Ryan wanted/needed to play golf while we were in
Hawaii. He’s a panelist for Golf Digest
and need to rate some courses away from home regularly or he will lose his
title and privilege. He invited me to
come along, but I would not be allowed to play.
This is a course that costs like $500 a round. And I am no pro. Ryan was allowed to play for free, one of the
perks of being a panelist. I could have
gone and rode along, and I was interested in seeing the course, knowing it
would be beautiful. But it would take at
least four hours on the course, not to mention an hour of driving time each
way. There were just so many things I
would rather do with my time! I was
rather looking forward to having some time to myself, actually.
Ryan’s alarm went off early, maybe 6. I woke up and wasn’t going to get back to
sleep, so I got my running clothes on.
It was dark still, but I knew the sun would be coming up soon and I was
going to run on the walkway along the coast, not the road. So I headed out in the dark. It was magical. The sunrise was behind me, but I turned to see
it a few times. And I got to see the
island light up. I had no idea where to
go, so I just followed a sidewalk for awhile.
I saw a few other runners so I figured I was on a good path. But then the sidewalk ended. Not a big deal, though. There wasn’t a lot of traffic.
I had this plan, but it was tricky. I wanted to get about 8-9 miles in, but I
needed to end my run at 8:00 on the dot at the juice bar down the road from my
hotel. The reason is because I had been
drooling over the acai bowl there since the day before when we got sushi there,
and I knew I wanted that for my post-run fuel.
But they didn’t open until 8. And
I wanted to make it back to yoga on the beach at the hotel at 8:15. It would be cutting it close, but I was
hopeful.
My loop brought me back to the juice bar, but I had
like 40 minutes left. So I followed the
sidewalk down a road we hadn’t been on yet.
There was a marker saying “Spouting Horn monument 2” I took that to mean it was 2 miles away. And I thought, 4 miles round trip would put
me right at 9 miles. And if I don’t
waste much time looking at the monument, I will be back here in time. And so I did.
I actually increased my pace without really meaning to, just because I
had a destination in mind and a time to meet.
It was a cute little road up to the monument with lots and lots of
people walking. I stopped long enough to
watch the water spout a couple times, took a short video, and then headed back
down the hill.
I got to the juice bar a few minutes early. There were some girls back there setting up
and I was really hoping they would hurry!
They didn’t exactly hurry, but they took my order at 8 and got it to
me. I snapped a picture of course,
because look at this thing!
I got a look at this shelf while I was waiting and I thought
how cool! This is the kind of stuff I
eat! Overnight oats with chia and a
bunch of flavors. Hawaiians just get
me. But I didn’t need any more food than
the acai bowl so I didn’t buy any.
Then I started walking quickly while eating. I jogged the last little bit, dropped my
empty cup off at a garbage along the way, and made it to the pool area just as
the lady was putting away the sign-up sheet and mats. It was 8:20.
I said, “wait, can I still sign up??”
She smiled and set down the paper and said, “that happens every time I
start to clean up.” She was obviously a
bit annoyed, but not that much.
Yoga was amazing! She
was a really good instructor, focusing on a lot of mental stuff. Which honestly sometimes bugs me, but this
time I was just drinking it all in. She
would have us do some moves on one side of our body, and then say, “can you
feel the difference in the two sides now?”
And I really could! But the best
part about the yoga was the view. We were
not actually on the “beach”. We were on
a grassy spot near the water, which was better.
Because sand moves. And it’s
messy. This was perfect. We started in the shade, and by the time we
were done the sun was hitting my face.
So I was sitting there with my eyes closed, the wind hitting one side of
my face, the sun warming the other. I
could hear the waves crashing. It was
heaven. I could do that every
morning. Such a good way to start the
day!!
After that I still had some time to kill and needed to
shower anyway, so I went swimming first.
I swam in the ocean for a bit.
Salt water isn’t much fun. And the
waves make it hard! I had my goggles so
I saw some fish and coral. I didn’t stay
out too long. I went to the hottub for a
minute, then went back to get cleaned up for the day.
Here are some pictures from Ryan’s golf round. Looks pretty amazing! He said you had to hit from one cliff to
another.
We weren’t sure if Ryan would make it back in time to get me
and then get us back to Lihue for our tubing reservation. So I started calling shuttles and taxi
companies to see if someone could drive me there. Because Lihue was about halfway between the
golf course and our hotel, so Ryan had to drive past it to get me. He ended up ducking out of the last hole a
tad bit early, which was unfortunate because the pro came out and was hanging
out with them for the last couple holes.
But he did it so we could make it.
I packed his suit and stuff and started walking up the road to meet him. And we made it actually with plenty of time.
We got a helmet and gloves and they loaded us in this little
bus and drove us up to this old sugar plantation. Our guides were a couple of young guys, 19,
20 maybe. They were pretty funny
though. They told us facts about the
plantation and different things. They
cracked jokes. We stopped for this view,
and they said this was the clearest they had ever seen it. Like I said before, I think we got
lucky. It’s usually quite hazy.
The plantation is no longer used for sugar. Turns out sugar cane takes a lot of work to
get a little amount of sugar. I can’t
remember the details about why they shut it down. It is huge and really pretty though. They said some rich guy owns it and told us
how much he paid for it, like 6 million maybe, but it was dirt cheap
considering how much land it is. Now the
island pays him for the water.
They showed us some of the plants. Sugar cane, huge mango tree, bamboo, taro
root.
And then we got to go on the tube.
I think I was expecting it to be a bit more thrilling than
it was. Not the whole time, but some of
the time. There was one little “waterfall”
that was not much at all. The ride was
not fast enough to be thrilling. But it
also wasn’t easy enough to be relaxing.
We were constantly bumping into rocks and each other. You had to pull your elbow, shoulders, head
in to avoid hitting the walls. The
tunnels were cool, but after the first couple it wasn’t all that
interesting. And there were a LOT of
tunnels. We had headlamps for the
tunnels. I think there were 5, and they
covered like 75% of the time we were on the canal.
All in all, it was fun and beautiful and I’m glad we did
it. But it’s not something I would do
again if we come back. And not the top
of my list of recommendations to others either.
After the tubes we were taken to a little picnic spot where
we changed our clothes to dry clothes (sweatshirt, because the water was not
warm, and the day was a perfect temperature to hang out as long as you are not
wet) and then had lunch.
The local kids told us all the best places to eat and
answered any questions we had. I asked
them about Hanakapi’ai Falls hike and they said what I had heard, which is get
there early. But that wouldn’t work for
us because we had to kayak in the morning. They also told us that the bridge can
sometimes be washed out over there, which would be a problem if we were trying
to catch a plane.
That night we went to find somewhere new to eat. Ryan ended up at Puka Dog and I got a Poke
bowl from the sushi place. I had been
wanting to try them. It was pretty good,
though it just seems like a lazy man’s sushi.
It’s got everything for sushi, just not wrapped. I prefer sushi.
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