One Tough Poodle

This is SourIre our standard poodle.

Only we can't pronouce his name properly so we call him Siri. He was named by our friend Emi who was fresh off the plane from living and working in Haiti for two years and living with us while she recovered from the war zone of extreme poverty. Siri was right off the plane from California where we had rescued him from an animal horder. Sourire means "smile" in French. Siri likes to smile and sneeze when greeting someone, but the French word for sneeze was not pretty, thus Sourire came to be. Small children think he is baring his teeth when he smiles but he is being friendly and sneezing, expressing his unique-ness.

Two days ago he did his most challenging hike. He wears a back pack on long hikes so he can carry his water and his snacks, like the rest of us. The main highway (two lanes with one lane bridges, it's Kauai) ends at Ke'e beach at the North Shore and you can drive no further. It is here that the trail head begins which will take you for an 11 mile journey through some of the most beautiful, lush, tropical cliffs in the world, over looking a hundred shades of blue, hundreds of feet down to your right. If you are terrified of heights you will not like this hike. Our hike was to the Honokapi'a stream at mile 2, and then turning off the trail and following the stream up to the falls on the falls trail, another 2 miles.  It included lots of boulder hopping, and several river crossings. Did I mention Siri is terrified of water?  The hike was good therapy. Notice the pink toe nail polish? Luna my daughter takes pride in demasculating this poor guy, (as if neutoring wasn't enough) by the end of the hike, there was very little polish left. 

This morning I saw he was sporting a spiderman cape. What a good sport Siri! Summer break will be over soon.

We don't have freeway over passes on Kauai so with limited options, graffiti is usually carved into trees, rocks, plants, or bamboo. 

The Honokapi'a falls are a welcome sight after leaving 4 miles of grueling trail behind you. The water comes straight off the mountains beyond the cliffs and is very, very, cold! 

Unless of course you are from the mainland.

There they are, my two babies happily absorbing it all, 

and some other people who blazed by us on the trail up here.

The euphoria of washing off the sweat has warn off, and Luna is feeling the chill.

After a refreshing brain-freeze swim, the kids are ready to head back. 

One pooped poodle . . . . . and 3.96 miles back to go. Luna decided to carry his pack for the return hike, after all she had painted his toes pink and watched him try to walk on water to avoid it for the 4 miles in.

In the 4 weeks since we returned from our vacation in Alaska, both kids have outgrown their hiking boots. Luna realized before we left on the hike that her boots didn't fit so she wore tennis shoes. 

Sol discovered at the falls after 4 miles, HIS boots didn't fit. There is Sol in the distance,  at the 7.5 mile mark of our hike, taking another agonizing step. I tried to be clever and took out my Swiss Army knife cutting the end of his boots off since he said they felt too little. He was offered the options of going barefoot or wearing Roxy sandles Luna had brought, but opted to stay in his boots.

At the end of the trail, it wasn't just length but width that left some nasty blisters on his cute, large feet. 

So much for passing those boots on to anyone else.