Liralen's Adventures Through Life

We started the day talking through what it was we wanted to do on our last day here. It was good to talk it all through and to figure out what it was we really wanted to get, do, or experience on our last full day here. We're going to have to leave first thing in the morning to catch our plane to Las Vegas, which should let us get on a plane to Denver. Hopefully there won't be another foot of snow delaying everything there... We had our breakfast out on our patio, the last of all the things we had bought to have for breakfasts.  Then, as usual, a hen came up to check us out while we were eating. We shooed her off, but a little later, another came to look through the glass at us while we were getting ready to go. All week, one of the hens has been coming up to the glass, watched us, and lain down on the welcome mat to watch us as she napped.  It's fascinating that the chickens like watching us as much as all the tourists love watching them. But I really wanted a picture of o...

I haven't been sleeping all that well since Tuesday. The election results affected me badly. Jet had a great description, "It's grief adjacent." It is grief about my expectations about the world, this nation, and people in general. Though, if you asked me on any particular day, I don't actually believe in the "general" concept of people at all. I also know that a lot of my back brain has been processing, taking things in, and it then runs through a lot of them at night, even on nights after really physical days like the bike ride. So lack of sleep, an aching body, and something was really affecting my digestive system. These are all things you probably don't get in travel blogs. The downtime realities of travel. It's just the beautiful surfaces. I am guilty of some of that on Facebook, as one only has so much time, so much bandwidth, and can only display so many pictures, so why not the ones that we want to remember?  Why not brighten someone els...

Today started as something of a random walk, mostly because of the rain showers that were ribboning their way across the island. We never really knew when it would happen, but there would be a sudden downpour and then it would eventually stop. So we started out by going to look at waterfalls. Okay, yes, that's not a waterfall, but the first one was pretty far from the area that was set aside for viewing it, and it wasn't that great, and well... Magenta Bougainvillea! Yes, that was kind of the flavor of the day, honestly. We went and saw an old valley for the river there, that had, long long ago been a set of terraced taro beds, which Japanese farmers turned into terraced rice beds, and then modern day farming came in and turned it into beef cattle fields, and today you can see the pastures with cows grazing, but the grass shows the lines of the old terraced beds. That was pretty cool.  Beautiful scenery and a car to run to when it started pouring.  And I'll admit this was v...

We started the day by going out for breakfast. John had been making our breakfast most mornings, and he'd discovered a little cafe that was only open for breakfast and lunch in the second story of one of the buildings in our little town, and they had some intriguing specials.  So we woke up and walked over to the Olympic Cafe. We shared an omelet with Luau Pork, cheese, potatoes, and topped with a tomatillo sauce. It was served with home fries, and it was well worth getting. Most of the daily specials menu was what we'd been cooking for ourselves and eating all our fruit for probably a tenth the price of the restaurant food.  But the luau pork was super tender, the omelet itself was beautifully made, the eggs were tender and perfectly cooked. The melted cheese added richness, and the tomatillo salsa was tart and lovely. The home fries were good and garlicky, but I wished they'd crisped them better. Still... it was good, and the waitress was generous with the coffee.  The ...

First, Bali Hai. It was a picture I couldn't find yesterday.  Friday was mostly a recovery day. After breakfast we went on a walk. Then we headed back to the complex, and I went and worked out in the gym. I have hip and lower back things now that really respond well to me doing strengthening work. John went and got us more poke for lunch and we spent lunch on a Zoom meeting with Jet. He was on campus and talked with us via his phone until he ran out of charge and ran off to his board game evening get together.  We went on another walk and scouted out bakeries, coffee shops, and found another place that actually sold Kaua'i grown, medium roast coffee. The darker the roast for coffee, the more the roast profile takes over the taste of the whole cup. If you want to enjoy the varietal, then you really want at worst a medium roast that doesn't go too far into the second crack. Yes. We roast our own coffee for Reasons, which include knowing what varietal I have and where I want t...