Trouble ahead, trouble behind...just crossed my mind

We landed in Lihue on March 9, greeted by twin tornados and a hail storm. The gals at the car rental shed were amazed, they'd never seen either on Kaua'i. Thirty inches of rain fell during the week leading up to our arrival. The roads and the hillsides were in bad shape, the highlands visible from the North Shore were curtained with hundreds of waterfalls. Our rental house was not accessible due to mudslides and submerged bridges. We squeezed through on the second day, only to hear that the road washed out behind us.

The vacation house was exceptional, perched on stilts and surrounded by exotic upper tree foliage that was harboring a choir of tropical birds. No problem...No worries, even though the rain came down in sheets, this was a welcome change. Northern California was having the driest Winter in the last hundred years. We flew out of Reno, which was even drier, so the warm/lush/humid air of Hawai'i was just what we needed.

The sun came out a couple days later, the ocean calmed down and the beaches heated up.... we absorbed all that solar energy like pink-bodied sponges. By the end of the next week we had newly arriving tourists from the mainland asking us if we were "locals". We hiked, we biked, we swam and we sunned.... ten days flew by like an Osprey diving out of a treetop for a Trout. We're back and we are refreshed. Adventuring never placates the travel bug. I'm already checking the Web for tickets to Europe. Which airline flies bicycles for free? Yes, it is always money well spent.