Posts from — June 2013

“Almost home” is what I meant to say.

I type this as I sit in LAX at 5 AM on Monday morning, at an empty gate, awaiting our 8:15 flight home. By the time this posts, I will have been home for a little more than 24 hours … but right now, I just want to get there.

Red-eyes are not fun, not the flights and not the actual eyes.

And I do have red eyes, as I did not sleep a wink on the Kauai – LA flight. I tried but it wasn’t to be.

Middle seat for a 5 hour flight – Ugg!
Stuck between two people soundly sleeping…with my eyes wide open – Double Ugg!
Injured tailbone and sitting on a doughnut – Damn! (more on that later)

It was all worth it though. Even if the only good thing that happened on the trip, was seeing dolphins in Kauai. It still would have been totally worth it. Of course, there were many other amazing things about the trip, just saying.

I have SO many photos like the ones above – that I’m grouping together – so you can see a small sampling of them.

There were literally hundreds of dolphins surrounding our catamaran on two separate occasions. Wow!

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While in Kauai, we tried to see as much of our favorite spots as possible. One of those has to be Wialua Falls. There are so many beautiful waterfalls on the islands, but Wialua is still our favorite.

You’ll see people all over the islands making baskets, hats, little animals and the like out of palm fronds.  There was such a guy at the falls, but this particular basket with the little cricket attached was just too cute to not get a snapshot of.

When you’re in Kauai, you have to drive down the Tree Tunnel!

Kauai’s mile long Tree Tunnel is located on the south shore, on Maluhia Road, on the way to Old Koloa Town.

We also had to check out the Spouting Horn.

“On Kauai’s South Shore you’ll find the spectacular Spouting Horn blowhole, one of the most photographed spots on Kauai. The Poipu surf channels into a natural lava tube here and releases a huge spout of water during large swells.”

A new stop this time was the Kauai Coffee Company.

We took the self-guided walking tour and Dave tasted some coffee …

… while I was busy in the store buying and having shipped home a box full of burlap coffee bean bags.

On our last full day in Kauai we took a catamaran out to snorkel, look for dolphins, and to see the spectacular Na Pali Coast.

The beauty of this place is positively breathtaking!

Photos can not do it justice.

We dropped anchor here and snorkeled for about an hour. It was hard to put your face in the water when you had all this to look at above water!

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We arrived in Kauai on Saturday, May 25. We were on our favorite Hawaiian island for three days.

The first time we visited Hawaii was in 1988. Marissa was just 1 1/2 years old. Dave’s parents kindly flew in from Illinois to stay with her for the week.

It was the first time I’d been away from my baby, so that trip started out stressful for me. But, of course, the Hawaiian culture and lifestyle has a way of washing those stresses away.

The next, and until now, the last time we came was with the kids in 1998. Both times, we only visited Honolulu, Oahu (where you had to fly into from AZ, back then) and Kauai.

So, Kauai is where we feel most home at. We know the island well, where things are, and what we want to see.

All three of the islands we’ve visited have wild chickens, but Kauai wins by a landslide with the most! Kauai is home to thousands of wild chickens, who have few natural predators. Kauai’s chickens originated from the original Polynesian settlers, who brought them as a food source. They have since bred with European chickens that have gotten free from farms during previous hurricanes.

You’d think the feral cats on the island would decrease the feral chicken population, but we saw the cats lying around while the chickens and roosters strutted about them, completely unfazed.

I find the chicken a charming part of island life, but I suppose if I had a rooster crowing outside my window every morning at 4:45 am, as we did at our B&B in Hilo, I’d feel differently!

One of our favorite beaches on Kauai is Tunnels Beach in Hanalei Bay. Tunnels is about a 4-mile drive from Princeville.

With the backdrop of “Bali Hai” and the protective reef, you won’t want to leave. Most days this location offers some of the best snorkeling in Hawaii. I say most days because on the day we were there, unfortunately there were strong trade winds and we didn’t have flippers. I was tossed around like a rag-doll.

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Along with taking “The Road to Hana” the best thing we did on Maui was taking a boat ride out to Molokini Crater. It’s a beautiful location and you could easily go snorkeling all day.

Molokini is a crescent-shaped, partially submerged volcanic crater that forms a small islet located in the Alalakeiki Channel between the islands of Maui and Kaho’olawe. Molokini’s crescent shape protects snorkelers and scuba divers from waves and the channel’s powerful currents.

There were beautiful coral reefs,

orange pencil (two photos above) and black sea urchins,

and plenty of fish.

After about an hour of snorkeling by the crater, we headed out to Turtle Town. Stupid name, but a great place to see the Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle.

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