Hawaii, day 4 and 5

I think days 4 and 5 were my favorite days.  Although, it really is hard to pick a favorite day.  I loved every day and every bit of our time in Kauai!  One thing I really liked (and this is going to sound crazy…) is how early our days started.  Hawaii is 5 hours behind Texas time.  Our first day we were up at 5:30, and by our last day, we managed to sleep until 7:30.  But the mornings are so beautiful and peaceful and perfect there.  Sleeping until 11:00 would feel like such a waste of a day!  It was wonderful to get up, wander to our little breakfast beach hut and eat something delicious and drink coffee with an early morning ocean view.  It was perfection.

Wednesday morning was very relaxing and slow paced.  Derek wanted to watch the World Cup game (which started at 8:30 a.m. Hawaii time) so that’s exactly what we did at an outdoor area at the resort.  Well, he watched, I sort of watched and edited pics/played on the internet, etc.  That morning, we also had to go to a timeshare presentation.  We got an incredible deal on our hotel, but we had to go to a 2 hour presentation/tour/sales pitch.  It was really no big deal…it wasn’t high pressure and it was definitely worth the time considering the amazing deal we got on a hotel that is usually about $300 per night!

We went to lunch at a Mexican food restaurant called Monico’s that one of the hotel employees recommended to us.  It did not disappoint!  Derek and I both had the fish tacos, and they were delicious!

Finally, it was time for our main event of the day: hiking in Waimea Canyon.  It was wonderful!  Okay, I’ll admit that I did moan and groan just a bit on our way back up.  From where we started our hike, we actually went (mostly) down first to some waterfalls, which meant the hard part happened getting back to the car.  But despite the tiniest bit of grumbling (my thighs were burning, okay?!), it really was great.  I haven’t hiked in a very long time, and I had forgotten how much I enjoy it.

The pictures really don’t do the views justice.  It’s so enormous!

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Here we are at the waterfalls.  I certainly had something bigger than this in mind:

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Oh, you don’t see it?  Look just behind my shoulder.  Yup, there it is.  The waterfall.  There was one more about 100 feet downstream, but it was just about the same size trickle.  I guess Kauai is in a drought and there is usually more water than this.  In fact, my Kauai guide book suggested swimming in the refreshing pool of the waterfall.  I supposed I could have dipped my feet in the pool, but it was tiny and certainly not big enough for swimming!

We stopped for dinner on our way back to the hotel, and I think we were both in bed asleep before 9:30.  We are getting so old!

Thursday morning was another bright and early morning.  We had a helicopter tour of the island scheduled for 9:00.  It was the coolest thing ever.  It’s pricey, but it was worth every penny!  Seriously, I had my doubts about it, but it was so fun and Kauai is just so gorgeous.  I think the helicopter tour was the highlight of the whole trip for me.

Again, the pictures don’t really do it justice.  An aerial view of Kauai is like nothing I have ever seen before.

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I know we look cool with our safety fanny packs on.

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After the tour, we decided to head to another beach area of the island called Poipu.  I had gotten really sunburned on Monday, but I really wanted to spend some time in Poipu and my burn was almost healed.  We slathered up in spf 70 and mostly stayed in the shade.  After awhile, we paddled out to do some boogie boarding only have a very nice local advise us to head to another part of the beach unless we had flippers and were serious boarders.  The waves were breaking into the rocks, and without flippers, it would be hard to even get back to shore.  He wasn’t kidding!  It probably took us twice as long to get back to shore as it had taken us to get out there.  Live and learn.  We walked down the beach a bit to an area packed with boogie boarders.  The waves were great!  I got several really fun ones.  Then I got tossed off one, head over heels.  Then I got thrown around again.  And finally, I almost collided with someone and had my third rush of salt water up the nose.  I was done after that!  I would love to go back to that spot in the morning, before it gets all crowded!

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Doesn’t it look like a postcard?!  Beautiful.

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I am home now, and I’m going to try and do my best to blog about our last day.  And I also want to write a few posts with the specifics of where we ate and what we did.  I think I also need to dedicate a whole post to the kind people we met along the way.  Y’all might get sick of reading about Hawaii!  Right now I am going to go peek in on my babies (oh, how I missed doing that while I was gone!  It’s so good to be with  them again.) and then try and get some sleep.   I’ve got to get back on Texas time!

7 Replies to “Hawaii, day 4 and 5”

  1. So glad you got to go to Hawaii! How fun! Wes’s parents took us there a couple of years ago. Definitely one of the best places I have ever been too. The girls loved it too. We took a catamaran tour of the Na Pali coast and went to the Waimea Canyon, too.

  2. Wonderful pics and it looks amazing.

    Your caption under the kissing picture made me wonder what you were talking about! lol. I realized you were talking about the waterfall later.

  3. I’m glad you had so much fun in Hawaii, and your view was great from your room! We had to trade a helicopter ride for the room with the view. Maybe we’ll get back some day and make it on that ride.

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