Teaching Poetry, and a Poem for NaPoWriMo

Tuesday was the one day this semester that I dedicated to poetry for my College Reading students, and it was a disaster. Most of our readings this semester have come from The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011, which I think is a good text for students this age because the readings are chosen by students their own age. There is only one small section of poetry in the book, a group of poems responding to Arizona SB 1070 (the infamous immigration bill), and I assigned this section for Tuesday's class, thinking it would be a gentle introduction into poetry and also an opportunity to talk about current events and reinforce the importance of understanding the context/rhetorical situation of a text, which they've been resistant to all semester.

Since there was no quiz or blog post due this week, I was fully expecting that most of them wouldn't have completed the reading, but I wasn't expecting only one person in each class to have brought the book. How can we talk about poetry if you don't have the poems in front of you?! Needless to say, the class was dismissed early, but only after I assured them their days with poetry were not over, that I was replacing the final class on reading images with one on poetry instead. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with this class, other than the exercises and discussion I had planned for Tuesday, but now I think I'm going to do something similar to what my friend Tawnysha did in her class yesterday.

In light of how I've been feeling about teaching poetry to college students this week, I thought this poem by former national poet laureate Billy Collins was appropriate.

"Introduction to Poetry"
By: Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

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Honeymoon in Hawai'i - Day 10: Oahu/Last Day in Hawai'i :-(

Unlike most cruise vacations I've taken, which are basically over the moment the boat docks and we disembark, our Hawai'i trip had a little steam left so that we could say a proper farewell to our new favorite state. Thanks to Delta playing with our itinerary the previous few months, we weren't scheduled to fly out until around 5:30 p.m., which gave us nearly a whole day to hit some of the Oahu hot spots we'd missed during our first 2.5 days on the island.

We'd picked up tags so that we could be in one of the earliest groups to leave the ship (around 8:00, I think), and as usual, our color was called a little bit before our official time, but we were ready to go. We'd gotten up early, ensured that the remaining few items we'd kept with us were packed in my carry-on, and were having a quick breakfast at the buffet when our color was called. Since the majority of passengers had fought for later time slots, disembarkation was a breeze, and within five minutes we'd disembarked, gathered our bags, and were boarding the Thrifty shuttle waiting outside. (The nice thing about not entering international ports on this cruise: no customs/immigration.) On the way to Thrifty we stopped by the Princess dock to pick up a couple disembarking there; they'd flown to Tahiti and taken a twelve(?)-day cruise from there to Hawai'i, which might be the only other way I'd consider cruising Hawai'i. (Certainly not doing one of those ones from the West Coast.)

We'd reserved a full-sized car with Thrifty for the day to accommodate all our bags, but since we'd moved from high season to low (or moderate) in the course of a week, the price was half what we'd paid for a standard-size the week before. You can get your bags stored at the port terminal for a price, but we decided that wasn't really worth it for us, and Norwegian doesn't work with the airlines to transport bags early for you anymore. So we were stuck with the bags all day, but since it was just the two of us, there was plenty of room in the car and it wasn't an issue.

Our first destination was Kualoa Ranch, which we had missed on our first couple of days in Oahu. There is so much you can do at Kualoa--ATV tours, horseback riding, garden and beach tours--but what I wanted was a movie scene tour.

Dozens of movies and TV shows have been filmed (at least in part) at Kualoa, including Lost, Jurassic Park, 50 First Dates, Hawaii 5-0, and Godzilla. There are some all-day Lost tours (of Kualoa but not by Kualoa) that I would love to do, but we only had time for the basic movie tour Kualoa offers. It's a one-hour tour on an old school bus without windows, and it was by far the biggest tour we took the whole trip! (And super dusty. Our camera is still coated in dust.) Cori, our guide, entertained us with stories of how she came to the island, how prohibitively expensive it was to live there, of places we must visit while we were there, and of the ranch itself. Kualoa (all 4,000 acres of it) has been owned by the same family for over a hundred years, and every person who is born into that family owns a piece of it (or a stake in it at least). The property has everything--beaches, mountains, valleys, jungles--and is some of the most beautiful real estate on the island. How the family maintains it, of course, is through tours partially, but mainly through charging outrageous sums (to you and me, not to studio execs) for Hollywood to film there. Needless to say, the Morgan family, no matter how big it is, isn't hurting for money.

