These books give you great directions for planning where to stay, the locations for the best places to eat, well you get the point.    From the food stand point they’ll give you directions to some great places and yes when you walk up to the Raggae painted Shave Ice shack (Jo-Jo’s Clubhouse) take them for their word.  The service at Jo-Jo’s was great when we were there and the Shave Ice was even better.  Not quite as good as  Tropical Dreams Ice Cream but the shave ice on the island is wonderful.  By the way the only place to get Tropical Dreams on Kauai is at the Kilauea Video in Kilauea.  They don’t open early in the morning so plan your visit for afternoon or evening.  If you skip it, oh well, your loss.

“Revealed”, gives excellent directions to numerous trails and waterfalls throughout the island and the island truly is a garden paradise.  I will have to admit I have an affliction with the east side of all the islands, as that is where the majority of the rain falls, but the whole island was absolutely fantastic.  When they tell you to take the first dirt road or the hidden left, they mean it.  Take it and any warnings they give you to heart.

For almost all of my life I’ve done everything I could or could afford to get off the beaten track.  I’ve hiked the Rocky Mountains alone for weeks at a time and climbed the cliffs of secluded canyons just to see places others may not have tread.  This book will show you the hard to find waterfalls and toughest trails and the hole in the wall eating establishments.  But if they tell you the trail is not for the faint of heart or not properly manicured.  They’re trails people, look up the early settlers and covered wagon trails from the origins of manifest destiny.  There are a number of places throughout the book that tell you to head warnings or that certain trails are more for experts; you might want to take that to heart as well.  We ran into a group on the Na Pali Coast Trail that were sincerely angry that the trail wasn’t properly manicured.  I’m just curious, yes there are portions of the faintly worn trail that if you miss a step you could be shark bait, but did you not read any of the signs or actually read about the trail you were about to take before you took off on it.  They’re trails, not roads, go to New York if you want concrete and roads, go to the Na Pali Coastline if you want to see raw beauty.  As far as the trails are concerned, they’re trails but they’re nowhere near the most difficult in the world.  Having said that I’m not sure I would take Na Pali for my first long, 22+ mile trek round trip, hiking excursion.

When choosing places to eat, the book was spot on.  If it says the resturant has great food and exceptionally slow service, they mean exceptionally slow.  I’ve seen dead people move faster.  I have yet to be disappointed by any of the eating establishments that are recommended by “Revealed”.  And yes I do mean the hole in the walls you wouldn’t expect to pass health care inspection.  If they say its “ono” they mean it.  Did I mention Tropical Dreams Ice Cream, good, really, really good.

The “Revealed” series of books is very detailed, you just have to know the details to follow.  It would also be worth your while to get copies of the actual trail maps to go along with the book and in my case I study the details of the book in accordance with the maps.  That way I have physical landmarks to go by once I actually get on the trail.  And the maps aid in actually following the trail that sometimes disappears.  It also is advisable that if you’re going off on some of these trails to take a compass or a GPS.  I actually use the two previous and I have a personal locator beacon, Find Me Spot, just in case you get lost.  I’ll review the Spot later.

The trails, locations of waterfalls and scenic beaches are not the only details the maps in the “Revealed” books show.  You can also find the farmers markets, where they’re located and on what days the markets are actually open.  For instance, on page 46 you’ll see the farmers market close to the Kilauea lighthouse is available on Thursdays at 4:30 pm.  By the way these farmers markets are usually in a parking lot or open field.  They aren’t in grocery stores or strip malls.  But the fresh fruit, heliconias, ginger, etc., are well worth the visit.

As far as the negatives are concerned the book details several items of consideration but you have to  head their warnings.  They have constant updates on their website http://www.wizardpub.com, but it’s up to you to check the site and the local laws and current restrictions.  We ran into a couple that had passed through some government posted no trespassing signs and consequently were going back to Hawaii to fight their trespassing violation tickets they had received from the Hawaiian authorities.  Theft on the islands is their second favorite past time behind only surfing.  We have yet to visit an island that our vehicle’s weren’t broken into.  We’ve gotten to the point that the last several times we just left the vehicle unlocked and literally nothing in it.  Take theirs and our word for it.  Don’t leave anything in sight.  When we were visiting with a couple of the locals they specifically told us, when they vacation, on other Hawaiian islands, they shy away from any of the convertible’s when they visit any of the other islands because of the theft issue.  You might want to heed all of our warnings. 

Oh and make sure you get the insurance on your vehicle.  You’ll be surprised of the number of ways you’ll need it.

If you’re going to visit one of the Hawaiian Islands, I strongly suggest you read the book for the corresponding island.  Without the book you’d have missed Secret Beach on Kauai.

You can get the book by clicking The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook: Kauai Revealed

Enjoy the islands and the books.

My Blu Horizon

My personal curiosity with the National Parks is that I love the mountains, waterfalls, wildlife, etc. and so seeing the videos and pictures that were accumulated, taped, etc., for the documentary absolutely fascinated me.  The documentary although slow at times provided great insight to the painstaking efforts that Stephen Mather, Horace Albright and others took to ensure the preservation of the true beauty that our nation possesses, which is our National Parks. 

Out of the approximately twelve hours of video that comprise the documentary there is one point that I want to focus on.  There were several times in the life of Stephen Mather where he had “episodes” or bouts of depression, nervous breakdowns, I’ve seen the episodes listed several different ways.  The point is that during these episodes whether he was hospitalized or retreated to the comfort of his home, he repeatedly wanted to return to Yosemite or the wilderness of the National Parks to revitalize himself.  When hospitalized he always had two photos of his favorite views of Yosemite next to his bed.

