Monday 2/28/2011


This past weekend I shared an amazing one night stay at Polihale State Park over on the other side of the island. The scenery is as awesome as it gets here in Kauai. There were about 15 of us who were camping. Up until the last minute there were going to be four of us going in Sandy's truck and then Matt called and asked to join along.

After Sandy and I picked up the food for the weekend we spent at least 30 minutes stuck in Kapaa traffic. I thought we'd zip right up to pick up the rest of our passengers so I threw the ice in the bed of the truck. After a couple minutes of not going anywhere in traffic, I climbed into the bed and loaded a large cooler with beer and ice. I got big smiles from the taxi driver behind me as I kept on grabbing another 12 pack and emptying it into the cooler. The ride from Kapaa to Polihale took a little over an hour. Matt and I rode in the back of the pick up with our stuff. There wasn't much room, but after a couple beers we were fine. Well, that is until we got to the dirt road. Five miles down a not so smooth and in some places a muddy road with Sandy behind the wheel, fully obliging to our requests to just simply keep going since momentum was our best chance of not getting stuck. It was a very rattling experience for us in the back.

After not even 30 minutes there, the five of us committed to coming back regularly. After some relaxation and swimming and beer some of the rest of the group started to show up. A very smart 11 year old started the fire and not long after I started cooking hot dogs. I tried to use the campfire and a piece of a grill I found but spilled the hot dogs in the fire after they cooked awhile. Nesli helped me clean them with beer and we served everyone! They were a hit, and for the second batch I scooped some coals into the grill we brought to cook the remainder. A much easier way.

The sunset was absolutely perfect, slowly dipping into the ocean and shining bright colors into the sky in all its splendor. I love the sunsets here on Kauai and camping on the beach to see the sunset is even better.

As the night wore on some of the heavy drinkers passed out, some of the non drinkers went to sleep and the crazy people played a game with animal sounds.

Matt mentioned that there's a beach as you walk along the rocks to the north thats a 15 minute kayak away. Unfortunately, as I later find out the beach is only there during the summer, when the ocean is calmer. I walked passed where the beach would be, I believe.

There were 4 girls that Loren, the leader of the Kauai Adventure Club encouraged to head down the nasty 5 mile dirt/mud/holey road who camped with us. These girls are some of the crazy people previously mentioned. I tried to get a bunch of people to head for the beach Matt was talking about, but didn't have much luck aside from these girls.

The 5 of us were wandering quite a bit, heading up dry and rocky river beds, crawling into caves, scoping out amazing vistas. At one point I was all alone, but determined to find the beach, but could not go any further because the cliff and ocean were too close for comfort. On my way back I stumble into Chella and after hanging a bit we head up the canyon behind us (where two of her friends came from) and then up the side of the canyon to a really nice spot to gaze out into the ocean and watch the whales. Sometimes we'd get 3 and 4 whales doing their thing at the same time! Out in our view were two Cairns where the canyon curved a bit. They made a spectacular presence because of their location and made our spot so much more incredible.

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