The movie tour only shows you a fraction of the property and of the places where studios have filmed, but our first stop was at a bunker used as one of the Dharma stations in Lost. (Just wish I could remember which one!) This is one of several old WWII bunkers on the estate, and this one also houses the movie "museum," framed posters of all the movies that have been filmed at Kualoa. We were given 10-15 minutes to tour the bunker, which is also home to the (very fake) submarine used in Lost!

Since we were two of the first people off the bus (which is how we were able to get those shots of the sub without ten people standing in front of it), we decided to clear out of the bunker well before time to reboard the bus in order to give the other people room to breathe. The bunker is right on a hill overlooking the ocean and you can see Chinaman's Hat from there, so we were perfectly content to hang around outside while we waited on the rest of the group to reconvene.

No Photoshop required. The colors are just that awesome!

Then we drove around the valley (where dozens of productions have filmed) and saw the hill where Hurley built his golf course, the dirt road Adam Sandler drove down when he saw Drew Barrymore's car broken down in 50 First Dates, and one of Godzilla's footprints, along with countless other locations.

Hurley's golf course

50 First Dates road

Godzilla footprint

The tour was just a taste of the beauty and history of Kualoa (at least for movie buffs like me), and I'd love to go back when I have a full day to spend there.

Since we were already on the far east side of the island, after the tour we decided to drive up to the North Shore to have lunch and watch the surfers. We wanted to see the Banzai Pipeline, but since that isn't a "real" location, we told Gypsy (what T.J. has named our GPS) to take us to Ehukai Beach Park. When we reached Haleiwa, the GPS directed us onto a narrow (basically one-lane) service road that ran parallel to the ocean.  Houses are packed close together here, so you can't really see the ocean, but you know it's there. The GPS was saying we were "there" even though we couldn't see any sign of a beach park, but there were cars parked all along the service road and people walking between houses to get to the beach, so we parked as soon as a space opened up and then took a cut-through between two houses. The beach on the other side was nice but didn't look like a beach park, and there were only a handful of people on the beach and a couple of (obviously amateur) surfers in the water. That's when we looked down the shore and saw where the crowd had gathered. Even though we were not prepared for a beach day, we hiked through the sand to the real Ehukai Beach Park, which was exactly what you'd think a beach park would be. It had a parking lot, picnic tables, etc., and a crowd had gathered (including a bank of photographers with telephoto lens) to watch a surf competition! That's right. How lucky were we that we just happened to show up right when a competition was about to begin!

Now, I know nothing about surfing, other than that it looks awesome when you do it right and especially in those colorful barrel photographs magazines are so fond of. But I have no idea how its scored, how long a heat lasts, who determines who gets what wave, etc. What I learned on our last day in Oahu is that it is a sport of patience. First we watched the surfers float around on the waves waiting for the heat to begin. Then when the horn signaled the first heat, we waited for the first surfer to take a wave. In our 30+ minutes of watching, we saw maybe three or four strong runs.

So surfing involves a lot of waiting around for something to happen, it being a sport that depends entirely on Mother Nature's cooperation and all. But what I really learned that day was that the locals love their surfing the way that Southerners love high school football and Canadians love hockey. The people who were sitting around me that day were mostly local, and they knew the surfers on the water. Knew them by name, could recognize them from 300 yards away, knew their moves and how they'd scored in the last competition. And they had their own telephoto lens cameras. These were hardcore surf fans.

It was growing late, though, and we still needed to get lunch and make a couple more stops, so we reluctantly left the competition during the first heat and walked back to the car. This time we walked through the beach park, which we realized connected to the service road. The beach parking lot was full, which is why so many other people had parked along the service road as well. The walk back was short, though, and once we'd dusted off the sand and climbed back into the car, we decided to backtrack a couple of minutes to have lunch at Ted's Bakery, which Cori had recommended on our tour that morning.

