As suggested here yesterday, I did go ahead and compile a little gallery of photos taken on our early morning walk yesterday morning. Just click on this photo to see the full gallery.

And the arrival of summer seems like a good time to share another letter sent to friends by the late-Carey D. Miller, in which she describes a 1939 summer trip to Kauai for a vacation in a cabin at Kokee. It isn’t the best scan, but it will have to do for now.

I was surprised to read that in 1939, it didn’t take a Superferry to provide interisland transportation for Miller took her car onto a boat departing Honolulu harbor at 10 p.m., and arriving in Nawiliwili Harbor on Kauai at 7 a.m.

After breakfast on the boat we climbed into the car and were off on the 50 mile trip to our destination, Kokee in the National Forest Reserve.

Miller’s brief letter is full of vivid descriptions of the sights, sounds, and smells that surrounded her at Kokee. Here, for example, is her description of driving to the lookout at Waimea Canyon.

It may be reached by trail from the cottage, but our finest view was one evening an hour before sunset when we went by car twelve miles down the mountain road to an excellent lookout and stayed until night descended. Alone and undisturbed, 2,300 feet above the floor of the canyon, we ate our supper and watched the cloud shadows in this vast, ruggedly sculptured gorge. No picture nor description is adequate to convey the impression of this canyon with its exquisite coloring. THe soil and rocks range through hues of brown, red and yellow; deep in the valleys, semi-tropical foliage contributes many shades of green; and over it all and in the winding distances a misty lavender haze blends the whole into a symphony of color. In the bright sun, in the glow of the sunset or in the short, swift twilight when the lavender haze deepens to purples and blues, this great silent canyon with only the faintest sound of roaring water in the distance, leaves one with a feeling of awe and the timelessness of nature. Geologists tell us it cannot have changed much in the last ten thousand years.

It would be hard to add anything to that!

Thank you, Carey D.