the way down we were pretty much jogging the whole way. The trail itself wasn't really all that great - more slippery Kauai mud, but mostly its just hiking through the forest

Once you get through three miles of slipping and sliding, the trail ends on a pali (ridge) that juts way out and above the terrain around it. It was strange to see helicopters flying below us as we stood on the pali. None of these pictures do it justice, just an amazing view and a great place to just sit and contemplate things. We ate our lunch overlooking the ocean.

Beyond the end of the trail there is a narrow bridge with a 500' drop on either side that takes you really out to the edge of the pali. Aaron and I went out first

We came back up to the top and went back down with Dawn. 

Despite her pretty severe fear of heights she somehow made it out there. 

Great trip, I think we are all thinking about how we can get back there. The final day we spent a few more hours hanging out down at the beach. Emily finally got to get the sunburn she wanted so badly.

Back from Hawaii

We got back from Hawaii last night, to be honest the time zone is kicking my butt. I'll put together a blog post with LOTS of pictures in the near future.

Riding and more riding

I guess I'm on a bit of a riding tear - something like seven rides in eight days. I can't say any of the rides were stinkers, all good and all good fun. I've been riding the fatty a lot, but when it comes time to put the hammer down the RIP comes out. That thing is a rocket ship compared to the fatty, its especially noticeable after riding the fatty so much.

The kids got me a GorillaPod for Christmas, so today was the day to try that out. I did what was supposed to be a quick roll at Crandalls, but it turned out to be 10.5 miles, which is not a huge ride, but a really good time.

Its funny we were looking at making this cliff side path for a while and someone else took it upon themselves to create it. Its a great little addition that takes attention, if nothing else.

I wasn't planning on doing the trails on the other side of the stream, but as I rode on a nearby trail I noticed how full the stream was, I thought it would be a good picture. They didn't quite come out the way I wanted them to, but pretty good. Nothing better than splashing in water during warm weather or when you have water proof boots.

The camera makes everything looks so easy. These next two rollers are not easy at all, but these pictures sure make it look like its child's play.

Crazy NE weather and riding on messy trails.

As predicted the temperature went way up over the weekend. Consider that we had a low of below zero on Monday and on Sunday we went up over 60, that's a pretty big swing!

I considered riding the fat bike on Saturday morning, but even by then it seemed like things would be too wet and mushy (even though there was snow cover still left). I opted for a road ride spinning out about 38 miles. It felt great to get out on the road bike - that's a different kind of workout than the fat bike or regular mountain bike, you sit and spin as hard as you want to go for as long as you want to go. I thought I had a 45 mile loop in hand, but it topped out at 38 or so. I got home and saw the Strava feed with a few people who hit the trails and all had the same report - good to go. Darn, I would have liked to have gone on the fatty.

You can pretty much repeat that for Sunday, except I wasn't even contemplating a trail ride. We had a bit of rain overnight and the snow was completely gone. My yard was a mess of 1/2" of slime on top of frozen ground. I figured the trails would be complete slop. I got a few reports of people who went out and it seems some trails were ok. I think it was prudent to stay off the trails on Sunday. I convinced myself I had a good 45-50 mile loop and was disappointed again when I got home and Strava told me I had only ridden 38 miles again. There are certain roads I just don't like riding, the ones with short sight lines and narrow shoulders, that limits me to some degree, but the bigger limiter is probably my avoidance of major roads. I think I need to get to the point where I'm cranking out miles on Route 30 or 83 or something to get some distance. I have some ideas for the next ride. Sunday was overcast all day, but the temperatures got up to 60 degrees, I was riding in t-shirt and shorts and was 100% comfortable. Good ride and for whatever reason I was able to crank harder than on Saturday.

I hear people complain about that new ice melter the towns use (the green stuff) saying that it rusts cars. First I don't see that at all, our 2007 Fit has zero rust on it. Second from a biking perspective its a lot better than all the sand they used to drop on roads. Even after four storms in a row the roads were pretty clean. Although even that is relative, I got a nice spray tan from Sunday's ride.

Hopefully we get a solid freeze tonight and we can ride in the woods tomorrow. I have no idea how far down things have melted - I would have thought it was still pretty cold, but that snow melted fast. 

A ride that justified the fat bike

Last night's ride was superb. I got two laps of Crandalls in on perfect fat bike conditions, it was not a fast ride, but to keep going you really had to keep things level and under control to not spinning out. It was a test of skill for sure. The downhills were crazy, like skiing on big fat skis in powder, awesome float. It was a ride I couldn't have done without the fat bike.