Ted's Bakery is one of those small places loved by locals and tourists alike. You can get good, cheap food there, everything from burgers to plate lunches, but the real reason people go is because of the pies, which are world-famous. I wish we could have brought one back with us, but it probably would have been a bit difficult to get it into our carry-ons. (And TSA probably would have thought it contained too much liquid anyway. :-P) Lunch there can be a bit...chaotic and intimidating for the first-timer. Its busy and crowded, with only a handful of small tables outside on the patio, which means if you are fortunate enough to find a bench at one, you will be sharing with at least one other family. (IF the families aren't rude tourists who spread out all their belongings so that no one else could sit there.) The line inside and non-existent space to wait for your food can be equally confusing, but once I chose what I wanted to eat, T.J. dealt with that while I waited for a bench at one of the tables to become available. We ended up eating with a local guy and his two little kids, which was really cool. He was originally from the Philly area, so we knew a lot of the same places, and we chatted about life in Oahu, why he'd moved there, and why he was never moving back Stateside. I felt sorry for all the tourists who'd refused to share their tables with locals, because they were really missing out on one of the most interesting parts of travel (at least to me): listening to other people's stories! 

After lunch, we began our journey back to Honolulu, although we had one more major stop to make: the Dole Plantation! One of the things I most wanted to see at Dole was the row of painted eucalyptus trees at the entrance. I'd first learned about these trees when I was researching the Road to Hana in Maui, and when we'd later decided not to do the drive, the trees were one of the main things I was disappointed we wouldn't see. Then I'd learned the Dole Plantation had the same trees, so I knew we had to stop there. And I'm so glad we did! The trees are gorgeous!

After taking countless pictures of the trees from every angle (and probably looking like idiots in the process), we finally made it inside. The store is huge, with every variety of pineapple-related treat you can imagine. We ended up with pineapple and pineapple/strawberry candy, pineapple crunch, and the magical mango-macadamia waffle mix I already discussed here, but it was hard to choose! There were so many yummy-looking local goodies to choose from. They had t-shirts and other souvenirs as well, which, looking back, we wished we'd bought. 

What we'd really come for (other than the trees), though, was a Dole Whip! There are only, to my knowledge, four places in the world to get a Dole Whip: the Magic Kingdom, Disney's Polynesian Resort, Disneyland, and the Dole Plantation. And now I've had one (or a half dozen) at every location! After purchasing our Dole Whips from the restaurant area at the back of the building, we took our already-melting soft serve out to the patio.

We texted a similar picture to my brother and cousin, who are Dole Whip aficionados like me, and my brother asked if it was better than the Disney version. Just as good! I replied. How can you improve upon perfection? The only thing that was better about this Dole Whip (which was magically good on its own) was that I was eating it under blue skies and palm trees in Hawaii on a gorgeous, sunny, warm day (not sitting on a  concrete block in Frontierland in the sweltering Florida heat). Can't beat that.

The Dole Whip was the perfect way to end our vacation. It, like sitting on Ke'e Beach at sunset, is one of my happiest memories from Hawai'i because it is also one of the simplest. 

Although I wished we had more time to explore the grounds or take on the infamous Dole maze, I was happy with the time we got to spend at the Plantation. It was a very relaxing, fun place to spend an hour, even if it was packed with people. We had a flight to catch, though, and a little shopping we still wanted to do, so after we finished our Dole Whips we headed back to Honolulu. 

Since shopping hadn't been a priority on this trip, there were several souvenirs I typically get when we travel that I'd failed to find in Hawaii, a t-shirt being one of them. I'd bought two sweatshirts (one in Kona and one at Mauna Loa Helicopters) but no t-shirts. We figured Hilo Hattie would be the place to get one, though, since they seemed to be the most ubiquitous souvenir shop around, with locations on every island and free shuttles to get there. T.J. really hadn't bought anything for himself the whole trip (other than the Iron Man shirt in Kona), and he was hoping to find something special to put in his office at work. We found the Honolulu location without problem (thanks to the GPS) and were surprised to find the parking lot nearly empty. I think a lot of bus tours must go there (judging from the parking) and that few tourists make it there on their own.

