Waimea and the rest of the weekend

Waimea Canyon

Saturday I met with Kelly K to go for a hike around Waimea Canyon on the west side of the shore. Unfortunately it poured all morning and we weren't able to go hiking, so instead Kelly took me around to some of the touristy spots on the west side. This was really the first time weather had kind of spoiled my plans, but it seemed to clear up pretty well by the afternoon. We ended up going to Kokee national park, Fort Elizabeth (an old fort built by the Russians), and to the hanging bridge in Waimea. The west side was much drier than the east side and therefore was more brown and even some cacti around. While we were driving I learned some more cool Kauian town names like Hanapepe (HAN ah PAY PAY) and Eleele (EL ay El ay). Its just fun to say them and I'm still trying to pick up more of the local dialect, pretty soon I might be able to start picking up Pigeon.

She had to pick her kids up from the airport in Lihue so we hung around and killed some time by going to a movie and a little shopping at Walmart. Kelly dropped me off at the hotel and by that point I was pretty exhausted, but it was great to finally make it over to the west side of the island.

Today didn't do much, but I decided to hit up another local beach. There's a shortcut trail off of one of the Princeville streets, but typically to access Anini beach you have to drive to Kiluea to access it (about a 15-20 minuted drive). The trail wasn't as steep as the last one and much more overgrown with vines and trees. It was a pretty cool beach, but when the clouds started to roll in I decided to head home. It only ended up raining for about 3 minutes and was back to sunshine. The walk was fun and gave a great relaxing note to end my weekend with.