AndyO Blog

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Kauai - Day 4 (Thursday) - Thanksgiving

I woke up to the drumming of rain outside. The TV said that there were flash floods all over the island. There was so much rain that the famous Kauai red mud was now bleeding into the ocean from the Waimea River. Here's a picture:

The red mud flows into the ocean

Brenda and I decided to go out for a bit without the kids. She really wanted to go to Wal-Mart. On the way, we stopped at Lydgate State Park, one of our favorite snorkeling spots from our previous visit to Kauai. We'd heard from Snorkel Bob's that the storm that had blasted the island a week or two before had filled Lydgate with debris and dead animals. When we arrived, we saw a deserted beach and signs posted not to swim.

 Lydgate park is closed

The lifeguard who was on duty said it would be a month before the beach reopened. He said they had to let the ocean clean out the lagoon. It certainly looked like a mess.

No swimming at Lydgate park

Next, we drove to Wal-Mart. I've got to say that I'm not a big fan of Wal-Mart, but they do have a lot of stuff. We were mostly there to buy food, but I had to buy a Hawaiian shirt for the dinner we were going to for Thanksgiving. We also bought Lego car kits for the boys.

When we came outside, the rain had stopped and the air was muggy. Of course I started sweating right away.

Wal-mart on Kauai 

Thanksgiving Dinner at Gaylord's

For Thanksgiving Dinner, my parents took us out to Gaylord's at Kilohana, a large plantation on the Kaumualii Highway, in Lihue. We sat in a covered area outside.

 Thanksgiving dinner at Gaylord's

We brought the Lego cars for the kids to put together, but that only kept them occupied for 40 minutes.

Drew assembles a Lego car

Before long, the boys were running around on the grass. I gave Cameron the camera and he started documenting all the birds they were chasing.

Photo of Drew by Cameron

Photo of chicken by Cameron

We all ate a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, except Brenda and Drew. I started with a wonderful Kabocha Pumpkin Bisque and salad with arugula with Kunana chevre. Brenda had a "fabulous" fish dinner (I think it was halibut), and Drew had chocolate cake. (You read the correctly: chocolate cake.)

Drew eating his "dinner"

Brenda's Thanksgiving dinner: fish

After dinner, which took nearly two hours to eat due to slow service, we walked around the grounds of the plantation. (I noticed that it wasn't just Gaylord's that had slow service on Kauai; I just think the pace is slower on the island, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It just becomes a more difficult thing when you have two kids and one of them is four.)

The view from Gaylord's

The view from Gaylord's

Cameron and Drew especially loved this truck in the parking lot:

Monster truck

Waimea Falls

After dinner we drove to Waimea Falls, the location that was used at the beginning of the 70s show Fantasy Island. Along the way, we saw a wild boar dart from the side of the road into the brush. My Dad, who was wearing his boar's tooth necklace, was pretty excited.

The falls themselves were spectacular, especially given the amount of rain that had come down that day. But we didn't stay too long since it started raining again. 

Waimea Falls runneth over

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posted by AndyO @ 7:56 PM   0 comments