We were greeted at the door with shell leis, which was nice, and entered the store expecting it to be enormous and busy (based on the exterior), but, while it was big (like Big Lots big) it wasn't department store big, which is what it looked like from the outside. We were really disappointed in the t-shirt selection (unless you like t-shirts with embroidered flowers on the front, this is probably not the place for you), but we did find a few items to purchase: cheap calendars to give as souvenirs, a fridge magnet for my mom, an 11x14 copy of the vintage map we liked so much, a small piece of pottery for me, and a painted honu plate for T.J.'s office. 

Out at the car, we rearranged our luggage to accommodate all our new purchases, and then it was back to Thrifty and then on to the airport. Our Hawaiian honeymoon was over, and although it was sad to say good-bye to the islands we'd come to love, we knew that good-bye wasn't forever--that Hawai'i had become a part of us in a way that few places have, and that it's a place we will want to share again, at every new stage of our lives.

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A NaPoWriMo Poem: Carol Ann Duffy's "Standing Female Nude"

Not a lot of time today to blog, as I just finished teaching and have student conferences all afternoon. But I did want to share another favorite poem today to inspire all those NaPoWriMoers out there!

I first discovered this poem in my Women's Literature class my senior year of college, and Carol Ann Duffy has been a favorite poet of mine ever since. I've been purposely vague about my own poetry-writing goals for April, but I'll give a hint: I'm working on a series that attempts to do something very similar to what this poem does. Without further ado...

"Standing Female Nude" (1985)
By: Carol Ann Duffy

Six hours like this for a few francs.
Belly nipple arse in the window light,
he drains the color from me. Further to the right,
Madame. And do try to be still.
I shall be represented analytically and hung
in great museums. The bourgeoisie will coo
at such an image of a river-whore. They call it Art.

Maybe. He is concerned with volume, space.
I with the next meal. You're getting thin,
Madame, this is not good. My breasts hang
slightly low, the studio is cold. In the tea-leaves
I can see the Queen of England gazing
on my shape. Magnificent, she murmurs,
moving on. It makes me laugh. His name

is Georges. They tell me he's a genius.
There are times he does not concentrate
and stiffens for my warmth.
He possesses me on canvas as he dips the brush
repeatedly into the paint. Little man,
you've not the money for the arts I sell.
Both poor, we make our living how we can.
I ask him Why do you do this? Because
I have to. There's no choice. Don't talk.
My smile confuses him. These artists
take themselves too seriously. At night I fill myself
with wine and dance around the bars. When it's finished
he shows me proudly, lights a cigarette. I say
Twelve francs and get my shawl. It does not look like me.

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Reading Plath on the First Day of NaPoWriMo

Happy National Poetry Writing Month, everyone! Although I'm not brave enough to attempt this writing marathon (which asks you to write a poem a day for a month) myself, I greatly admire all my friends, writing acquaintances, and anyone else who will be participating this year. Even though I don't consider myself a poet, I have set some modest poetry-writing goals for the month, and I've decided to encourage those who are fighting the good fight of NaPoWriMo by posting favorite poems here on the blog. I can't promise a poem everyday, but I will try to post one at least every two or three.

First up is one of my favorite poems by Sylvia Plath. It's a poem that I spent a lot of time with a few years ago when I was taking a graduate course on "Poetic Materials," working on a seminar paper investigating the murky history of her collection Ariel, thinking a lot about authorial intention and editorial interference, and in particular Plath's tumultuous relationship with her husband and sometime editor/critic Ted Hughes. It's a poem that encompasses all of the elements I look for in poetry:  intense, precise imagery; just enough abstraction to allow the reader to make a personal connection or interpret the poem multiple ways; and a final line that knocks the air from my lungs.

"The Rabbit Catcher" (1962) from Ariel**
By: Sylvia Plath

It was a place of force--
The wind gagging my mouth with my own blown hair,
Tearing off my voice, and the sea
Blinding me with its lights, the lives of the dead
Unreeling in it, spreading like oil.

