oh hello again

Apologies for the delay in this latest post, but I've been really busy living the life of a nomadic idiot.  It's very time consuming for reasons I'm still attempting to figure out.  Anyways, a few things have happened since my last little update.  Mainly I flew from Maui to Kauai and have been cruising this beauteous little island for the past few days.  I'm staying with a super chill surfer dude named Kevin who is a good buddy of my good buddy Adam.  Mutual friends are fun!  He's been a ridiculously nice host and has shown me some of the best surf spots on the island.  He's also imparted a portion of his vast knowledge of Hawaiian history and culture, which has been an added bonus.  The first couple of days here, I scoped out the beaches, drank some kava, and met some of Kevin's pals (who are also super chill and extremely accommodating).

On Thursday I decided to rent a car to give everyone a rest from entertaining me.  Only snag in that plan was that all the rental car places are at the airport, which is about 11 miles from Kevin's jungle bungalow.  But it's not like I have any schedule or anything, so I decided to hoof it.  Hitchhiking in Hawaii is very common and safe (or so I'm told) so I figured I would just walk til I got bored and then stick my thumb out in the breeze and see what happened.  Well around the point of boredom, a car rolled by and quickly pulled over.  I ran over to see if I could get a lift for the final 6 miles only to see that the person in the car was Nikki, Kevin's next door neighbor.  She told me to forget about renting a car and just hang with her and her buds for the rest of the day.  So we went to the beach for the afternoon, watched a nice little sunset then cruised home for a fantastic vegetarian dinner and a few hands of cards.  There was also some Jameson hanging out in the general vicinity.  There's a sickness making its way around the island that's apparently caused by the volcanic ash particles in the air, so Jameson was used strictly for medicinal purposes.  I think.

Ok so that brings us to yesterday, in which I finally got that ever elusive rental car.  A sick ass navy blue Hyundai Elantra.  Boy oh boy, does that thing haul!  Not really, but it did get me where I wanted to go: Waimea Canyon.  It's a beautiful area with hundreds of miles of trails and ridiculous views and secluded waterfalls and awesome things of that nature.  I drove to a few overlooks that were filled with lots of annoying tourists and then went on a 5-mile hike in which I encountered approximately 3 other people.  It was pretty rad.

Here's the last week of my life in pictorial form:

I debated putting this one up, but I'm pretty sure you can't make out any super nasty bits unless you have a magnifying glass (and if actually take the measure to do that, then you should definitely get out more).  So this is just a mild little taste of some of the sights of the infamous Sunday beach party at the "Little Beach" in Maui.  Lots of old leather skinned oldheads who let their freak flags fly with wild abandon.  I didn't really want to take pictures because I don't necessarily want to relive some of the things I saw, but this meeting of old man butts was kinda funny.  Sorry if this picture burned your retinas. 

Sunset on the Little Beach.  I think there was a crazy naked hippie banging the bongos right next to me, but my camera lens wasn't wide enough to capture that.  Sorry!

On the Northern coast of Kauai, there's a 17 mile stretch of land called the Na Pali Coast that is closed to cars.  I rode a bike to the end of the road, hiked up a couple miles of trails and saw cool stuff like this.

The Na Pali Coast

The Salt Ponds.  During the summer months, this pond dries out and salt is harvested and sold all around the island. 

Waimea Canyon overlook.  Again, this picture doesn't do the massiveness any justice.  This area is called "the Grand Canyon of the Pacific"....and with good reason. 

Fun fact: Kauai is home to thousands of wild chickens and roosters.  There are no natural predators in Hawaii so these things thrive.  They're also loud and annoying and fearless.  In addition, these roosters are stupid because they don't even wait until sunrise to start crowing.  Idiots.

Another beautiful view from a Waimea Canyon overlook.  I met a couple from Wisconsin while I was up here.  I figured they were Packers fans so I tried to engage them in some friendly trash talking only to find out that they could care less about football and came to Hawaii to escape the hype.  Lame!

This is just a lone tree hanging out on the edge of a massive cliff that sits a few hundred feet above the base of the canyon.  I spotted this on a 5 mile hike on the Canyon Trail (creative name). 

No McDonald's for miles, but still saw some arches.   Hahahahaha, I'm hilarious!

Oh hey, a waterfall!

I'm so excited!

Better put on my hippie hat and rock out!

If you walk a little bit further down the stream from the first waterfall, you end up here, at the top of another waterfall that plunges forever over that edge there.  A little bit scary.  A lot bit awesome.

My new happy place.

So that wraps up another chapter of this titilating page turner.  I know these pictures don't really represent this aspect, but I swear that I've actually been hanging out with other people besides myself.  I just feel like a tool asking new buds to take touristy pictures with me right of the bat.  But maybe I'll grow a set and get some candid shots later today.  Stay tuned...

Word on the street is that it's supposed to rain tomorrow and Monday...which works out kind of perfectly for me since tomorrow will be solely devoted to indoor activities a.k.a. going to a local watering hole and watching dem Stillers vie for some more hardware to add to the trophy case.  No one around here really seems to care much about the game, but I'm hoping to convince some people to jump on the bandwagon of the greatest sports franchise in all the land.  Or I'll just have some beers, wave my Terrible Towel and high five strangers like I did last game.  Either way, it should be a fun day.

On a final note, this may or may not be the last post I write in the good old U.S. of A. as I am scheduled to set sail for the Land Down Under on Tuesday morning.  So if this does, in fact, turn out to be my last correspondence on native soil....I love you America, you big dumb idiot!

Peace, love and Lombardi trophies!