Thirteen things I will be doing for the next few days:

1. Hiking: through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world along the Na Pali cliffs.
2. Boogie boarding: in perfect half-moon shaped Hanalei Bay, and at a place called Barking Sands Beach for the sound the waves make as they recede.
3. Watching: the surfers at Lumahai Beach (also called Nurses' Beach from its role in the movie South Pacific ); the sunrise while I wade in Hanalei Bay and sip my coffee; the sunset from Kee Beach
4. Paddling: a canoe in the Wailua River (as they are quick to tell you, the only navigable river in all of Hawaii )
5. Eating: Lappert's ice cream, fresh pineapple, just-caught fish
6. Smelling: the incredible perfume of the plumerias and ginger; the meat as it comes out of the pit at the luau; the earthy scents of the moss and the ferns
7. Seeing: rainbows and waterfalls everywhere
8. Snorkeling: at Tunnels Beach and Kee Beach to see humuhumunukunukuapuaa and other fish
9. Swimming: in Queen Emma's Bath, a swimming pool-sized area hollowed out of the lava cliffs, which occasionally gets a fresh influx of water from a huge wave
10. Listening to the music: of the ukelele and the slack key guitar; of the hymns sung in Hawaiian at the charming little green church in Hanalei; of the breeze rusting the palm fronds; of the ocean as it crashes against the cliffs or laps at the shore; of small waterfalls trickling and large ones roaring; of red- footed boobies and albatross calling as they fly; of the lilting Hawaiian language
11. Forgetting: my job, my worries, that there is anything on earth except this paradise
12. Giving thanks: that I am once again in the place I love so much
13. Getting lei'ed --- if I'm lucky!
Aloha!