I tasted the malignity of the gorse,
Its black spikes,
The extreme unction of its yellow candle-flowers.
They had an efficiency, a great beauty,
And were extravagant, like torture.

There was only one place to get to.
Simmering, perfumed,
The paths narrowed into the hollow.
And the snares almost effaced themselves---
Zeroes, shutting on nothing,

Set close, like birth pangs.
The absence of shrieks
Made a hole in the hot day, a vacancy.
The glassy light was a clear wall,
The thickets quiet.

I felt a still busyness, an intent.
I felt hands round a tea mug, dull, blunt,
Ringing the white china.
How they awaited him, those little deaths!
They waited like sweethearts. They excited him.

And we, too, had a relationship--
Tight wires between us,
Pegs too deep to uproot, and a mind like a ring
Sliding shut on some quick thing,
The constriction killing me also.

** This version comes from Plath's manuscript for Ariel, which was published posthumously. When Ted Hughes prepared the manuscript for publication, he left out this poem. It was later included in Winter Trees, but it wasn't restored to Ariel, its intended home, until the facsimile of Plath's manuscript was published in 2004 (Ariel: The Restored Edition).

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Honeymoon in Hawai'i - Day 8: Kauai

I realize this post is a VERY long time coming, but since it's about my favorite day of the trip and my favorite island, I hope it will be worth the wait.

Confession: I knew Kauai would be my favorite island long before I ever stepped foot on its emerald shore. I've had a slight obsession with it for several years now. In the novel I'm currently writing, there is an island with a similar topography to Kauai's, and I have pictures of the Na Pali Coast and the Mount Waialeale crater posted around my office as inspiration. I will watch any movie set in Kauai, no matter how terrible it is. (I've seen A Perfect Getaway more times than I can count.) When we went to see The Descendants, I admit that one of my main motivations for seeing it was because it was set in Kauai. Of course, only part of it is in Kauai, which I didn't realize until the movie began (and then I was a little disappointed), but it was a great movie nonetheless, and it was fun seeing so many now-familiar places in Oahu and Kauai and thinking about the fact that I was just there two months ago.

I'll admit, too, that my biggest motivation for wanting to honeymoon in Hawai'i was that I wanted to go to Kauai, and that was the main reason I decided to book a cruise (that gave me two days on the island) as opposed to just booking a land vacation to Oahu like so many other honeymooners do. So as you can imagine, I was too excited to sleep well the night before we arrived in Kauai, and I was up and ready long before we docked--early enough to watch the whales that were there to greet us as we came into port and to get some shots of the island in the early morning light.

Of course, of all days, this was the one day we were up and ready in plenty of time to get off the boat at its scheduled docking time (8:00) and ALSO the one day the ship was late! We didn't dock until around 8:15, and by then the Deck 3 hallways and staircase (where we were standing) were pretty congested. Once we finally got off the ship, we assumed we'd be able to make the first Thrifty shuttle and that it would already be waiting for us outside, but there were NO car rentals shuttles waiting. After another ten minute wait, they finally began arriving (and the port here was much stricter on the drivers, making them get out and searching some of them before they would allow them to enter and pick us up). So even though we'd done everything we could to get a head start that day, we ended up not getting into a car and beginning our day until around 8:45--the same as the other days when we HAD been running late! Still, besides this little snag that made us miss twenty or thirty more minutes of touring time, we had an amazing day.

When I'd originally begun planning for our trip, I basically had one goal in mind--to hike the first two miles of the Kalalau Trail to Hanakapi'ai Beach. It's long been a bucket list goal of mine to hike the whole Kalalau Trail, but I knew that wouldn't be possible on this trip, so I at least wanted to get a taste of it. Unfortunately, as I watched the forecast for Kauai during the week leading up to our arrival (mainly concerned about our helicopter flight the next day being cancelled), I saw that Thursday's forecast called for rain on the north shore of Kauai. The trail can already be pretty wet and nasty even during normal conditions, so hiking it in the rain didn't sound appealing, and I knew that if we got soaked and muddy we wouldn't feel like doing much touring afterward. So instead, the night before we arrived in Kauai, I created a new game plan based on the southern, drier side of the island.

