Glass Beach, Kauai

I'd read that there's a glass beach on Kauai and, inspired by the posts Dainty Squid and The Only Living Girl in New York have written about a different glass beach that I know I'll never see, I was determined to find it. My husband was less enthused, but we were already close (and Kauai isn't that big to begin with) so we followed the directions in my travel guide. 

We got to what was supposed to be the right spot and I was immediately distracted by the cemetery on the other side of the narrow gravel road. The stones were shaped differently than I've seen before and I almost forgot what I'd talked my husband into looking for in the first place. 

It was hard to make out much from the right side of the barbed wire fence, but the writing was Japanese and it all looked old. Later we looked it up and found out that it's the McBryde Sugar Plantation Cemetery and a local woman has been working to uncover the gravestones, which were almost completely buried in weeds until she stumbled across them. This is why I love our smartphones! We learn so much more about the places we visit than we could have in the days when our only resource was a AAA guide.

We took a few pictures through the fence and  then walked down the hill to find the beach, which is a very narrow strip that had at least a dozen people beach combing while we were there.  I didn't see any recognizable pieces of bottles, just amazing little grains of tumbled glass.

Amazing that a garbage dump can turn into something this beautiful. (And I'm sure a lot of what was swept out to sea wasn't as pretty or as inert.)

Coveting Hawaiian Shirts

Before we even left on the trip, I was coveting old Hawaiian shirts to cut up for quilt making. Then we found the shops with the vintage inspired shirts and I was lost. How can there be sooooo many gorgeous prints? And why do they insist on selling the best ones in very expensive shirt form? 

The brilliant folks at Hilo Hatties sell bundles of 6" squares, but there's not much variety in the ones I bought. I'll add sashing and make something nice, but it won't be the quilt I was dreaming of. 

Then we found this shop, Jaqueline On Kauai. The owner makes custom Aloha shirts while you wait and, after claiming that it was a trade secret, told me it takes her about twenty-five minutes to make a shirt. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how that could be physically possible if she really means one shirt, start to finish.

Those carpets are covered in gold glitter. Lots and lots and lots of gold glitter. It's tracked out onto the sidewalk. I love the glitter and the pink walls and the vintage sewing machines that fill the place.

 She also makes shirts and shorts out of vintage 1950s rice bags. I kind of almost want the clothes...but I really,  really would love to get my hands on some of those bags! (A few days later I found a happy substitute, which I'll post about later.)

Settling Back In

I'm exhausted, in the  best possible way. Yesterday consisted of almost seven hours in the air and two more in the car, not to mention the time we spent sitting waiting at the airport. I'd always sworn no force on this earth could get me onto a plane with my four kids, but this is the last year of our time share and there were rooms available in Hawaii....and the lure of waves and palm trees was stronger than my fear of flying.  (We bought our tickets shortly before the recent spate of horror stories hit the news.)

My twelve year old is not the best seat-mate. When the captain announced that they were suspending services so that the flight attendants could strap into their seats due to "clear air turbulence," he cheerfully told me that was what made the plane crash on the Weather Channel special they'd been watching the day before.

Maybe he was just doing a great job of distracting me from the fact that I couldn't get up and walk around nearly as often as my hematologist had recommended? Eventually I decided that since everyone else seemed to be ignoring the fasten seat belt sign with impunity I'd rather risk a scolding than a blood clot.

I'm just glad the flight to Kauai was completely uneventful or I'd have spent the whole twelves days worried about the flight back. It may be a while before I work up the nerve to get on another plane.

There are chickens everywhere, including the beach. At the place we stayed for the first four nights the roosters started making noise at four in the morning. Hawaiian roosters are a lot louder than the ones who live in my yard, even the one we've been keeping close to the house so he won't fight with the other rooster.  I don't know what makes  them so much more fascinating than my own birds, but they are.

We stopped at a bunch of different farmer's markets, looking for new fruit to try. Those mystery fruits are longans, which are kind of similar to lychee, and mountain apples. We also tried eggfruit, which might have been better if I hadn't had two little boys standing there waiting for my reaction because they'd already tried it while I was in the other room, and a couple of other things I can't remember right now. One vendor told my sons that a particular fruit was for making antioxidant drinks and not eating, because it tasted like apple juice mixed with blue cheese...which of course meant they wanted to buy one. I vetoed that idea.

