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Artmail 146a

May 15, 2005

.Links to Artmail 146's: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i..

Aloha all...

Last Wednesday, Tashi and I did make our Koke'e trip to take some photos. We started in Kekaha then drove three miles into Waimea for a quick breakfast. The place we had planned to eat was full, so we went to the Waimea Bakery & Deli across from the Captain Cook Monument park where we could sit outside.

After that breakfast, we headed up Waimea Canyon Road. This is not the road to which tourists are directed...less traffic, more good scenery.

I'll be continuing with the photos taken that day, but first I want to talk about some changes.

A lot of things are beginning to come together, now, so I want to make some time-saving changes to this website. When I go the next page in Artmails, I'll just add the next letter of the alphabet until I get to "z" then I'll go to the next number in the links page. The link from the index page will go to the latest uploaded Artmail.

I keep talking about living in my paradise. It really is. In my opinion it has the best climate in the world, next to a warm ocean and the people have much Aloha...which is very important to me. Before I retired from classroom teaching, I believed that the Internet would become available to the general public, eventually, and not be just a tool for defense and academia's use. I believed the "big corporations" would get use of it before the general public. My long-range plan was to pioneer using the Internet to connect with "the real world" while I lived leisurely life in a tropical paradise. I would use the Internet while traveling, too. There were many other important realities which led me to my two Polynesian tropical island paradises: Kaua'i and Rarotonga.

I've lived on the other sides of Kaua'i, but for me the "Westside is the best side." Kekaha is the closest town to my favorite beach at Polihale and in Hawaiian, Kekaha means The Place. Kaua'i has no big cities, but Honolulu and Waikiki are only about 100 miles away by air over the moat...er...Kauai Channel, formerly Kaieiewaho.

I've been to quite a few huge cities of the world and lived in a few, but I prefer to live a rural rather than urban lifestyle. While going to high school, I lived in the metropolitan San Francisco Bay area...on an island. Living on an island with limited access from the outside is different. Living in Alameda was still being a mainlander, but there was that island difference even there back then.

Ojai, where I taught biology and lived for twenty or so years, is in a valley with only four main highway accesses to the valley. The east end of the Ojai Valley was the view shot for Shangri-La in the original "Lost Horizon" filmed in 1937. Where I lived for twenty years is within in that view shot. Living in Ojai was kind of like living on an island, but too far from the ocean, too hot in the summer, too cold in the mornings. Enough, already.

Here on Kaua'i, an important map for me is a large recreation topographic map of the island. I'm going to be using photos of that old, outdated map because the missing more recent buildings and roads are not what I use it for. It has the topography and trails easy to read. Here are some photos of it:

I first came to Kaua'i after I had already moved to Hawaii on July 20, 1982. I had ARRIVED and I knew it because I could feel it. When its Aloha surrounded me, it was powerful. Kaua'i is one of Earth's gems, no doubt about it. I moved to Kaua'i's northshore in 1983...to the Westside in 1989...to Kekaha in 1995.

The whole island of Rarotonga, which is straight south of Kaua'i, the same distance south from the equator as Kaua'i is north, would fit in that map. Rarotonga is only 5 miles long and 4 miles wide while Kaua'i is almost 35 miles wide at the greatest. The area shown on the above map is of great historical interest. I'm about 2/3 finished reading this book from the 1890's:

The original book was first published about the time the Kekaha Sugar Company mill smokestack was built.

Here's the next morning's shot of 15B in Kekaha Ha'aheo. That's where I spend a lot of time indoors making this website, painting, listening to music, reading, talking story with friends...etc. It sure is nice to take a short drive and have such a nice visual experience. The distance to the Kalalau Lookout is only about 17 miles away from 15B.

Back to Waimea Canyon Road.

It's May 19th. I've been pretty busy lately doing some reasearch for the Purple Feather Greenback Project...it is also an educational project focusing on Polynesia, its culture and history. But first, the Kilohana Hike Project. On our way up to Koke'e, I talked a little about it with Tashi. I had in mind, but didn't say it, to check out the trail to the Pihea Overlook (the whole Pihea Trail is 3.75 miles long). It connects with the Alakai Swamp Trail (3.5 miles) which leads to Kilohana overlooking the Wainiha River Valley and beyond. Here's the part of the topo map that shows the area:

It turns out that the potholed-road from Kalalau Lookout to the next lookout at the start of the Pihea Trail was locked-gate closed. We drove "straight to" that gate from the hunter checking station pictured above hoping to beat the clouds rolling in and blocking the view... Here's a link to the Google satellite shot of the area.

Maybe during plum season in June (when the now-green plums are ripe) the gate will be opened. I am tentatively planning to hike to the Kilohana via the Alakai Swamp Trail. Anyway, as long as we were here we checked out the Kalalau Lookout:

It's now May 23rd. I'm finally getting back to the computer. We didn't hike this trail, but decided to go on down the highway to other lookouts for canyon views. Check out the topo map of the area:

At the left in the photo below, is the ridge trail which leads to Waipo'o Falls. Those little dots are people on the trail. The falls is on the other side out of view.

In 1999, when Renee was visiting, I took the four photos below:

It's a pretty easy hike to Waipo'o Falls. Back to Pu'uhinahina Lookout:

On the road again. The highway was lined with alien invaders...Lantana and Blackberries:

Then, in the boonies, at the deserted Boy Scout Camp, the Tercel didn't want to start! Continued in Artmail 146b.

.Links to Artmail 146's: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i.