Day 11 What did we do today??

I am now three days behind on the blog. Trying to remember what we did on Tuesday. Judging by the pictures, I went on a tour of the local Syngenta facility. Eric used to work for Syngenta and just recently went to work for the competition at Pioneer Seeds. They are literally across the road from each other. Eric and Lori's friends (and neighbors) Randy and Fran both work at Syngenta and Randy set up a tour for me.

I didn't take a lot of pictures, but spent a fair amount of time with John walking around the facility and discussing the work they do. When I told him what I do for Syngenta and that I used to do computer and networking support, he said "well, maybe you can help us with the handheld computer for inventory". We spent about half the time that I was there working on some issues they are having! Had a great time there.

Nanee wanted to have a "rest day" so Lori, Kailin, London and I went to the beach. We stopped at Glass Beach (the actual name is Wahi-awa) first to check it out. I haven't been able to find out a lot of information on it, but there was a company named Swiss Cheese Shoreline that dumped glass and broken windshields (Don't ask me what the windsheilds have to do with swiss cheese...I just got the info from the internet) years ago.

There are millions (maybe billions?) of pieces of glass that have washed up. We spent a bit of time trying to find green, red and blue pieces as most of it is brown and clear.

 There were also a couple of old engine blocks and a rear differential that had been so eaten up by salt water that I couldn't identify them!

Lori found a recently deceased lobster...we left it there.

Part of a Drupe shell. This would be cool to find a whole one!

Went to Salt Pond beach next to meet up with one of Lori's friends and her daughter who is a friend of London's.

Kind of a classic VW bus with surfboards.

And of course Popee had to build a sand castle!

I had a difficult time with London wanting to "Destroy the Castle!" before I even finished it. I made a couple of towers down the beach and let him "assualt" them.

This one even had a dragons head at the base of it, but the waves took some of the teeth out of it.

Don't they look so cute and peaceful? Yeah right! At this point London was asking me every 2 minutes if they could "Destroy the Castle!".

I held off the hoards.

The kids and I went out to the rocks and wandered around looking in tide pools and they decided that they needed to build a canal to "free the water".

While they were playing hide and seek and tag, I checked out the salt recovery site that gives the beach its name.

As the sun was setting, we packed up our gear and headed for home.

Dinner was Sausage with pineapple in it and some veggies sauteed with it. Then mixxed it with bowtie pasta and a sauce that Lori made.

I must say that we have been eating very well here!

Day 10 We haven't been shopping lately...let's go to town!

London took a day off from school so that he could hang out with Popee so we loaded up the car and headed for Lihue!

We met Eric at one of their fields to drop something off with him. He was "Outstanding in his field". Sorry, that comment always cracks me up and I use it whenever I can. Here he is in one of the work trucks.

It might not be a good idea to eat your McDonalds meal in your convertible as the chickens gather around to see what they can get.

They dropped us off at the mall so that we could go to the Fun Factory. Small arcade that only had a few video games and mostly had the claw machines and other lures to get your money. London tried to win an iPad on one of them...like that is going to happen. They use a card like a credit card that you can put money on. Then just swipe the card and play the game. We did the race car game that you sit in and London and I raced in the same race. He finished 4th and I finished 5th. Not too bad until you find out there are only 5 cars racing! Mine was stuck in 1st gear and it looked like I was going about 40mph. What fun!

They did have a large screen Fruit Ninja game that was cool! Popee won at that one! That was the only game that we won very many tickets on. We ended up with enough for London to get a Chinese Finger Trap, vampire teeth, a set of lips with a "whizzer" that you can blow through, and a whoopee cushion. Best 20 bucks I ever spent!!






We wandered around the mall and stopped in some of the stores. One is the "Dollar Plus" store. Didn't see too many dollar items...Hmmm, maybe they are all "plus"?

This one cracked me up. Must be for when you want to strategically place your poop.

Between London and Kailin, the whizzer lips certainly saw a lot of use. Kind of got tired of hearing it in the car...

So we used the Chinese Finger Trap to slow them down!

We stopped for lunch at McDonalds. London had a 10 piece Chicken McNuggets, and I had a double cheeseburger. Then we hit the bakery and shared a large doughnut. Went to the grocery store to see if they had a Spam Musubi maker and London got a Spam Musubi to eat (we also found the maker and bought it so that we can make our own). Lori, Lois and Kailin stopped to pick us up...to go to lunch! Nobody told us we were going to lunch when they dropped us off. Oh well.

You just never know what you are going to see around here.

Just another one of my hundreds of random drive by photo shoots.

Went to Keoki's for sliders. I wasn't hungry (yeah, right...) but ordered one along with Lori and Lois.

The picture really doesn't do it justice. Especially since I already took a bite out of one.

One is a hamburger, one is a crab cake, and the third is Kalua Pork. The buns on the crab and pork are made with Taro. Makes them kind of sweet. Tasty!

The chickens liked the french fries!

Kailin shows off her artistic abilities.

Headed for home and relaxed for the evening!

We might have done something else Monday evening, but I am a couple of days behind and none of us can remember what we did Monday night.

Day 9 Road trip to the North Shore!

It is going to be a long fun day! We are packing up stuff and heading for a snorkeling spot that is on the North Shore. A drive of about 3/4 of the way around the island! 60 some miles with the plan being to stop at anything that looks interesting.

Stopped for Chicken McNuggets...

 Our first real stop was at Lydgate park so that London and Kailin could show us this playground. Quite impressive structure!










Egads! A SHARK!












London in the tower.












Volcano with a lava tube coming out of the bottom of it.











London and Kailin wanted Popee to follow them. They lost me shortly after this and we had a hard time finding them!

 View from the tower.  >>>

 Nanee and Popee sit down for a break!



This is the seed pod that is in the lower right of the picture at the left. Still not sure what it is.



Traveling on, we passed through Anahola and past the mountains that the guide book said had a profile of King Kong. We had to look back out of the car to see, and couldn't pick it out. When we returned later on the way home it was getting dark and could see the outline, but had a hard time picking it out. This is a picture that I got off the internet.





And this is the peak that looks like King Kong...I think I see it. One of the comments on the Internet is that if you use your imagination, you can see George Washington, a tortoise, a hippopotamus and a pregnant lady...Yeah right. Hey, I think I see a...MOUNTAIN!

Some of the houses that we passed are on stilts. This one just doesn't look stable enough for me. Is that just cinder blocks stacked up???









We arrived at Tunnels beach and after trying to find a place to park, we made it out here.

You are here>








 The snorkeling was fantastic! Or, more appropriately, I should say that the fish that we saw were incredible. There was a strong current running across the beach that kept dragging us over the shallow rocks. Took a lot of effort to stay in one place. It was fairly shallow out for a ways and then the sand dropped away into deeper (20 feet?) water. The rocks were along this ledge and there were fish everywhere. Visibility was good but not great and the water was a little rough. If it would have been calmer and clearer, it would have been better to go out farther. The arrow in the photo above is pointing to the small area that we snorkeled in and you can go all the way out to the reefs...if you want to.

Kailin and Eric go for a swim.

 We stopped at the park up the road a bit and the rock wall above it was covered with Banyan "roots"!

 Pretty amazing that there isn't much of a tree to go with them.

 Eric puts the size of it into perspective.

 Also, in the same wall is a huge cave. When we drove past it, both Popee and London yelled "we have to go in the cave!"

 Pretty deep.

 I wasn't even at the back of the cave at this point. The camera would not take a good picture from the back!

 They could have put the parking lot in the cave.

Someone had picked these up and set them out on a table. Not sure what they are, but they are weird looking.











Next stop was Hanalei and Bubba Burgers!

Eric and Popee had the Hubba Bubba. Rice, Hamburger, and a Hot Dog...smothered in chili!

Yummy!












More to follow, but I have to do some work and get ready to go on a tour of the Syngenta facility here...

Finished the tour. Intereseting, but will fill in the details later. Now, back to the North Shore excursion.

Old church in Hanalei

Seems kind of odd to see the abonimal snowman in Kauai, but Kailin didn't seem to care.

A Cook Pine Lei Christmas tree. Not something you see on the mainland.

 Of course we all had to get our picture with the mermaid body.






Everyone posed normal....

Except Eric!

Lonon and Kailin in front of a Taro plant. They are supposed to be hiding the rest room sign behind them.

We wandered around Hanalei and found this dining area that looked out on the mountains. Way in the background is a waterfall that cascades from the top of the mountain to the bottom. It was kind of hard to see with the clouds.

Lori, Eric and the kids.

Eric and I wanted to get some hot dogs and go to the Relish Salon...sadly, it was just a real salon with a fancy name.

Firecracker flowers and a HUGE Bird of Paradise plant. Would have liked to see the flowers on this one, but there weren't any at this time.

On the way out of town, we past a Hawaiian Hoarders house! Cool...

Drove all the way home without stopping, it had been a long day and everyone was pooped!