We rented snorkeling equipment and went out almost every day. I got into bed each night feeling like my body had spent time in a tumble dryer, but it was worth it. Thanks to the miracle of prescription lenses, I got to see a sea turtle, a moray eel, and an overwhelming number of pretty little fish. Hopefully I can get some pictures off of Teenage Son's GoPro, but I'm still trying to get everything downloaded from my phone and my camera and my husband's phone.

There are a lot of Hawaii posts coming up, but since it involves antiques and quilts and is all stuff I'd have posted about if I'd done it here at home, I hope you won't mind.

This was waiting for me when we got home:

I hate rhododendrons. For the twelve years we've owned this house, I've been trying to get my husband to rip this thing out. Somehow I never realized that there are two separate plants, because for most of the year the thing is just ugly as sin.  But after seeing this, I think I've permanently lost that battle. Maybe I can still manage to get rid of the arborvitae...

{Whatcha Reading?} Karma Gone Bad

When I was a teenager, I spent a month in Japan as part of an exchange program. It was one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time, but as soon as I got there I realized that  I was in way over my head. 

Did I mention that I didn't speak a word of Japanese and knew next to nothing about the culture? 

When I got the chance to read Karma Gone Bad: How I Learned to Love Mangos, Bollywood and Water Buffalo, I was intrigued. One of my best friends moved to India a couple of years ago to be closer to her husband while he was working overseas. My friend didn't last long there.  Aside from a few Travel Chanel and National Geographic specials, I still don't know much of anything about India.

But I'm curious!

Jenny Feldon provides a fascinating glimpse at another culture (my friend had the same complaints about dealing with those  marble floors) and her struggles to cope. She started her trip picturing herself as the perfect expat housewife, but the reality of her life in is far, far different -- and provides for great reading.

You can read about Jenny's current adventures at her blog, Karma (continued...)

Disclosure -- My copy of the book was provided by the publisher.

Moab or Sedona? In Sedona this time!

The Moab or Sedona quilt finally made it to Sedona. It could've made it to Moab back in May, but I didn't know that we were going to wind up there ourselves so I didn't pack it. If I'd had it when we were out doing the Shaefer Trail drive I could've gotten some spectacular pictures. 

But I'm not sure if it matters. Or am I the only one who thinks this picture looks like a very poor attempt at Photoshopping? I took it the very last morning as we were packing the Suburban -- this is the view from the parking lot of the time share. 

I'm assuming that you don't want to hear my complaints about the National Park closures. Any other trip, we would've cancelled as soon as we even knew it was a possibility, but our room was booked and we'd used our timeshare points, so we headed South and hoped for the best. And visited as many monuments as we could over the first two days we were there. For my family, it wasn't that awful. The kids have seen the Grand Canyon and Montezuma's Castle and the rest.  It wasn't a once in a lifetime trip for us.  But I feel for people who've traveled from overseas or were planning weddings...   

We found plenty of other things to do. Homolovi Ruins is a state park. Everywhere you look along the short trail, there are pottery shards lying on the ground. These were arranged by someone else. Resisting the urge to touch them is hard, but I managed. Barely. 

And remember the Apache Death Cave that  I found out about this spring when I was putting together that post about quirky travel destinations? We found it.

Back before we had kids, I would've probably followed Hubby across that bridge. But these days I'm a lot more chicken (not to mention heavier) and there was no way I was setting foot on those beams. To be fair, they look worse in the picture than they did at the time.

But I was seriously tempted by this one. If he hadn't just told Teenage Son to stay off of it, I would've gone across to get a peek into the opening on the other end. From down below, it looks a lot more stable than it does from this view. 

We clambered around and watched out for snakes and took lots of pictures. I'd found an old magazine article about the cave while I was looking for directions earlier that morning, but didn't have time to read it in the resort lobby and haven't had time in the day and a half that we've been back home.

And now that I am back here I've got quilts to work on. Halloween is coming fast and I've got stuff I want to get done while it's still October!