We spent Christmas with family on Kauai and did a little driving around. Took a few pictures. My BIL is a contractor so we checked out his new project. Didn’t take any house picture but for that view with a house it’s way more than I can afford! The beach/ocean shots are from the property.
Thanks for all the pics and narration. Moderators… I nominate the thread for top thread of 2021! A great cultural trip without leaving the mainland thru the lens of Skip808.
Thanks! Glad you enjoy them. Hopefully coming up we’ll get to travel a little more and share more places.
Hey everyone! Today we did an imu. It’s an in ground oven. Normally you see the pigs at the luaus at hotels but we did turkeys. It’s a fundraiser for my sons canoe club Yesterday they dug a deep pit and filled it with wood and rocks as the heat source. At lunch today they lit the fire. This afternoon about 5 hours later we took a bunch of banana trees and split the trunks and separated out the leafs Once the fire died down the hot rocks wetw leveled Then the banana stumps were put over the rocks and wood. This makes steam for cooling and insulates the meat so it doesn’t just burn More to come in a minute…
so we then loaded up a few hundred pounds of turkeys on the fire And covered all that with the banana leafs To keep everything steamy we cover the meat trays with soaking wet burlap bags and then a tarp. This is the critical part. The whole thing is covered in about 6-8 inches of dirt that is also sprayed down to keep it wet. The dirt seals all the steam in and keeps oxygen out. So it needs to be covered fast. If the oxygen isn’t kept out fast enough you get blow outs like a pressure cooker exploding. We had a small one but not to bad. now it all sits overnight and cooks. We’ll be back at 7 am to open it up. I’ll try to get more photos of the opening and the products!
this is 5 of 6 paddlers for the varsity boys crew. Over here outrigger canoe is a state wide high school sport. The fundraiser is for them to go over to the UK for a world wide competition
Finished up cooking today. Pulled the dirt and tarp off. Then pulled the banana leaf and pans of turkey off. The pile of rocks and wood burned down nicely. Turkeys!!! The turkeys were shredded and deboned then put in a container for distribution. The coach/cook puts a gravy in made from the drippings. We took about 100 containers home to distribute. The aluminum tray is full of pork we threw in to cook that we also shredded. The coach made the paddlers a Kalua pork and cabbage (pronounced like the liquor Kahlua but it’s not used) lunch. It’s shredded pork from the imu, cabbage, rock salt, and oyster sauce. All the parents were glad to be done. Lots of work but fun at the same time. The kids also worked hard then had a couple hour practice so they looked beat too.
we did a community service project yesterday planting silverswords up on the mountain. They only grow in Hawaii at high elevation. this is the nursery in Haleakala National Park where they propagate the seedlings. Heading out to the planting site part of our group going through the top gate. The first two trucks are from our Department of Land and Natural Resources. They get some nice trucks! They also go deep into some pretty rough areas so it makes sense. Here is the planting site. It’s a fenced 8 acre section. The fence is to keep goats from eating the plants. Here’s a silversword that is almost full grown. Once they flower and seed they die. There weren’t any that were actively flowering. One of our seedlings. In total our group planed 187 plant to grow. It’s tough conditions up there so we’re hoping for the best.
One of my mentors in the National Park Service started the sheep and goat eradication program at Haleakala National Park way back in the day. They found extirpated flora species from seed/root stock after the numbers were reduced. I don't work for NPS now, but my heart is still with natural resources management. These pictures and your story are wonderful for that part of my heart.
@anomad Glad you enjoyed the pictures! That’s a great connection to the Park and all they have done. I’ve said it here before that this is my favorite part of the island. It’s peaceful once you get out into the wilderness
We’ve been visiting family on Kauai this weekend thought I’d share what we did yesterday. One of our nephews took us in a Zodiac up the Napali coast. Here are some of the pictures. These are the caves you drive the boat into. There are 3 of them. our ride First cave is a huge cavern. They call it pirate cave. The second cave does a big semicircle. In one opening and out another side. Amazing water fall inside the cave. And last but not least a cave convertible. Once you go in you find out this one has no ceiling. Amazing going in, being surrounded by verticals wall, and being able to see the sky. I’ll post up more scenery shots but wanted to give you the best ones first.
we went to the Big Island of Hawaii for a wedding this past weekend. Flew into Kona airport. I hadn’t spent much time there since I was in middle school. My dad had a sailboat and we’d take it to Kona every few years to haul out and repaint the hull below the waterline. Kona is the only airport that has transpacific flights and no jetways. I liked it. Didn’t like no ac and high humidity but oh well don’t want to get to soft. The wedding was at an old ranch now turned historical site. The ranch goes back to the times of the monarchy. Here are some of the buildings and scenery shots. The ranch sits on about a hundred acres and still has cattle on it. It’s located in the town of Waimea about 2500 ft above sea level. I think I was the only one that saw the turkeys and pheasant up on the hillside. Not in the picture here though. I was also one of the few that didn’t drink, coincidence? We had a great time seeing and hanging out with family. We’re planning to go back to Kona next year. I’ll get more pictures then. Funniest part was seeing all the Spanish goats on the side of the road. Some were even eating in the median of the highway just outside of Kona town. I need to check the hunting zones over there that would be a fun trip. Went to an archery zone once during high school saw lots of pigs and sheep. Came home with a small boar. Never saw that many goats. There are tons now. if you want to learn more here is the ranch site. https://www.annaranch.org/about-1 I’d probably chop the history to much so I’d rather give a link for accuracy’s sake. If you want want to get married there hit me up and I can get some good catering recommendations.
