Day 14 - Last Day...let's be a tourist!

We did some shopping after getting checked into the airline. Then we went to visit some waterfalls. 

Wailua Falls/ Fantasy Island Waterfall-"Da plane, Da plane"!! Which aparently was Ze plane...who knew. It has been many years since I've seen it. I guess I'll have to look it up on YouTube. 

Opaeka'a Falls. 

Back to the airport. I traveled by SpeedyShuttle with 7 HFS students to our respective hotels. I finally got to my hotel about 11 PM. So tired!!

 

Day 13 - Waimea Canyon, Kokee, and Kalalau Valley

First a rondom stop to look out over the west coast of Kauai. Here, you can see the red dirt of Kauai flowing out into the ocean from runoff. Aparently there are also missiles pointed to Korea on this coast too.

Next, we walk the Iliau Loop. Matthew walks it in style. Last year he ripped his pants and had to wear the sarong to cover it up.  

Waimea Canyon in the distance. This picture is on the Iliau Loop. 

We stop at the Waimea Canyon Lookout. 

We briefly stop at the Koke'e Museum and we eat lunch next to the Kalalau Valley and one of the most breathtaking views that I've ever seen. When we first got up there, the clouds were thick, but then they moved so you could see the view. 

Because of my stupid hurt toe, I did not complete the hike. They all came back super muddy!!

Day 12 - Salt Ponds, Glass Beach, Spouting Horn, and the Trash Conglomerate

Another day dedicated to animals! Minimal plants and geology. Here is our first stop - the Salt Ponds. 

 

Here is where we collected critters. The water was really rough so we stayed closer to shore. We found a lot of critters. We even found a stone fish. Yep. The critters were all over. We found an eel too. Very cool!!

So now some geology. We stopped at a black-ish sand beach. We really stopped there for the glass beach part. Good ol' humans used to dump trash in the ocean and now that glass has broken up and has become a glass-sand beach. 

Spouting horn was not too spouty, but we saw about 5-6 Sea Turtles and 2 Hawaiian Monk Seals. The seal that I saw was hanging out bear the rocks in the water. 

Here is the sortof spouting horn. It has definitely spouted more in the past. 

A quick stop at the National Botanical Gardens to look at pretty plants.  

Plumeria-my favorite!!  I cannot wait for mine at home to bloom. 

Golden Shower Tree. 

Garbology time...this is a trash conglomerate. Again, humans dumping waste. But, here we are standing on it admiring the pillow lava and trash. Once again, we saw a lot of Sea Turtles swimming around.  

A little fun night out. Some students wanted to go eat at Duke's, so there must be a chaperone...or 3...right? Oh. And a big piece of Duke's Pie. Yummy!!

Day 10 - Taro Ponds Overlook, Limahuli Gardens, Wet Cave, and RandomStop#55 & 56

And most importantly my first double rainbow!!  If you look closely, you can see the second rainbow on to the left of the bright rainbow.  It was so exciting!  I have been promised stars and double rainbows, and this is my first time to see both.  Hopefully, we will get to see a Hawaiian Monk Seal?!?

Here is the Taro fields, well,m Taro is grown.  Taro is very important in the Hawaiian culture.  

Limahuli Gardens - this is the Hale that we helped to complete last year.  It is exciting to see it completed! Dr. Winter talked to us about Ethnobotany and the Hawaiian culture.  He took us on a tour and then set us on a Service Learning project planting native and endangered plants in the forest.  It was interesting that they are keeping some of the non-native plants for shade so that the native plants can grow and not get too much light.  They are trying different things out to see what works best.

Here I am with a piece of Sugar Cane...right off of the stalk.  It was Ok.  I did not like to too much.  I also ate a flower...well, I did not actually eat it.  I put it in my mouth and bit into a petal.  Then I returned it to nature :-)

So, now I have to confess that I sort of hurt myself yesterday on the hike out of the waterfall tour.  A student was holding onto the rope as was I.  She slipped and fell pretty bad and took me down with her.  I fell on my knees pretty hard, fell on top of my walking stick and broke it, and buggered up my pinky toe and toenail.  Ugh.  I got more hurt than the student that fell.  Anyways, I tried making the hike into where we were doing service learning, but I did not make it very far.  It was muddy and there were steps.  My knees were not going to have it.  So, I turned around and went back down.  This would have been my plant that I planted in the forest, but it was not.  

Instead, I took a few pictures of the river, and then found a cool place to sit and eat. 

Here is the place that I ate lunch and read my book on my phone.  Thank goodness for Kindle!  I dangled my sore toe in the water hoping for some Hawaiian healing water to fix my toe.  I don't know about that, but I do know that the cool water felt good.  It is apparently a popular place to swim.  There were quite a few people that went swimming in there.  

Once the students got back, we piled into the cars and went to go see the Wet Cave...like a dry cave, but with water.  Yep.  That is about it!

Random stop # 55 was at a place on the side of the road.  There is a geological dike there.  I did not take a picture, but I did find this pretty flower.  

We stopped at Banana Joe's Fruit Market that has fruit smoothies, ice cream, organic, locally grown produce, etc.  They were out of the stuff to make smoothies, but they did have other produce.  I had to take a picture of this pineapple.  I have never seen one for almost $24 before.  Yikes!  I guess that I will end with the second picture here...Aloha!

Day 9 - Activity Day

Today was activity day. We scattered (kayaking, beach, paddle boarding, hiking Sleeping Giant, and a Luau). I went with a group kayaking and then to a waterfall. Super muddy, hurt my toe, but the waterfall is just fantastic!

This is a picture a student took and sent me. I'm in the background taking a selfie. 

Back at the condo, I was told I had mud on my face. I took a picture of the mud, but this really does not tell the story of how muddy the trals were today. 

I decided after a long and eventful day kayaking and hiking (see day 10 for the story...), I needed some yummy ice cream. 

Ice cream before dinner never hurt anyone :-)