Thursday sunset at Poipu - Brennecke Beach

It was a good one, no lie.

Return to Glass Beach

We had to hit Glass Beach again today so Doris could go nuts. As I think I mentioned before, this was the old dump for this part of (or the entire) island. Clearly, it'/s still not the resort district. Here's a shot taken, standing on still-intact landfill. There are layers and layers of detritus beneath me as I shoot this, and little by little, it falls into the sea and everything gets tumbled and smoothed.


This is an eroded area just east of the glass portion of the coastline. Lotsa metal, here. Don't swim right here, bud!



OK, check THIS out. I think right on the landfill proper sits this way old cemetery. It's all Japanese graves in this section, which is about two acres, and completely unkempt. As you go further East, therte are some newer graves, with some Hawaiian names and some seemingly Hispanic ones, as well. Slightly more well cared-for in this section.

Obligatory Wailua Falls Picture..

We were the epitome of "tourist" today - we took Doris and Shay to see all the standard must-see fare. Opaekaa Falls, Wailua Falls, the open-air markets, etc.

Diesel Sweeties

One of the webcomincs I read semi-regularly. It has moments. I liked this one:

Wednesday sunset - Hanalei bay again; sorry.

So as I mentioned in my previous post, we've been sticking to the North shore a lot this trip. That means lots of Hanalei Bay. It's super sweet up here, but I do owe you some shots of, well, -something- else once in a while. I posted the Barking Sands sunset (I have other pics from out there I may post later as well) and I have a sunset from the cliffs at Princeville (steps away from our door), but I haven't posted that one yet.

Doris and Shay arrived this afternoon and were there, splashing around in the bay with Deena as I stalked the area for photo opportunities, so they got to see this one with us.

Stoic fishermen (and fisherwomen, and boys, and girls)

Whole buncha people out on the Hanalei pier tonight, fishing for these little tiny fish - takes about a hundred of them to amount to anything. "Like french fries," one fisherman told me. The boy in the foreground was no less serious than his Dad at his side.

We normally venture around the island more than we have this trip, thus far, although we did make it around the island twice out of the past seven days - just not too many pictures of those trips. More South shore coming. Meantime, we see a lot of Hanalei, which is cool by me. We'll get back up to Tunnels probably tomorrow, and I want to get some pics of Bali Hai of of Ke'e beach while we're up there. We did tunnels one other day (way low for us, as it's absolutely my favorite spot on Earth, of all spots I've set foot on), but I didn't bring my camera. Just wanted to chill, not have to worry about taking pics or about leaving the camera in the car.

Deena's so damn cute.

End of post.

Tuesday sunset..

This was shot from the side of the road heading down into Hanalei Valley. We're looking over Hanalei Bay towards Bali Hai (the little peak you see there - I'll be getting more, better shots of that this week). After I stopped and set up, like 10 other cars stopped (which was dangerous - it's a steep, blind curve, and people were being, well, careless) and multiple people got out to snap with their point-n-shoots.

Pau Hana

Pau Hana!

For those of you who don't know, we're here at Tom & Brandy (and partner Brad)'s new vacation rental home in Princeville. I'm here to take some better pics than we had available for the website I recently put together for them, and to set up the internet and WiFi and what have you, and of course, to chill out some while we're here. We come to Kauai most years these days, but it was off the table this year due to our previous Mexico trip plus the one we have planned for December with Meredith. BUT.. T&B bought this place - which is phenomenal, by the way - you should totally book it [www.princevillehouse.com] if you've got a Hawaii trip in your future ;) - and it'd never been rented before, so they tapped me to help market it. A trip here to check it out was, of course, in order.

Entry:



Living room and killer kitchen:



Master:



Master bath - that shower is sooo sweet:


Guest room:



Lanai:



We're very comfortable here. There will be more, better pics on their website upon my return to the mainland.

Tonight's sunset brought to you by..

Ahh, Hanalei. Home of the (in)famous Magic Dragon. Definitely in my top ten for "favorite spots on Earth."

So, here's tonight's sunset:


It was just spectacular.


OK, since I've got you here..

So, I'm new at this photography thing. I shot like 100 images tonight, and I've pored over them, trying to select "the one." I really like the wide-angle, above. But my runners-up, below, are also, in my opinion, keepers.

Which would have been your choice? Let me know in the comments.

-S

Chase!

There they go!

Sunset at Barking Sands

Day two's sunset was at Barking Sands, the extreme other end (from where we're staying, and where we usually play: Hanalei/Haena/Princeville [North shore]) of the almost-full-circle road that nearly circumnavigates the island, and abuts Na Pali on the South side. We've never driven this far before, and we decide unanimously that it's time. It was a bit of work getting there, all told.. but as a girl told us later, "when you take the trouble to get out there, it's going to reward you with an awesome sunset."

I think that was proven true on this occasion.


We were discussing, as I was shooting these and the sky kept becoming more and more dramatic, that a photograph, no matter how wide the lens used or how high resolution the image, cannot come to close to capturing one one-billionth of the immensity that is contained in a scene such as this. As such, please forgive me for not being able to select a single image here as "ah, yes.. this is the one I want.. it clearly communicates what I was seeing." I couldn't make it happen in an image. It was just too... big. God, or the Great Magnet, or Chaos, or whatever you do or don't think is responsible.. "nature," then, maybe.. is sure one hell of an artist.

In this instance, the "art" was being experienced by me with all my senses at once, and some senses I can't really name, as well. Again, it was big out there on the seeming edge of the world. The island felt tiny, everything to the West of us was just so fucking big, so I myself, on that 11-mile-long and barely-populated beach, felt all the more small. Or rather, right-sized. I spend a lot of time being the biggest thing in my universe. Wearying. It's kind of a relief to be small, relatively speaking.

Glass beach - The search is over

Bruce Fisher(tm) was the one responsible for putting on the mission to find the Glass Beach, a possibly mythical or urban-lengend-esque location where purportedly trash was dumped for years, leaving glass and bits of other detritus to wash and tumble and smooth and polish over the years until, viola, you have a beach of veritable gems.

The girl who served me coffee yesterday was wearing a necklace feaqturing a largish piece of brown glass, all smooth and polished, as the focal piece. She reported she had found it, but when we asked where as Deena wanted to find some and make some stuff with it, the girl clammed right up.


See, there's nothing in any of the tourist-y materials about this place, because n o one's yet figured out a way to sell tickets to it yet, but I came back to the house and did some surfing. There are some stories and references to the place, even the odd photo or two (always of people being there, not of the beach itself), but I got an idea of a direction and a general location. Long story short, we found it.

Deena was, well, stoked.

The annual first Kauai stop.. Wal-Mart

OK, so here we are: back on Kauai, just like most years at this time. We like to have our trip straddle Labor Day, as we get a clear seasonal divider: it's summer when we leave Oregon, it's plainly fall when we return.

As always, we start our trip at the WM, to stock up on supplies. This place is surreal. It's crazy-packed; the aisles are -way- too narrow for the number of people shopping, and the ethnicities represented are so interesting (this isn't the mainland - -everyone's- a minority here, as in there's no clear majority. Whitey makes up about 30% of the residential population.

We're not super Wal-Mart fans, by the way. It's just a necessity thing. This is where we can get lots of water, batteries, things we forgot to pack, etc. Just like the only such option in our little hometown is the same behemoth. Necessary evil.

But I do blather on.

Onward, to vacation.

::::
Scott Lampman
Sent from Scott's phone
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