Back on the Mainland

I'm a bit bleary-eyed as I write this post...We arrived home from Kauai this morning at about 8 AM after taking a red eye flight home last night. I can pretty much sum up the flight in 3 words: "Stupid Swine Flu." I mean seriously, since when have there ever been red eye flights where pillows and blankets are NOT available!!?? I guess since this stinkin' swine flu over-reaction (not that I have any opinions about the whole swine flu extravaganza or anything...) Anyway, I guess the hundreds of dollars we paid for our flight wasn't enough to fund washing the blankets and pillows between uses, hence their elimination from the flight. I also overheard that Alaska Air has stopped their recycling program until the swine flu "dies down." I'm not sure where that idea comes from.....anyway, all in all we really did have a fabulous trip (despite my ranting and ravings about the lack of sleeping supplies on the flight). I want to try and capture the vacation on this blog since I didn't keep a journal while we traveled so beware, there might be a few lengthy posts headed your way!

Our first 5 nights were at the Sheraton Hotel on Poipu Beach (the south shore of Kauai). We got this deal in the mail for 5 nights, a $100 food and activity voucher and a voucher for a rental car...it really was a great price all things considered but of course we didn't get a top notch room. It was across the street from the beach but it was only about a 5 min walk away. Our room was plenty comfy though with a fridge for breakfast and lunch foods. We had a nice garden view room which meant I enjoyed some morning sunshine and coffee on the patio as I watched the birds.

The beach in front of the hotel. The waves were medium-sized and broke pretty close to shore. Graham tried boogie boarding but the runs were super short because he'd hit the beach after a few feet. The sand was gorgeous, as was the color of the ocean! We really liked the south shore... Graham splurged on us and got us a convertible jeep--it's always been a dream of mine! We had to pay a few extra bucks a day but it was well worth it! I called it our "hummer jeep" because the thing was huge with 4 doors (they were supposed to give us a 2 door but it needed an oil change so we got the big one...) It was so fun to take the top down and ride around the island with the wind whipping through our hair! Silly us though...we forgot that an OPEN TOP meant SUNBURN CITY!! We got pretty burnt on our left arms/shoulders the first day we drove around in it. We learned our lesson after that.
DAY 1 (May 12th):

(We arrived late on the 11th so I'm considering the 12th our first true day). We decided to hit the road right away and explore the West Side of the island. For those of you who haven't been to Kauai, there is one main road that stretches most of the way around the island (a good chunk of the north shore--The Napali Coast--is a state park and so is only accessible via foot or boat, there isn't a road so you can't quite loop all the way around the island). Anyway, the west side has this big canyon called the Waimea Canyon that is actually quite colorful. The dirt is bright red (it stained our socks and shoes!) but then the canyon is also covered in lush green plants and pretty waterfalls (when it has rained recently). It took about 1 1/2 hours for us to drive to the top of the canyon. We stopped at many viewpoints along the way for pictures.

Once at the top, we did about a 3 mile round trip hike to a viewpoint. Unfortunately, the fog rolled in and so we weren't really able to see much once we reached the end of the trail (we were hiking along huge cliffs dropping down into the Napali Coast--maybe it's a good thing we couldn't really see the water below, otherwise I might have peed my pants and wished for a guardrail!) The hike was not the easy jaunt that the guidebook made it sound but I was pretty proud of myself for making the steep climb at 23 weeks pregnant!

We were a bit surprised to find some farm animals at the top of the canyon--what on earth were mother hens and their babies doing out in the middle of nowhere? Hearing roosters crow from the mountaintop is not what you'd expect! We later realized that chickens are absolutely EVERYWHERE all over Kauai. We saw so many baby chicks at every beach we went to. Apparently a bunch of chickens escaped during one of the hurricanes a while back and because Kauai has no predators (coyotes etc) to get rid of them, they've pretty much taken over the island. Quite comical....
After our hike, we head back down the long windy road to Hanapepe where we stopped at the Shrimp Station for lunch. Graham had their coconut shrimp and I had their spicy Thai shrimp--yummy!

That evening for dinner, we went to an Italian place, Casa di Amici. Our guidebook raved about the "sweeping ocean views" from the restaurant--I'm not sure what their definition of "sweeping ocean views" is but I thought that it usually meant you could SEE THE OCEAN...guess not. We wondered is maybe some new high rises had been built or something since the guidebook was published. We tried to order a few items to share but then the waiter sneakily asked if we'd both we trying the lobster bisque. I thought he was asking us that to determine how many spoons we'd need so I told him that "Yes, we'd probably both be tasting it." We were surprised when he brought us 2 bowls of soup, but figured he'd kindly split it for us. Nope, should have known...we paid $18 for our soup that evening. We should have complained but we took the wimpy way out and gave him a poor tip. Probably not the most kosher thing to do...but he was quite the trickster and we were not impressed. Although our first meal out was a bit of a disappointment, there were many more fabulous ones to come!

More later...gotta go wake Graham before he sleeps the day away and can't fall asleep tonight!