The sun is slowly creeping over the mountains, allowing the water droplets on the surrounding plants to glisten. Clouds are showing hues of red and pink, triggering a chicken in these early moments of the new day to stroll right by me up the stairs of our cabin like this is what it does. By the time I can start to say the words “Caroline close the…..” that chicken was well within the four walls of its new prison and our hell. Two minutes earlier, it would have won a Darwin award as it bolted right for the gas stove that had been cooking our breakfast. Fortunately for us, we now only had to get a raucous chicken out the door it came through instead of dealing with a floundering ball of flames that would have likely burned our cabin to the ground.

Caroline immediately tried shooing it away, but it took flight and landed on a light fixture, where it cackled at my wife; surely it was laughing at her. It’s almost three seconds into our tropical chicken adventure before I join Caroline, who is now armed with a broom and trying to take a swat at the unwelcome boisterous guest. I’m barely through the door which blocked its escape; my bad. Encountering me at the entrance, the chicken bolts left to land on our bed. I rush it, but this chicken is mind-reading my intention and launches itself overhead to land on the top of the bathroom door. Either in a show of fear or total disrespect, it let off a gob of liquishit. Not to be distracted, we keep up the pressure, but it’s already landing on my clean shirt on the second bed. I’m certain it is there to display supremacy and shit on my clothes but lucky for us, it was out of ammunition.

All of a sudden, the chicken is not at my center of focus as Caroline has gone primordial and becomes as animated as our fowl friend. She leaps on the bed in what can only be described as a dominant chicken pose and corners the errant bird. Two or three exchanges of position and Caroline establishes her place in the food chain using her shirt as a bullfighter’s mantilla, ushering this bird brain right out the door. We are near-hysterical in laughter at this point from the chaos this chicken has brought.

Now able to eat our breakfast, it isn’t long before Caroline is under the banana leaves showering while I purge our nest of the poo our visitor left us. We briefly discussed staying here the entire day to explore the 197 acres of the park, but instead will head to Hanalei.

It’s before 9:00 as we travel down Kauai’s first paved road toward Koloa. This tree-lined tunnel is beautiful and a pleasure to travel on every time. I’m loathe to turn around to continue on our journey from this brief detour, and going all the way to the fish market doesn’t matter anyway, as they don’t open until 10:00. But you never know if things can go your way unless you try your chances. I pulled up right in front of their door, which was slightly ajar, stepped in while excusing myself, and blurted out, “We’d just LOVE two poke Bentos for the road today.” The guy says, “Sure!”

Back through the tunnel, I turned off the main road toward Anini Beach. It’s gorgeous here, perfect even. Some windsurfers are in the shallows, receiving lessons in the art of standing on a tiny board in a vast ocean. Watching them exercise their determination as they crawl back up, again and again, we decided why wait for lunch so we broke out our brunch and accepted that we might be overeating today.

Finally, at the Hanalei Strings shop, where they sell yarn and ukuleles, Caroline is on one side stroking the fibers before rubbing them on her cheek to see if they pass the softness test while I was looking at ukes.

For over a decade I’ve listened to Caroline tell me how she’d like to learn how to play this instrument that is so very intertwined with Hawaii. Now, here we are in Hawaii at a shop that sells these things, and she wants to hem and haw about not having the time to learn it, how much they cost, and that she could order one online in the future.

I took her over to the counter, and the saleswoman put a ukulele in her hands. She showed Caroline a C chord and told her to strum it; her face turned to ukulele happiness. I could feel her starting to crack. Another uke was handed to her, and then another; this last one was a $1200 work of art. I asked, “Anything between the $65 Chinese unit and this Stratokalele?” Not able to choose between what we were shown, we asked the lady to play the three models she had chosen. A locally made ukulele ended up the winner and a free case was thrown in! If only you could have seen Caroline’s face as she walked away from Hanalei Strings with her great new uke.

Not able to spend another penny in Hanalei, we set off to finish the drive west; we didn’t make it, though, because the police had the road blocked. So we turned around to visit the Limahuli Garden and Preserve we’d passed along the way.

This is the kukui or candlenut tree and is the state tree of Hawaii. At one time, they were used for making candles, hence their name. The blossom of the kukui is also the official island lei material of Moloka’i.

The bird of paradise related to the banana plant is not native to the islands but is instead from South Africa.

Monstera deliciosa is also not a native of Hawaii, though these invasive species thrive here. You might have guessed that this is also known as the Swiss cheese plant.

The thick green blanket eats light while tossing back oxygen and moisture it doesn’t have a need for. This exchange conveys the necessities the majority of life on our planet requires to be alive. How we treat it is a measure of how we effectively treat our mothers.

The blood of trees flows out of the forest, allowing us to participate in the ritual of replacing the water that must also flow through us.

Cellular level activity not only creates the plant itself but powers the machine that pumps water from the ground into the sky. The plant is the membrane that exists between us and the vacuum of nothingness.

Breadfruit is said to taste like potato and, when cooked, is similar to freshly baked bread. The wood pulp of this plant is used for making paper and cloth, as we described on Day 4 while in Hawaii visiting the Bishop Museum. Click here to view that entry.

Upon the sunlight, plant, and water Caroline and I are afforded the fuel that allows our bodies to move our brains around in order that our senses collect impressions and skills that we will share with others. Such is the symbiosis of being alive on Earth.

I try to imagine life in Hawaii 300 years ago on an island without predators. A place where food easily grows, fresh water is abundant, and the essentials of life surround you. On any given day, one could jump into the warm waters of the ocean or meander on a circumnavigation of the island, as there would be no demand for one to return to operate a machine or pay rent. I can only wonder what the future holds for a society bent on a kind of enslavement to both ignorance and economy.

Opeakaa Falls in Wailua is our last stop of the day before returning to our cabin in order to wash the clothes that have eight days of accumulated grime on them. After performing our laundry chores, Caroline fires up the ukelele and crushes a virtuoso rendition of The Hawaiian War Chant. No, she didn’t, she actually kind of roughed it, but for a few minutes, I felt like we were in the Tiki Room at Disneyland, kind of.

Just in case tomorrow is the apocalypse, or some other version of doom unfolds that involves the end of the world, we at least were out in Hawaii and were pretty happy being here while it lasted.