The first thing you need to know about Kauai is that it's almost round...

...and there is basically one main road that runs almost entirely around it. Circumnavigation, however, is thwarted by the colossal cliffs of the Na Pali Coast, so if you drive as far west as possible (say, to Polihale Beach or the Kalalau Valley Lookout) where you are truly just a few short miles from the north shore, there is no way to cross that short distance without driving all the way back around the island, which can take a couple of hours on the narrow, windy road that is often full of traffic. Instead of driving all the way north to the end of the road and trying to hike Kalalau only to be disappointed by rain, we decided to head south and west instead, to Waimea Canyon. 

It was a lovely day, sunny and warm with a clear blue sky, and I was wondering where this rain was that I'd read about. (You can never trust the Weather Channel.) Of course, it could have been raining on the north shore, but it was hard to imagine that on such a small island it could be cloudy and overcast just a few miles from where we were experiencing sun and clear skies. (Although in Kauai it's highly possible that it was.) Traffic that Thursday morning was light to non-existent, so we made it to the 550-A turn-off to Waimea Canyon in only half an hour or so.

Waimea Canyon forming to our left as we drove up Hwy. 550-A.

Hwy. 550-A/550-B is the scenic drive alongside the canyon, with lots of lovely lookouts and places to pull-off. We used our Lonely Planet guide to Kauai to direct us along the route, and it's great about telling you which pull-offs to stop at (most are unmarked) by directing you via mile markers. We had no trouble finding most of the stops we were looking for, except the book didn't tell us about this one:

I'd seen other travelers' pictures of this waterfall on travel boards, but I wasn't sure exactly where it was. We almost missed it because it is off to the left side of the road, right across from a pretty nice pull-off for the canyon, so it's fairly easy to get caught up in looking at the canyon and completely miss this really interesting little waterfall. We saw lots of people flying past it only to turn around and come back because they hadn't realized it was there. Fortunately, I was on the lookout for it, so we didn't have to do that.

After taking many, many pics of the waterfall (it was fun to play with shadows on the red dirt here), we stopped at several other pull-offs to look at the canyon.

It wasn't until much later in the day that we realized our new circular polarizer, the one we'd just gotten to work the day before, was leaving black rings around our pictures! Unfortunately, many of the pictures from that day have them.

We stopped at all the major Canyon and Na Pali lookouts--Waimea Canyon Lookout, Pu'u Hinahina, Kalalau Valley, Pu'u o Kila. 

Waimea Canyon Lookout gave the best view of the canyon, we thought, but it was fairly crowded with bus tourists. This was one of the places that reminded me of why we prefer to DIY instead of taking bus tours. There were a lot of bored-looking tourists waiting around for their tour groups to reconvene. We were able to explore the different levels of the lookout at our leisure and were still back to the car and on our way long before some of the buses who had gotten there before us. Between the Waimea Canyon and Pu'u Hinahina Lookouts we tried to see Waipo'o Falls from some of the pull-offs along the road, but we never could find it. We actually thought it might have dried up temporarily, but then we saw it during our helicopter tour the next day, so I'm not sure how we missed it.

When we reached the Kalalau Valley Lookout, I was almost bouncing because I knew I was about to get my first glimpse of the Na Pali Coast! Thankfully, our view that day was not obscured by clouds the way it often is, and after waiting a few minutes for our turn at the railing, we were awarded this view:

Kalalau Valley and the Na Pali Coast

Pretty much postcard perfect. The Kalalau Valley Lookout is the view of the Na Pali that is most famously portrayed in pictures of the coast, so I knew seeing this view would (mostly) make up for not being able to hike the Kalalau Trail. 

There's a nice parking lot at this lookout, and there were only a few other people there, but there are only a couple of good places to see the valley and cliffs along the lookout railing because there is so much brush growing up and obscuring the view. 

