Spas are notorious haunts for girlfriend getaways, and in this regard, my girlfriend Julie and I are no different. We visited a neighbor for a bit of lomilomi. Angeline’s Mu’olaulani is located in the home of Angeline Locey in Anahola. Its name translates to “a place for young buds to bloom.”

Sleeping Giant. Like any name or word in Hawai’i, this mountain which rests behind the town of Kapa’a has many stories, the most common about a giant named Nunui who helped a community build a temple, hauling rocks from the west side of the island. In return for his efforts, the villagers served up a feast fit for a giant, including this giant’s favorite food—bananas. 

This isn’t Julie’s first visit to Kaua’i. But it is her first sans children. So, what do we do? She’s toured the island by helicopter, snorkeled Ni’ihau and tried surfing. She’s laid on the beach in Hanalei, watched humpback whales frolic and albatrosses fly at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge. It’s time to layer new Hawai’i experiences. 

At 6:45 this morning, after I fed the laying hens (abandoned chicks my husband rescued from the wild a few years ago) in their coop and as I walked the dog, I noted the muted sun rising behind a bank of clouds in the eastern sky. I remember thinking how far north in the sky the sun sits these days, as I reached into the newspaper box at the end of my driveway. It was still early—for me, at least—and I hadn’t cleared the fog in my mind with my morning cup of tea yet, so I wasn’t quite prepared for the bold headline stretching across the breadth of the newspaper’s front page. “Statehood!” the one word headline exclaimed. 

All stories should start at the beginning. This story about Hawai'i's road to statehood, then, really starts with Kawaiaha'o Church--or, at least, what it represents.  In 1820, Christian missionaries arrived from America. On July 21, 1842, the "Great Stone Church" was dedicated, making it the first permanent Western house of worship in Hawai'i. Building it was no small task.  

Wedge-tailed shearwaters are migratory. Just like the Pacific Golden Plover who arrived in my yard today from the Arctic—it will stay until April or May. Just like the Laysan albatross. Just like Lee Sass.  You know Lee Sass. He served as my mentor at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, answering my myriad of questions about the seabirds--and, let me tell you, I can ask an annoying amount of questions. I recounted an incident on this blog last December about a mysterious bird perched on a rock on Moku’ae’ae Island, just north of Kilauea Point. Without looking, Lee predicted the seabird in question was a Great Frigatebird. Even with binoculars, the bird was difficult to identify. A crowd gathered. We debated. Lee stuck with his original guess; the rest of us decided the perched bird was a brown booby. Lee wasn’t convinced.  

Across the street from 'Iolani Palace sits Ali'iolani Hale. Built in 1874 by King Kamehameha V, the building was originally intended to house the royal palace and serve as the seat of government. Due to escalating costs--even then building costs could get out of control--the palace portion was skipped--giving the subsequent king--Kalakaua--something to build.  The story about this property that I find most interesting relates to the statue in front. 

It feels like someone pulled a heavy, down comforter over the island. Underneath, it's cozy and close. A perfect day to stay inside and read. Steady rain thrums a calming tune outside my open window. Winds whisper, sometimes gathering enough speed to make the palm fronds shudder. This is the tail end of Felicia. It feels like she is holding her breath. That at any moment, she will throw a tantrum and unleash buckets of rain and winds that sting like the tip of a whip.  

Same mountain. Same time. 24 hours later. Not much change.  According to the local newspaper, Felicia fizzled. Phew. We had soft, steady rain throughout the night. The winds have yet to arrive, so it's still sticky. All in all, I feel a little cheated. Such expectations. Big promises. And Felicia under-delivered. It's a bit like going to see a movie that all your friends said was fabulous. And it wasn't. 

A view of the mountain across the street from my home at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday--a few stormy clouds but no rain and very little trade winds. Talk about humid. I'll take another picture tomorrow morning at the same time. There may not be much difference. Felicia is now a Tropical Depression aggravating Maui with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph. At this point, she is expected to slip below Maui and continue west, bypassing O'ahu and Kaua'i to the south. 

When it comes to hurricanes, residents on Kaua’i take note. Hurricane ‘Iniki annihilated the island back on September 11, 1992. Ten years before that, Hurricane Iwa blew through.  In recent summers, as weather forecasters watched storms brew in the east Pacific, I have filled up my car with gas and stocked up on toilet paper, but I have not put together an actual Hurricane Preparedness Kit, per se. When I first heard about Hurricane Felicia last week, she was a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. That means she possessed maximum sustained winds of 131 – 155 mph. Just like ‘Iniki when the eye of that storm passed over Kaua’i. For some reason, I decided this was the year for me to create a kit. Instead of grocery shopping to fill my kitchen cabinets, I purchased foodstuffs for a waterproof box. I also put off cleaning my house. I mean, why bother when a hurricane might trash it anyway, right? 

On August 21, 2009, the state of Hawai’i will celebrate 50 years since President Eisenhower signed a proclamation officially declaring the archipelago the 50th state.  The road to statehood has to start with ‘Iolani Palace for one very simple reason in that the palace is the easiest place to pick up the “Walking Tour of 50 Years” brochure.  But the bigger and more formal reason your walking tour of Hawai’i’s road to statehood should start here is that ‘Iolani Palace marks the symbolic seat of power where the Hawaiian monarchy lived—even before the existing building was built in 1882. It is also the site where the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown a mere 11 years after the building was erected in the unique “American Florentine” style.

Quick: Do you know what mead is?  At our last ReefCheck, Stephanie Krieger mentioned her first bottling would take place in late July.  Mead? Mead?  I let the word float in my mind. Somewhere in the deep recesses, I’d heard the word before. Maybe it had to do with medieval times. That grog that friars drank, wasn’t that it?  “What is mead?” I asked Stephanie.