Whether we realize it or not we return to nature and places of comfort to revitalize ourselves on a regular basis.  Whether we have photos of beach scenes, our favorite garden near home or the vast open landscape scenes of Yosemite, Yellowstone, or the Grand Canyon, we look to nature to help us Escape Our Reality.   Whether your reality is teaching at the local high school or deeply imbedded in the corporate cubicle world, the birds, the trees, the oceans and the mountains will always call us back to the wild to retool our hearts and reduce our stress.

As far back as Hippocrates and the Hippocratic oath, it has been known and practiced that although medicine/doctors have the education to heal, it has been believed that “Nature cures – not the physician”  Hippocrates.   Studies to this day are done to see how animals/nature reduce stress not only on the mind but also on the body.   Texas A&M researcher Roger Ulrich, segregated patients that had gall bladder surgery into two groups, one group that had a view of a garden and the second group had the luxury of viewing a brick wall.   Those patients that had views of the courtyard were discharged almost a day earlier, received less medication, recorded fewer complications and consequently had  lower medical bills.

In the cubicle world that we live in, where the probability that you have an office with a few and in the hard times that we’re experiencing economically employees are encouraged to work longer hours to pick up the slack for those that have been laid off.  With that being said, vacations are at an all time low and travel is down significantly over the last twelve months.   How then can you reduce your stress and introduce the effects of nature into your daily life? 

 My Blu Horizon was created primarily to fill that gap.  We provide high definition nature videos in a variety of formats.  We have them available as .exe files to install as your computer screensaver, you can put them on most digital picture frames that will play .avi videos and they’re also formatted to play on Iphones/Ipods.  I hope that they will provide you with some relief from the every day stress. 

If you can’t make it to the any one of the National or State Parks any time soon then get a copy of Ken Burns: National Parks – America’s Best Idea, it’s a great documentary.  Don’t try to watch the entire thing in one day.  Enjoy the history of our National Parks, visit My Blu Horizon and Escape Your Reality.

This trip to Kauai will be much the same. We researched numerous places to stay from B&B’s in the mountains to condo’s on the beach and yes the condo we have secured has air conditioning. Once we leave if you’re interested you can follow where we are by following our Find Me Spot site. When we’re out exploring the Na Pali Coastline, Kalalua Trail, Waimea Canyon, etc., you’ll be able to see exactly where we are every 10 minutes. Yes I know that’s a little excessive but that’s what the Find Me Spot, personal locater beacon is capable of. Find Me Spot will either notify a prior arranged contact or the authorities for help via satellite tracking, from places that your cell phone won’t reach when you’re really in a pickle.

If you’re actually planning a trip to one of the Hawaiian islands and more interested in getting off the beaten path and away from the general tourists and public you would be crazy not to read the “Revealed” series of books on Hawaii by Andrew Daugherty. There is a book for just about every island. We purchased the “Big Island Revealed” prior to our trip and the guidance is unequivocally the best you can get. The video on the top of this post was shot at Honomalino Beach. If you don’t read the book you will most likely never find the beach, nor will you be able to witness the spinner dolphins in the cove in the early morning or enjoy the solitude that came with being on the beach. We were there literally all by ourselves and were able to snorkel enjoy the dolphins and the beach in solitude.

“Kauai Revealed” is so far just as impressive. We haven’t been able to actual view the sites we’ve researched out of the book, but after our success with “The Big Island Revealed”, I can’t wait.

The actual Kauai blog will begin on the morning of the 18th.

Enter the world of HD videos and screensaver software. I’ve been able to shoot videos in HD and convert them to corresponding formats to fit on the various media. The videos are now available not only as screensavers for computers, but also videos for your digital picture frames, iphones, or the various DVD formats.

We are now creating full length DVD’s for waiting rooms in doctor’s offices, hospital rooms and other medical facilities. The purpose behind this portion of our company is to relax the patients/ visitors. Trips to the doctors office are stressful enough but if the nature videos can take you away and figuratively transport you to a time and place where you would rather be then we’ve accomplished our task.

Unfortunately we are still in our embryonic stage but have approximately 30 videos on our website that range from Hawaiian Sunsets to Yellowstone Waterfalls. The library will continue to increase as time progresses with additional trips to Hawaii, the Grand Canyon and California, scheduled for the next three months.

So what is this blog actually about? Our blog will be all over the map.

We will write about various studies and articles written about nature’s influence on the reduction of stress as well as reduction of recovery time when hospitalized. Thus how our videos can help you by transporting you to a nature scene that literally helps you temporarily escape your reality and help reduce your stress in the cubicle world we’ve become accustomed to.

When we’re hiking to shoot the next big video, you’ll be able to track us on our, Find My Blu Horizon, web page which will allow you to see archive’s of where we’ve been and when we’re literally out at that time you’ll be able to track, real time, where we are and track our progress, literally every 10 minutes. We will also provide updates while on the excursions of what we did, where we are and what videos can be expected out of the current trip.

We’ll also review the trips, the books and articles that influenced our decisions to take those trips as well as provide links to the maps, google earth locations, so that if you would like to personally experience the sights and sounds, literally, you can use the same tools that helped us get to the point your video was shot from.

This will obviously be a perpetual work in progress but hopefully you’ll enjoy the trip, the videos, the information we provide and in the process reduce your stress level and Escape your Reality