After we left the lookout, we headed for the end of the road, the Pu'u o Kila Lookout and Pihea Trailhead, and even though parking was difficult (since the trailhead is here, there are far more people parked for far longer periods of time) and the angle of the lookout wasn't as good as Kalalau Valley, the view was much more open. We first went up onto the little viewing platform, but we discovered the view was much better if you walked a little along the wide-open trail. 

The trail is dirt and has washed away in some places, so it isn't easy to traverse, but it was worth it to have sweeping views of the valley unobstructed by...anything. There are so many amazing-looking trails in Kauai, a part of me almost wishes we had just skipped the whole cruise and gone to Kauai for a week.

It was lunchtime, so we drove back down to Hanapepe after that. We stopped at a local drug store to pick up some supplies and then went to Hanapepe Cafe & Bakery for lunch, a little local joint recommended in Lonely Planet. It's in the downtown area of Hanapepe, where the Art Walk is held every Friday evening. There's a big indie bookstore there too, Talk Story, which we didn't have time to explore. More reasons to return to Kauai in the near(ish) future. 

After a light lunch (soup and salad), we went for dessert at Lappert's. This was one of the highlights of the day, and in a day full of wonderful things, that's saying something! Lappert's has a huge variety of handmade ice creams and sorbets, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that my scoop of Tutu's Anniversary was the best ice cream/sorbet I've ever had. Tutu's Anniversary is a combination of coconut ice cream, raspberry sorbet, and Auntie Lilikoi's Passion Fruit sorbet. I'm drooling just thinking about it. I can't remember what kind T.J. had (I think there were mangoes involved) but it was almost as good as mine.

You can order Lappert's to be shipped to you on the mainland, but at $20 a pint and a minimum order of six pints, I think I'll be back in Kauai before I have another taste of Tutu's Anniversary.

After savoring every last drop of ice cream, we headed for Port Allen because I wanted to find Glass Beach. This was a really short drive, just a few minutes from Lappert's, and we first decided to stop at a little shopping center down near the harbor so we could try some sweets from Kauai Chocolate Company. 

This is a really small shop where they also make chocolates right in front of you, and we picked up an assorted box of chocolates with mango, coconut cream, and other kinds of filling. As I mentioned in another blog, we waited until we got home to eat them, and then we were each allowed one a day. They were pretty phenomenal! In winter (when they won't melt), you can also ship them to the mainland, which is nice.

After leaving Kauai Chocolate, we drove to Glass Beach, which was a little tricky to find. You have to drive past some factory-type place onto a dirt road where it truly looks like you shouldn't driving (and are probably on private property), but luckily there wasn't anyone around to tell us we weren't allowed back there. We stopped at the first beach access we came to, even though the road continued onward, and at first we looked around wondering, "Is this Glass Beach?" We honestly couldn't tell at first, but as we walked down to the shore, the sand began to change.

Oh, yeah, we were definitely at Glass Beach. We combed through the sand for a while, looking for larger chunks of glass that the surf hadn't completely obliterated yet, and we found a few shards of green, blue, white, and orange/brown glass to bring back. No chunks of red, which I'd read in Jessi Kirby's Moonglass was the rarest (and hence the color I most wanted to find, even though it's one of my least favorite colors). At first we weren't sure what to do with a handful of random pieces of glass, but T.J. suggested we put them on top of the sand in our sand ceremony jar from our wedding, which I thought was a brilliant idea, so we kept our beach finds.

While we were there we had the beach pretty much to ourselves, but a woman showed up just before we left who was obviously also a tourist. She too wanted to know if she was in the right spot, and she started combing the sand as we left.

The worst thing about the "sand" on Glass Beach was getting it off! It stuck to everything--hands, clothes, feet--and didn't dry and dust off the way regular sand does. If you tried to brush it off, it just clung to whatever you tried to wipe it off with, so we decided to search for a place to clean up. We'd seen a parking lot with a bathhouse down by the harbor (where it seems a lot of people leave to go diving) so we sneaked down there to use the outdoor shower to rinse off. I'm not sure if we were technically allowed down there (it seemed like a "members only" kind of place), but no one said anything to us and at least we were clean afterward!

