IN KAUAI WITH KIM!

Our initial plan was to get back from Kona, have our TB tests read and have cable installed, and then explore around Hilo some more. But since it was raining, we decided to get out Hilo and head to the northern most island of Hawaii, Kauai. Since Kauai is the northern most island, it's the most expensive island to fly to and you have to stop in Honolulu. That being said, it's totally worth it! The first day, Adam and I stayed by the pool and the beach at the hotel and just relaxed while Kim went SCUBA diving. She saw some great fish and turtles too. We stayed at the Sheraton right on Poipu Beach on the south eastern side of the island.

Here's the beach at our hotel The second day, we decided to be adventurous. Waimea Canyon is on the western side of the island and so we woke up early and began our drive. Once you are in the canyon park there are multiple scenic points you can stop at to take pictures. The first stop was awesome and the pictures don't do it justice.

Here's a picture of the first look out point we stopped at:

Here's a video of the view so you can get an idea of the magnitude.:

After stopping at multiple scenic points we arrived at the Waimea Canyon Trail Lodge. There were roosters everywhere. We never realized what pretty animals they are. When we arrived at the lodge there just happened to be 3 roosters standing on the fence in front of it.

Here are some roosters just hanging out:

We had selected our trail the night before, so once we found the trail head we were ready go. Here is Kim and me at the trail head ready to start....

The trail we selected loops up with another trail and leads back to the lodge for a total of 11 miles. This sounded perfectly reasonable to us when decided to do it. Starting out, we started to wonder if maybe 11 miles was a bit long. The terrain was rough. Lots of rocks and, inclines, declines, and narrow trails on cliffs dropping into the canyon and the ocean. Here's Kim and me looking pretty happy (we hadn't realized what a long day we were in for yet).

We also over packed stuff and under packed water. There was supposed to be a waterfall to frolic in (we still weren't over not being to frolic in the Hilo waterfall) so we brought our reef shoes and towels. Plus, we only had 1 back pack. So once we packed in our lunch and two big bottles of water, the back pack was pretty tightly packed and really heavy. We decided the best way to get a drink of water was just to leave the bottle in the bag and tip it over. If we took the bottle out every time we needed water, it would have been a lot of packing and unpacking. So here is the technique we used:

It was super hot out and most of the trail was through really pretty and lush forest. This picture has the water in the background but its hard to tell where the blue water ends and the blue sky begins.
A lot of the trail was over this red dirt. It stained our shoes and socks... you can see it in this picture of Adam and me:

About 4 miles into the hike we came to one of the most beautiful sights we have ever seen. This is where Harrison Ford was filmed in Six Days and Seven Nights. Only he didn't hike up here, he took a helicopter. Actually, when we looked down, we could helicopters flying around BELOW us. It was pretty cool. It's a little hard to tell but the blue closest to the cliff is water and then it eventually blends in with the sky. Don't be fooled by the "end of trail" sign. That just means the end of the particular trail... we were only about 4 miles in. These views are not for the faint of heart..... it's a long way down!

Gorgeous!

I should probably mention that Kim's family has this tradition of rotating a pair of black socks with colorful fish on them to different members of the family. It's Kim's turn with the socks this year, so her job is to take pictures of herself wearing the socks in different exotic places. Needless to say, we took a lot of pictures of Kim wearing these socks. She doesn't wear them all the time, just when she wants to take a picture. Here she is:
We barely saw anyone else the entire day. We were trying to figure out how to get our camera to take a picture of all three of us when we happened to run into another couple. We took their picture and they took ours.
Here's another spot we stopped to snap a picture. Sooooo pretty!
It was pretty much after this point that we realized that 11 miles was a bit much for us on this kind of terrain. The end of the trail was absolute torture! Our guide book told us there was a steady but gentle incline for the last several miles of the trail.... gentle our asses! It was a struggle. Kim was a real trooper and carried the back pack for a while during this time. Our backs were aching, Kim's knee was hurting. Every step was excruciating. At the end of trail, we saw this sign.... good to know AFTER our hike! It basically says we could die on this trail.

When we finally got back to the road, we still had to walk a little over a mile to get back to the lodge and it was all down hill. This sounds great, but in fact, it was even more excruciating than the uphill terrain. Kim started sticking her thumb out for a ride, Adam followed, but I was a bit more reluctant. Eventually a nice family with a van stopped and drove us the rest of the way to the lodge... it was probably less than .5 mile away, but we're pretty sure they saved our lives! We didn't get their names but if you're reading this someday.... thank you so much!

We managed to drag ourselves to the car and to get to Jo Jo's.... supposedly THE best place to get shaved ice in Hawaii. I'm not really big into shaved ice.... but here is Adam and Kim outside Jo Jo's.

We were pretty much out of commission for the rest of our trip. When we got back to the hotel we alternated between soothing ourselves in the hot tub, and drinking mai tais (we had made it back to the hotel just in time for the free mai tai cocktail hour). We did manage to hobble down the beach to see the really pretty sunset:


The next day we stayed by the beach again. We had late check out so we didn't have to rush out of the hotel. We looked pretty pathetic limping around.... it was a lot of effort to get up and down off of the sand! We did take a drive out to a place called Spouting Horn. This is where the rocks form a shelf over the waves. The water rushes under the rocks and spouts up out of the rocks into the air. It's pretty cool.... here's a video:


We had to pack up our things and say goodbye to Kauai shortly after this. A really pretty island with so much more to see that we didn't have time for. We hope to be back at some point. We still have 2 more days of Kim's trip in Hilo to tell you about..... hopefully soon!