June 18 - Long Trip Home

Our trip home was long…very long. It was a tour of U.S. airports! We started in Kauai at 8:30 PM Tuesday night (1:30 AM Houston time). The flight into L.A. wasn’t too bad, but this is where our cross country tour began. We had to fly to Chicago to get to Houston…sounds crazy to me…but we had no choice. We arrived in L.A. at 5:00 AM (7:00 AM Houston time). Our flight to Chicago left on time and we arrived at noon, at least we were back in the same time zone. We were scheduled to leave at 1:00 PM, but the pilot was over an hour late arriving at the airport….needless to say we were even later getting to Houston. We finally arrived in Texas at 5:15 PM…by the time we got our luggage and car we had been traveling for more than sixteen hours and we still had a two hour drive home.

Our vacation was wonderful and very relaxing, but getting home was so tiring we felt like we needed another vacation!

Lihue Airport (Kauai)
Los Angeles International AirportO'Hare International Airport (Chicago)Bush International Airport (Houston)...home sweet home.

June 17 - Last Day

We got up late and packed…hung around the house as long as we could. Then we headed towards Lihue for our trip home. We had lots of time to kill so we did some last minute shopping for everyone at home. We stopped by The Koa Store to get a few things for the boys, Walmart for a few other gifts, returned the house keys and then went to JJ's Broiler for lunch. We had a nice table overlooking Kalapaki Beach. We enjoyed watching people surf and the wonderful breeze. We spent a little more time hanging out in the beach park and then went to Poipu to do a little more shopping. We drove around and enjoyed our last views of the island. We had an early dinner at Duke’s…enjoying the same wonderful view we had for lunch. This is the beach we should have surfed at…oh well maybe next time.

View from JJ's Broiler
Duke's Barefoot Bar Views from Duke's
Chickens in the Walmart parking lot
Sign at the airport...Until we meet again, Kauai. One day... Someday...

June 16 - Larsen's Beach

We took it real easy today. Went to Larsen’s Beach and beach combed for hours. Found lots of neat shells and had the beach to ourselves most of the time. Spent the rest of the day bumming around Hanalei and just hanging out. Our last sunset wasn’t very impressive, but I enjoyed the view of the mountains. I will definitely miss this view.

Larsen's Beach

June 15 - Kalalau Trail

We started our day at the Wake Up Cafe with huge macadamia nut cinnamon rolls and coffee...very good. A good way to get us started on our hike of the Kalalau Trail. This trail goes along the Na Pali coast. We only hiked the first two miles to Hanakapiai Beach and then hiked another two miles up the valley to Hanakapiai Falls. It was a great day…and tiring (8 miles). The views were amazing and the color of the water was indescribable. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

View of Ke'e Beach from the trail
View of the Na Pali coast View of the Na Pali coast
The beautiful water along the Na Pali coast
Na Pali coast and first glimpse of the beachStream that you cross before the beachStan in one of the caves at the beachThe sea is very rough at this beachHanakapiai BeachHanakapiai FallsOn our way down

June 14 - Queen's Bath

Today was another beautiful day. We started our day by going to a craft show and farmer's market held in town. Then we went to Queen’s Bath, which is a large lava pool. There was quite a crowd there so we walked further north to some other pools that we had to ourselves...much better. We then walked south of the main path and found some other nice pools. We watched a few turtles playing offshore, but I couldn't get a good picture. We spent a few hours playing in the pools here and then went to find Secret Beach. The hike down to this beach is very steep. The beach was nice, but not one of our favorites. Not worth the hike down. The waves were large here. We found some more lava pools that were nice, but we liked the first area better. We did find some neat shells. I found quite a few small sunset shells (I think that is what they are called)…I was excited. They were little, but pretty. We walked down to Hanalei Bay for another pretty sunset.

A pool at Queen's BathAnother pool at Queen's BathView from Queen's BathWaterfall on the way down to Queen's BathView of Kilauea Lighthouse from Secret BeachLava pools at Secret Beach

June 13 - Snorkeling

The sun was back today….and we explored two beaches. First we went back to Puu Poa to snorkel. The water wasn't very clear and we couldn’t find a lot of fish, so we decided to check out Anini beach. This beach is a wonderful place to spend time. There is plenty of room for people to picnic and camp, plenty of shade and crystal clear water. We snorkeled until we got too cold to stay in any longer. We saw a lot of different fish and enjoyed ourselves, but we haven’t found anywhere in Kauai that compares to the fish we have seen in Maui or Cozumel. It was like swimming in an aquarium in those places.

Anini Beach (looking south) Anini Beach (looking north) A few fish at Anini Beach
Visitors at Anini BeachWe went back to Happy Talk Lounge at Hanalei Bay Resort to listen to music and have dinner with a view. We enjoyed both. The north shore of Kauai has to be the most beautiful place on earth…at least in my opinion. Heaven on earth.

View at Happy Talk Lounge View at Princeville Golf course
Another boring sunset!

June 12 - Rainy Day

Rain rain go away….

I know it takes rain to keep things green, but we have had enough today. It started raining last night and has rained all day. I guess we needed a day of rest. We hung around the house most of the day catching up on emails and surfing the web. We went out for a few hours this afternoon to drive around and look at a few shops in Kilauea. Not enough shops to keep us busy for long. Hopefully this weather will change tomorrow and we can get back outside. We can see a lot more waterfalls in the mountains above Hanalei today.
Even with all the rain we still got to go to the beach and enjoy the sunset. Maybe tomorrow will bring more sun.