I've just come home from Kauai. I am sad that the vacation is over and now it's back to work as usual... It was so beautiful there. The weather was perfect, even the passing rain didn't bother us. They say it's the wettest place on earth, and Mount Waialeale gets an average of 460 inches of rain a year! No matter. The snorkeling was great, food terrific and I hunted down the only yarn shop on the island, Hanalei Strings. Along with yarns you can find in most LYS, their specialty yarn is dyed with natural botanicals found on the island. I bought the only skein of Kauai Bamboo Silk in 'Olena. I couldn't resist the brilliant yellow with such a beautiful shine. It contains 50% Bamboo, 43% Superwash Merino Wool and 5% combed Silk.  I hope I can find a beautiful pattern to work this up. It is 200 yds per 100 g skein.   Not much, but I couldn't resist. I also bought 3 skeins of their Hanalei Hand Dyed Pima Cotton Bulky. It contains 105 yds per 50 g skein, and is 100% combed pima cotton. It is soooo soft! I got the color they describe as Banana Patch. I really wanted some ocean blue colors, but they only had one skein. There was a beautiful shawl on display that caught my eye. They said it is their most popular pattern but they were out at the moment. I looked it up on Ravelry. It's called the Swirl Shawl from JoJoLand. I actually liked the one in the shop much better than the pictures I see online. Theirs was purple and blues and reminded me of the ocean. I figured that I would need 1000 yds to make it, so I couldn't buy that much yarn at once. In the Pima Cotton it would probably be a blanket. What a soft blanket though! I will try the pattern out of the cotton I got and see how far I get. Maybe it will be a swirl cowl. Or a swirl hat. Or... Coasters, er umm placemats! Napkins? Hanalei Strings does not only sell yarn. They also sell stringed instruments, ukes, guitars and other fun things. You can play or knit, whatever you wish! So, for the touristy stuff, we went to a Lu'au at Lu'au Kalamaku. We think it was the best lu'au we've been to so far. It was done theatrically and the story line was of the ancient Polynesians who came to the new land. It was heart wrenching as the daughter is separated from her lover and her father. But the spirit of the wind shows her that she will be reunited with them. Exciting fire dancing and beautiful costumes. The food was great too though I still think poi tastes like Elmer's glue. There is also a train ride before the lu'au which takes you around the Kilohana Plantation. We stopped to feed the pigs at one point. Sunday was a helicopter ride. Great sights that you can only see from above. We had the best luck with the weather. The sky was blue most of the time. At some points the clouds were hovering at the tops of the mountains, but it made great photos. Speaking of photos, we dropped the camera on one of the first days so the lens won't auto focus anymore. I had my trusty little point and shoot, and we still got an amazing number of shots. Come on over and we'll bore you with our vacation photos. Don't ya love digital cameras?!!! We snorkled at Tunnels Beach one day and at Prince Kuhio Beach another day. I got better pictures at Kuhio and we saw a giant honu there too. We found a place for sunset pu-pus at the Beach House at Kuhio, but the best was the last evening at St. Regis Princeville overlooking Hanalei Bay. We got a sudden downpour that ate the last bites of our pu-pus, but they had a champagne toast at sunset, and we sat talking to a couple from Switzerland for quite a while. It was a very romantic way to wind up the trip. Aloha!