On Kauai, Visiting Hanalei

We've been so lucky with weather on this trip. Kauai, the Garden Isle, had a couple of weeks of heavy rainfall that led to flooding and disappointment for travelers, but that all ended before we got here. We've been having beautiful sunshine and bright green vistas, as in this photo of the taro fields of Hanalei, a quirky town on the north coast of the island. These fields, on a National Wildlife Refuge, are the major source of taro for making poi, a staple of the Hawaiian diet. They have been here for hundreds of years and are home to several endangered endemic (they live only in Hawaii) birds, like this Hawaiian nene, the native goose that is the national bird.

Hanalei is the site of a thriving farmer's market, where one can buy local produce of many kinds, including salad greens, papayas, pineapple, and local varieties of banana. My favorite is the apple banana, a small variety with a wonderful sweet-tart flavor. The market is a place to take part in local island life and see amusing sights, like this lei-wearing dog enthusiastically pawing and chewing a half coconut.

At Our Kona Coast Condo

My husband Greg and I always look forward to spending time at our condo on the Big Island's Kona coast. It's rented out most of the time, but we can stay there whenever we want, and we usually choose November or December to relax there for a few weeks. This time, however, we've found ourselves catching up on work at our computers and arranging for upgrading of our home-away-from-home in order to change rental agents. People will be able to rent our two-bedroom oceanfront condo at any time starting in February, 2010 by contacting konabalikai.net. Since we're right on the shore, we can sit on our lanai (balcony) and see the turtles in the tidepool below, watch the young people surf from the beach next door, and enjoy the beautiful tropical sunsets. It's an idyllic location!
Here are a few photos I've taken this time around from our lanai.

On Hawaii's Big Island

We arrived on the Big Island of Hawaii on a beautiful clear day. As we flew in, I caught this scene of the island's two most famous volcanos, Mauna Kea in the foreground, and Mauna Loa in the background. 'Mauna' means mountain; 'kea' means white, as Mauna Kea's 13,796 foot peak is often cloaked in snow; 'Loa' means long; Mauna Loa stretches way out to the right (west) beyond the photo.
We stayed at the Hilo macademia nut farm of our friends, Evonne Bjornen and Paul Tallett, at first. A few years ago, we wrote and article for Relish Magazine about the farm, and Greg included a delicious recipe for macademia nut bars. Then we spent one night in the upcountry town of Waimea, also called Kamuela, as almost every Hawaiian island has a town called Waimea. 'Waimea' means 'reddish water;' the volcanic soil has a red color in many places, and when it rains heavily, the water of rivers and streams can turn red. We took the long way to our condo in Kailua-Kona, driving to the northernmost point of the island, where dense rainforests cover the steep walls of Pololu Canyon. We had thought about taking the trail to the beach, but after reading the signs, we decided it was too hot to make the trek. A major earthquake three years ago struck deep under the sea near here, making the ground potentially unstable; hence the warnings. Instead, we continued our drive along the west coast of the island, past the big resorts, through the town of Kailua Kona, arriving at our home-away-from-home with plenty of time to settle in.

On Oahu's Windward Coast

After a few days in Marin County with family, we flew to Oahu to vist our friend David and Jessica and their two children. Five air hours brings about a total change in climate and landscape. Most people who visit Oahu stay in Honolulu and limit their touring to that city and perhaps the Polynesian Cultural Center up the coast. On return visits to the state, people tend to opt for one of the other islands, not realizing how beautiful Oahu is and how much it has to offer visitors.
We were lucky enough to stay with friends so got a nice taste of local life.
On Halloween, we drove to an early potluck dinner, after which all the children of the guests went trick-or-treating with a few of the adults. My husband Greg and I got to sit on the lawn and hand out candy to the goblins and all who stopped by. I know many people have given up this old American tradition, which makes me sad, as it can be so much fun for all concerned, so it was nice to be a part of it once again.
We spent Sunday on beautiful Kailua Beach, a popular place for locals to relax, swim a bit, sail board, or sail surf. The children made drip sand castles, an art I hadn't seen before, while we hung out with a family friend who brought her two children. Old fashioned relaxed fun.

Our hostess, Jessica Wooley, is a freshman in Hawaii's state legislature. She showed us around the capitol building and into the legislative chambers, where we had our picture taken by her desk. "The politician always stands in the middle," she told us.

Arcata Marsh

Our next stop on our long odyssey was Eureka, CA, where I participated in the Author Festival, a biannual gathering of children's authors to visit area schools and sell books to the public. I have attended for many years and always enjoy the experience, which also includes a chance to spend time with our longtime friends, Bob and Frances. We joined them for a stroll in the Arcata Marsh & Wildlife Refuge, where wastewater from the town is treated by circulation through the natural system of the marsh, creating a home and migratory resting place for more than 200 bird species, as well as other animals and many kinds of plants. The more than 5 miles of trails provide a great opportunity to see birds, such as these green-winged teal and American widgeons. Efforts like this show that people can find creative ways to solve problems like waste management that benefit not only people but the natural world.

On the Oregon Coast

Our friends Dave and Diane are botanists who live in Bandon, OR, and are experts in life along the shore, both large and small. We went on a sunset walk on the beach, marked by impressive giant rocks that help turn the place into a photographer's heaven. After admiring the sunset we examined the sea life on this giant rock, revealed at low tide. An amazing variety of life is here, if you look closely. The large seastars and sea anemones are obvious, but mixed in with them are small barnacles and limpets as well as amazing worms, called nemerteans, which you can't see in this photo. I learned about these creatures many years ago in marine biology class. They drape their threadlike bodies over the rock face as they poke around for prey, which they capture using a unique proboscis that they evert from inside their bodies. The more we looked, the more creatures we found, including chitons and sea slugs, all just clinging to the rock, waiting for the tide to come back in.

An Oregon Diversity of Apples, Grapes, Pears, and More

On the way to Bandon, OR, to visit friends, we stopped at the orchard of 82-year-old Nick Botner and his wife, Clara, where more than 4,000 apple tree varieties share the land with hundreds of kinds of pears, grapes, plums, and exotic fruits such as these pawpaws. Nick is a firm believer in the importance of saving rare and unusual fruit varieties and grows many that have yet to acquire names beyond their numbered titles given to them by the various state agricultural programs that developed them.
My father grew up on an apple ranch in Idaho, and my husband Greg and I wrote a cookbook called "A Is for Apple" years ago, which encouraged cooks to try different apple varieties in their cooking and had writeups of the histories of about a dozen different varieties. We're both fans of preserving genetic diversity in both food plants and animals; there could be genes in these less familiar organisms that could be disease resistant, could impart long-term storage capabilities, or could possess other trits we don't know would become useful in the future. Besides, variety is interesting and fun for its own sake!