Anini Beach 25 July 2017

We started the day early with a stick insect inside the house. I rescued him (or her) and set her on a likely leaf outside.

The we hustled to get to Hanamaulu for the day's Main Event: TUBING!

The personnel for the day included the usual suspects plus Saxon, our guide (right) and Geo, the driver. In the background of all the pictures, Mount Wai'ale'ale, the rainiest place on the planet.

Rochelle had reservations about this activity, but once in the water, she had a good time.

Zoe had a little trouble with the spinning and getting pushed around by others, so she rode through the narrow part on Daddy's lap.

Mia, a true water baby, was at home in her tube and self-sufficient from the beginning. When the rules relaxed at the end, she was out of her tube and swimming.

Lindsey got into the Island Spirit right away.

After tubing, Rochelle and I rode down to Koloa, an old favorite, to see how much has changed. Everything. It's clearly Kauai's "sacrifice to the tourists to replace sugar cane" locale. Koloa town still has some of the old feel, and no new chain restaurants, but down the road at Poipu, it's changed, changed utterly, and it's terrible. Some of the architecture (not pictured; we try to avoid ugly) is the most hideous, cheap, concentrated tourist development we've seen anywhere.

Brennecke's Beach, one of the world's best body surfing spots in days gone by, has somewhat recovered from Hurricane Iniki (who took out all the sand in 1992),and more than recovered its population of young boys learning to body surf on waves that can definitely teach.

Sueoka's General Store still has beautiful orchids. Unfortunately, taking these pictures cost me my traveling glasses -- at the next stop, they were gone. We went back to look, but no luck.