No pictures for y'all!

Hello from the Princeville Public Library, just outside of Hanalei, Kauai. It is a day fitting for the wettest place on earth, and so I'm attempting to stay dry-ish. And I have a story...

Just after my last entry, Amy, Mikey, Tim and I took our new rent-a-wreck minivan through Hanapepe town, and up into Koke'e state park, which includes Waimea Canyon. It is a canyon indeed, and seems out of place on green Kauai. We camped for one night at Koke'e, which has a bit more altitude and is quite a bit cooler. It was stormy the evening we arrived, with lightning in the western sky but not too much rain. On our way to the campground we stopped at one of the Canyon lookouts and yodeled for a while. Tim kept making Chevy Chase jokes from one of the vacation movies: "Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament, Waimea Canyon, Let's Go!"

I didn't sleep very well that night, so when I woke at dawn, I figured I'd go for a walk. The air was very clear and the feeling of the morning reminded me of fall in the Appalachian mountains. The air was crisp, and the sky borrowed some of that Carolina Blue :)

I took my camera and my ipod and walked for a couple of miles, until I reached a different canyon lookout point. With a short walk through the woods, I found myself on the edge of a steep drop off of loose red dirt, how far down I can't estimate. There I took a gorgeous picture of the Canyon in the morning!

And then, I started to sit down for a little meditation, setting my camera down as well.

I looked up a second later, just in time to see my camera start to roll down the red dirt hill. All I could do was watch as my camera rolled away, fighting the initial impulse to grab after it. The strange thing was that I found the situation immediately humorous. I couldn't help but giggle as the camera picked up speed, kicking up a little could of dust as it went, until finally it flew off the long ledge and into the forrest below.

I sat there with my jaw hanging open for some time, realizing that all my pictures and my zip drive, and my camera, had been eaten by Waimea Canyon. Hawaii sends such clear messages sometimes. Clearly, I am carrying too much stuff.

In the long seconds when the camera was descending, I thought, now this is a permanent mental picture.