"Chickens are believed to have inhabited the Hawaiian island of Kauai since the first human migrations around 1200AD, but numbers have peaked since the tropical storms Iniki and Iwa in the 1980s and 1990s that destroyed almost all the chicken coops on the island and released large numbers of domestic chickens into the wild."
Fast forward to 2024 and chickens are tempting us to have a BBQ with local birds. They are everywhere. In the parking lots, in the stores and on virtually everywhere you look you'll find a chicken. The hens are fine. The roosters have it coming. We have one that likes to cock-a-doodle-doo right outside our window at random times during the day. Kerry is not happy about it. She's also not happy that they seem to start at 3:00a. The idea that they wait until dawn is apparently a myth. Carter had a fun theory that they would not be near the McDonald's for fear that they would become nuggets but apparently they aren't scared. His idea of a 'build your own nugget meal' kit sounds like a good one.
We started the morning with coffee and donuts. The donut shop that we went to yesterday is a chain and this location had a few more options so the kids had one and Kerry and I stole a bite. The parking lot with the donut truck also had a coffee truck. It's amazing how many food trucks and coffee trucks there are in Kauai. People will take virtually any sort of truck, in this case a small bus, build a deck around it and permanently park the vehicle. I'm curious to know how many mobile trucks there are. I feel you could hit three or four beaches in an afternoon and do quite well.
Our destination today was the Waimea Canyon State Park which is as far away from our condo as you can get on the island and takes about 1 hour 45 minutes to get there. Our goal was to go as far as we were planning to on our trip and see what other attractions there were along the way. We don't really have a plan but Kerry does have a list of potential sites to check out including coffee plantations, hikes and various tourist sites. On our way we passed by what appeared to be a major generation station on the coast which I'm assuming is fossil fueled based. Kauai gets most of it's daytime electricity from solar and is transitioning to 100% renewable by 2033.
While we were at the canyon we went on a hike that takes you from the top of the canyon down to a look out about 200m below. The hike itself wasn't too bad though it was 90% downhill on the way out and 90% uphill on the way back. The hard part was the fact that it was absolutely covered in roots and the red clay made it very easy for you to slip on the steeper parts of the trail. The majority of the trail was not dangerous but the last 100m had many warnings about falling to your death. The one complaint is the red dust has ruined virtually everything we were wearing. Will have to rewash these clothes a few time when we get back.
On our way back we stopped by the Kauai Coffee Plantation. Hawaii is the only US state that grows coffee and Kauai is the biggest producer. I'm going to be honest and say I actually had no idea how coffee was grown. It always seemed like something that was like bananas or chocolate and was grown in the deep jungle but in reality they grow it kind of like wine with rows upon rows of plants. Each plant grows about a pound of coffee per year and the beans appear to come off the stems of the plants. Kauai coffee is not cheap at about $18 per pound at this tourist spot.
We've also been scoping out which beaches we want to check out. We found one on the way back that I think has a lot of local homeless people so I think we'll pass on that one. We found another that had 4 turtles sunning themselves on the beach. I had noticed cones up the beach but wasn't sure what they were for. As we got closer, Kerry walked right past the cones and almost ran over a turtle. The lifeguard was amused at her reaction. As soon as we noticed what we've done we quickly escaped back outside the cones. One of the turtles swam it's way out of the shallow water while we were there past about a dozen swimmers. They are amazing creatures.
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