Sunday, May 11, 2014

Kauai 2014: Day 2

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. ;)

Day 2 of my Kauai vacation was a busy one, starting with a trip into town to visit the weekly farmer's market. While we waited to get in, I saw a couple of egrets fly by and alight in a tree on the other side of the field:


A very tall tree sporting some gorgeous orange flowers:


A closer look at the flowers themselves:


 Heading back to where we'd parked the car; you can see the town's famous green church on the right side:


On the way back to the house, Mom was the first to spot this rainbow; luckily for me, we were very close to a scenic pull-off area that overlooked Hanalei Valley: 


A wider shot of the rainbow, taken with me standing about as far as I could go from the parking area without tumbling down a hillside:


A couple more shots of the valley itself: 



In the afternoon, despite my fatigue from the journey, I decided it would be a good idea to take advantage of the nice weather and take Dad up on his suggestion of an excursion out to the Kilauea Lighthouse. It turned out to be a wise move on our parts, as we ended up getting a fair amount of rain over the course of my trip. First up, some whale action:





Not the best shot in the world, but it does feature a pair of whales as well as some residual mist from the whales clearing their blowholes:


A lazy tail maneuver:




Some Red-footed Boobies:



A Brown Booby:


A few shots of some Great Frigatebirds:




A Frigatebird and some Boobies circling overhead:


A few shots looking out off the point; I have no idea what caused the white streak cutting across the water:





The lighthouse itself:


Finally, Dad and I spotted this Nene family preparing to cross the road as we were leaving the parking lot:


Looking both ways as they head across:


Finally, the shot I waited for from the moment they started their journey towards this perfectly-placed sign: