Late Thanksgiving Entry

Whew! It's been a very busy week following Thanksgiving. Sorry I haven't posted more. I'll try to get back on track. This week, we went to my bosses house for Thanksgiving dinner (on Sunday night) I've coached 12 people, attended 4 separate non-project meetings, updated 16 projects and helped complete 4 of them. I've also run the cable and mounted the speakers for a new sound system at church.

But before all this, We did several interesting things last weekend. While driving along the shore to the North Shore, we stopped several places to see if we could do some snorkeling. One location was La'ie point. On April Fools Day, 1946 a tsunami punched a hole into a nearby island and the waves blow through it with spectacular force. You can see it from the car, but naturally, we had to get out and climb along the rock to get as close as possible. Unlike Waimea, we could not get near the water, but the views of the island were fabulous!




Our home is located between the ocean and the eastern side of the Ko'olau mountains. Just down the road, there are several nearby trails that climb the ridges, cliffs and peaks (as well as valleys). Since the ocean was so active, we hiked two of these trails.

The first trail was a short, but steep hike to a couple of WW2 bunkers that overlook the beaches of Kailua and Lanikai. Starting near a golf course, we trekked through think underbrush until we popped out along a ridge and soon ascended over 500 feet above the cliffs to stunning views of the ocean and the town below.


For our last adventure of the long weekend, we hiked the trail to Maunawili falls. It's about 1.5 miles back towards the mountains from the trail head. Though it starts off nicely, the trail quickly turns muddy and slippery. We crossed the stream several times. Fortunately, we were wearing our water sandals. and the mud easily washed off as we waded through the water. After climbing up and down several hundred feet, we paced up the stream until we found the falls.

It was pretty, but we weren't alone (see the lower right corner of the water fall image). While we rested, three native teenagers swam over to the falls and I snapped a picture of one of them making a dive into the waters. Shortly after that, a crazy college student came sailing down through the trees from an unseen cliff ledge above and slammed into the water. He was quickly followed by his girlfriend. Her landing was far less elegant and everyone thought she'd hit a rock because she was crying and gasping for air. It turned ut that sh'ed had the wind knocked out of her.

It was a long, active and 'restful' weekend. As Minnesota prepares for it's first major snowfall of the year, we're looking for more adventures in the mountains and surf. Pretty amazing...