UMTravels

Today is a driving tour day…have to be out of the condo at noon, plane leaves at 10pm. Went back to the meadery, and finally there was no crowd. Sampled five that they had on offer…none of them tasty enough to bring back to Onyx, who makes mead in Berkeley.

Headed up the North Coast.

And some great reuse of TEU’s (Twenty Foot Equivalent Units) for stores in a village of little houses:

Kept driving, further and further north, over a dozen one lane bridges, and fording a creek, before I gave up and turned around, and headed back to Hanalie for lunch at Bouchans. Just wanted a little something to tide me over (well, and a cocktail). Cheese burger is was (not the Kobe Gourmet):

And some views on the way back to Kapaa…

Where I explored some falls outside Kapaa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Opaeka%27a_Falls)…

And the river park below the falls:

Once past Kapaa, investigated options for gasoline before I return the car, and tried to find a bar that we went to back in 1990 – The Club Jetty, it was so run down at that point the sign said lub Jetty. Didn’t find it – and some research yielded that it was it was destroyed in a hurricane in 1992.

There is a great history of the club and the harbor here: http://imagesofoldhawaii.com/club-jetty/ Seems that it was a hangout for the likes of John Wayne and Lee Marvin at one time.

But, I did find a Princess Cruise Line pulling out…

Here is my driving tour of Kauai today:

I was on the road so long today, I actually put the top up for a couple of the mid-day hours – I was baking!

A quick stop (they were closing) at the Salvation Army – picked up a small duffle bag to hold all the SPAM (there are 17 varieties, many hard to find on the mainland) and shirts I’d bought, got some gas, headed to the airport to check-in when they opened. Three days a week, Alaska runs an evening flight to/from Kaui, so the ticket counter opens in the morning for the early flight, closes, opens again a 7pm for the evening flight.

Although I’m in First Class on the return, red-eye flights generally don’t have much in the way of food. So, it’s off to the sit-down restaurant in the airport, where you can get a “real” drink:

They were out of the kalua pork sliders, so I opted for the kalua pork nachos…

We loaded the plane early, after I’d had a lovely conversation with a fellow traveler, hopefully he’ll show up at the wine shop!

This is the look on Uncle Markie’s face when he discovers two pre-5 children in rows 1 and 2 (when he is in row 1).

Thankfully, they crashed out early, it being a red-eye, leaving me time to not sleep, play solitaire, and drink.

This would be the “food” on the flight, in addition to the nuts.

It was about a five-and-a-half-hour flight. I got maybe an hour of sleep, got home at 7:15, set the alarm, and went to bed, only to get up at 9:30am, to open up the shop at 11 and work a full shift.

Maybe I should have taken Sunday off, as well as Saturday.

Live and learn.

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