Now we have four days of temps above freezing, so I think I'll be going from the fat bike to the skinny bike. I haven't ridden the road bike in probably a month, it should be interesting!

Fox News - yep, I'm going there...

I guess if you were going to characterize my political leanings, you would have to say I'm more socially liberal than conservative. Fiscally I appreciate conservative values, but so many other things get mixed in there by the lunatic fringe (yeah I said it) that its really hard to separate the good ideas from the chaff.

I never watch Fox News, the only time I see anything from that station is on Facebook when one of my liberal friends posts something up to prove a negative point, or one of my conservative friends post up something to prove a positive point. I do watch at least some of these short segments that get posted, I like to see how things are portrayed. When I watch it the BS meter in my head starts going crazy and before too long I'm discounting the whole story.

I got this from a mountain biking email list that I belong to (why this was posted to a mountain biking email list I'll never know):

I post this not to say anything about E15 gasoline, but more because I think it exemplifies what's wrong with Fox News. The base message is actually pretty good information to have - don't put E15 gas into a car that isn't built to handle it...but Fox can't stop there, they sprinkle in the words "government", "subsidies", etc and before you know it this is a conspiracy by the Ethanol lobby and irresponsibility by the current administration that WILL negatively impact you. I should also mention that in my travels for work and filling up rental cars in probably a dozen states in the last year I have never seen an E15 gas pump.

Whenever my BS meter pegs I head over to snopes.com and check it out there. I found an article and it starts with pretty much the same message - don't put E15 in a car that's not built for it, but it doesn't have all the misleading information to confuse things: http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/e15.asp

I see the liberal/conservative arguments on Facebook all the time - as does anyone who has a Facebook account. I see the conservative guys quoting Fox News - you have to admire how they can create a talking point and it spreads like a virus through social media. After watching a few Fox News segments I have to laugh when one of my conservative Facebook friends (who parrot the Fox message) dismisses a position posited by Steven Cobert or John Stewart because "they are comedians". I'd much rather listen to the logic of a comedian than that of a news station that has an agenda like Fox does.

I guess in re-reading the above I sound like a raving liberal, I'm not, or maybe I am, but that's not the point. The point is Fox News is a terrible place to get information, find a better source please. Use the facts to form an opinion, don't let their biases and opinions form yours.

Rays and First Snow Ride with the Fatty

I had a trip to Detroit early this week, I consulted a map and found that Rays Indoor Mountain Bike Park - Cleveland was a 2.5 hour drive from my hotel. I found by staying over an extra night I saved $100 on the flight, which was what the hotel costs - score. We finished the customer meeting around 12:30 and I drove over to Cleveland. I rented a Ford Focus - as a very quick note, that is a pretty nice car, I wouldn't mind owning one (unlike almost every other compact car I've ever rented).

Finding Rays was a bit of a challenge, its buried in the middle of a turn of the century (guessing) industrial park. There are signs for the businesses in the park at the entrance my phone took me to, but Rays is not listed. I poked my way through the park and found Rays (even the doorway is barely marked - though the hanging bike kind of gives you a hint).

Rays is incredible, I wish we had something like that nearby. I spent about 3 hours cranking around inside. Its a huge warehouse space that is full of biking goodness, jumps, berms, skinnies, tabletops, transitions, all kinds of great stuff.

I don't have many skills beyond mountain biking, so a lot of the BMX type stuff was out of the question. I had a blast on the sections I rode though. Their pumptrack is stupidly perfect, you get going so fast and you can carry that speed through the perfectly formed corners. Just an amazing time, I definitely have to get back.

I did have one spectacular crash on a wall ride. At speed those thing are so cool, you lean in and it just carries you around the corner. There was a jump set up and after getting comfortable carrying speed coming through the corner, I decided to try the jump that lands you in the wall ride. Unfortunately I misjudged exactly what was going to happen, I landed upright and stalled on the wall. I went down to the low side (of course, without getting a foot out. Ouch, hard crash, broke my helmet and got a few bruises. No permanent damage.

Last night I got the fat bike out for a solo cruise at Crandalls in the snow - we have about 2" of snow on the ground. It was a really fun ride.

The bike has traction all over the place, of course I didn't have my other bike with me to compare, but I only had to walk one or two small sections. That bike was a very good investment, I'm loving it.