After that our plans were kind of up in the air. We thought about driving down to Po'ipu to see the Spouting Horn, or driving through the eucalyptus tree tunnel. I really wanted to head up to the north shore, though, and I knew it would be quite a drive, so we saved Po'ipu for a future trip and headed north!

Our first stop along the way was Wailua Falls, made famous in the opening credits of Fantasy Island. This was just a quick stop, and honestly, if you're pressed for time, it isn't a super important one. It's a pretty, 80-foot double waterfall, often with a rainbow in the mist below, but compared with Akaka Falls (or any of the waterfalls we saw on the helicopter ride the next day), it isn't too special. The lookout limits your view of the falls and the angles from which you can shoot. You can hike to the bottom, but I didn't see anyone doing so. It is a muddy, dangerously steep path, from what I've read.

Wailua Falls

After maybe five minutes at the lookout, we backtracked to the main road and continued our journey north. Even though the island isn't very big, it's a slow trip up the east coast because A) it's the only road north, and B) the speed limits are low and there various little towns and tourist areas you have to drive through, limiting how fast you can drive. The towns are interesting, though, and I'd love to go back one day and spend a few days on each side of the island--the south, the east, the north, and hiking the west.

Our next stop was Kilauea Lighthouse. This was also a short 10-15 minute picture stop because we now had a new plan in mind--make it to Ke'e Beach (the end of the road) in time for sunset. It was already getting late in the afternoon and we still had a ways to drive, so we couldn't make too many stops after this one.

Kilauea Lighthouse

We did stop at the Hanalei Valley Lookout, though, which ended up being one of my favorite pictures from the trip...

Taro fields in Hanalei Valley

...and we stopped at Hanalei Bay briefly, although by that point the setting sun was messing up the lighting.

We drove through Hanalei, which is a charming town I'd love to visit and stay in for some time (also where most of the Kauai scenes in The Descendants take place), and then navigated the series of one-lane bridges leading to the far north/northwest beaches. We didn't have time to stop at any of them, although I did try to keep track of them on the map as we passed by, and we did stop briefly at Maniniholo Dry Cave, which is right across the road from Ha'ena Beach Park.

We made it to Ke'e Beach just before sunset and fortunately found a parking space. I also got to see the Kalalau trailhead!

Ke'e Beach is pretty much the only place to watch the sunset from the north shore, so there were people scattered all along the beach for probably half a mile. The parking lot deposits you at the far end of the beach, right beside the beginning of the Na Pali Coast, so you have some room to spread out from there, and the further down the beach you go, the better the view of the sunset, I would imagine. We walked maybe 300 yards or so before picking our spot in the sand.

Watching the sunset on that beach was the perfect end to a perfect day, and it's one of my favorite memories from the trip. As amazing as watching the sunrise at Haleakala was, in some ways this sunset was even better because the place meant something more to me. So often when I do extensive research on a place and build up almost impossible expectations in my head I end up disappointed, but Kauai was even more beautiful and peaceful than I had imagined. I'm not a very spiritual person, but for me it was a spiritual place, a place where I could be happy taking things a little slower, sitting back and doing nothing but appreciate the natural beauty all around me. I can become a bit misanthropic when I travel, growing annoyed at loud, inconsiderate tourists, people who are so absorbed in their conversations, cell phones, or travel books that they fail to notice what's in front of them and to appreciate how fortunate they are to be in that place at that time. But (with the exception of the bus tourists at Waimea, who I mostly felt sorry for) I didn't feel that way in Kauai. Kauai seems to invite a very different kind of visitor, the kind who can sit enraptured watching the sun set, who linger long after the last embers have melted into the ocean, who stay to watch the stars wink into being in the twilit sky. The kind of visitors for whom nature is a tangible thing, not just a vista framed in a camera viewfinder, but something to hike, to climb, to swim, to sink your hands into. That's the kind of visitor I long to be to Kauai, and even though we were there for such a short time and rushed through so much in our two days, it was sitting on Ke'e Beach at sunset that I really felt like I was beginning to understand the island, that I was finally becoming the kind of visitor worthy of it.

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