The Drip of a Lifetime... or, Lost in Kauai

Mr. B. and I just got back from Hawaii (Kauai) where we celebrated our 10 year anniversary. We both love the sun, so at first we considered going to Arizona where nearly every day is sunny and warm. But then we realized that we had enough frequent flyer miles for both of us to fly round-trip to Hawaii for free. Mr. B. and I discussed the pros and cons of Arizona versus Hawaii. We pictured the Arizona desert underneath the blazing sun. Then we pictured sunny beaches, waves lapping the shores, palm trees swaying in the breeze, and in the end it was no contest - Hawaii won.

"It will be the trip of a lifetime," Mr. B. said, rubbing his chin and pulling on his ear. "I'm not sure I'm ready for the trip of a lifetime; what will we have to look forward to after this trip?"

"There will be other trips, don't worry," I said as I switched on my laptop to begin researching Hawaii.

It didn't take long to choose Kauai to visit based on the things we like to do -- walking, hiking, and swimming. I looked up the weather for this time of year in Kauai and learned that it's an island of "microclimates." According to the websites I found Kauai is a tropical paradise where we could swim, kayak, hike, walk the beach, and bask in the sunshine no matter the time of year. I read that if it's raining on one part of the island, no worries... you just drive to a different part of the island where it will be sunny. So we booked a condo for a reasonable price and packed our suitcases in preparation for our trip of a lifetime.

The winds were gusty when we arrived, but the sun warmed us as we walked across the parking lot to our rental car. We looked from one side of the road to the other, taking in the swaying palm trees and exotic flowers on our drive to the condo. "Ah, this is beautiful," said Mr. B. I nodded my head in agreement as I maneuvered the car down Kauai's one main highway and envisioned the coming days of sunshine and beach time.

The sun set shortly after we got to the condo, so we didn't go to the beach the first day. Instead we unpacked and drove down the road a bit to get some pizza, then headed back to the condo and watched a little t.v. while we planned our activities for the next day.

"If it's sunny, we'll hit the beach, right?" I said. Mr. B. flipped the channel to the weather station and we saw that the prediction was for rain in our area with high wind and high surf advisories.

"Okay," I said, keeping in mind the advice about driving to find the sunshine. "If it's raining here we'll just drive until we find the sun."

That settled we hit the sack. The next day we awoke to the promised rain and wind so we headed up north to try and find the sun. We were rewarded for our trouble, though we had to travel to one of the beaches at the far north end of the island. There we met a local woman selling banana bread and struck up a brief conversation with her regarding the weather.

"I've lived here for 16 years and this is the coldest, windiest, rainiest March I can remember," she said as she pulled her jacket tighter around her to block the gale force wind that threatened to knock over her and her food stand. At least I think that's what she said. It was hard to hear her over the crashing waves.

We drove back to the south side of the island (what was supposed to be the sunny side) into the rain and retired for the day. Mr. B. brought his computer with him so he could keep up with the basketball games online, and he powered up and watched his game while I read a book, soothed by the sound of raindrops on the roof.

Day #3 we awoke to sunshine. But it was only in the upper 60's with very gusty winds that made it too cold for shorts, so I wore my one pair of long pants and a long-sleeved shirt down to the beach. I sat huddled inside my fleece as we watched the boogie boarders brave the high surf. The clouds built up behind us and with little warning they opened up and emptied out what seemed to be an ocean of water.

We raced across the road, stepping around a local resident who happened to be walking by. "It's only water," he said as he shook his head at us and walked on, taking his time making his way down the sidewalk. It's true it was only water, but I don't usually take a shower in my clothes, and this was a downpour that left us drenched within a minute.

When we got back to the condo Mr. B. took out one of the brochures we had picked up at the airport when we arrived. It contained a handy map of the island and he consulted it to decide where we might drive to find the elusive sun. His eyes scanned the map and then he got a panicked look on his face. "Houston, we have a problem," he said, and tapped his finger on the center of the map. I leaned over him to get a better look at the map and gasped as I read the small print. Here is what it said: Mt. Wailaleale... The wettest spot on earth.

I don't know how in all my research about Kauai I overlooked that interesting little fact, but having been there I can vouch for its accuracy. I've never seen that much rain in the span of 10 days in my whole life.

We spent the rest of the vacation driving around the island dodging raindrops in search of sunshine. One day we again found it up north, and another day we found it in the south, but the majority of the time the rain poured down with brief intervals of sun. In addition to overlooking that interesting fact about the wettest spot on earth, what we had failed to understand about the "microclimates" was that while it was true that you could drive to a part of the island where the sun was shining, it might shine for only 10 minutes before being blocked by rain clouds.

Thank goodness Mr. B. brought his computer with him -- not only did he get to watch his basketball games, but we got to watch the show Lost, which we recently became hooked on. I have to admit it was pretty cool watching Lost in Hawaii since it's filmed there (on the island of Oahu, but the scenery looks very similar to what we saw on Kauai). It rained so much that we had plenty of time to watch all of Season 1 -- and that's 22 episodes, folks. Every night I ended up dreaming about Hawaii and it wasn't because of all the sights I was seeing while I was there, it was because I was overdosing on Lost.

We figured out that the sun shined about 20% of the time were there. The rest of the time it was either cloudy or rainy. But it was beautiful, and we might go back for our 20th wedding anniversary. If we do, we'll wrap our swim suits around a couple of umbrellas.