HAWAII!!!

Kauai

We were invited to go to Hawaii with friends from Boise, Ryan and Bobbi Summers.  I love that we can pick up with old friends like it hasn't been 10 years since we've talked.  We were so happy they invited us so we would have a tour guide to show us all the cool stuff to see.  

When we got there, we immediately went to rent boogie boards for the week and went to the beach (Poipu).  We played there until the sun set, to get the full Hawaii experience of sitting on the beach.  Glad we did, because the whole rest of the week was go, go go and we loved every second of it.  Each night after the sun went down we would go to dinner and then home to bed because we were pooped.  

The next morning we went snorkeling at Beach house landing.  This was the first time we had done this.  We loved it.  There was so much to see, I was in awe.   After we figured out where our excursion was leaving from, we went to Salt Pond Park and snorkeled some more while the girls soaked up some sun. We then went on our boat tour to the Napali coast.  This is the most photographed spot in all of Hawaii and it was beautiful.  I had a blast the whole time, but everyone else was sea sick.  Kelsie had it the worst and was sick nearly the entire time.  We had dinner on the boat and headed back after this.

Each morning we were up early to get started and usually went snorkeling.  Today we went for an 8 mile, round trip, hike to Hanakapi'ai Falls.  Lets just express how fun it is to hike at sea level.  It was like we could go forever and not get tired.  The falls are amazing and come down into a large pool.  Ryan and I went swimming for a while before heading back.  After getting back we spent a long time boogie boarding, body surfing, and laying out at Hanalei Bay.  This beach was amazing.  The waves were a blast to play in and plenty of people to watch.  I got tangled up in a wave and cracked my neck on the sand.  Wow, the ocean is powerful and teaches you lessons real quick.  I stuck to the boogie board after that. 

After snorkeling at Koloa Landing, where we found the most turtles, we were off for more adventures.  We went to Wailua Falls.  There were about a hundred people looking from the road down to the falls.  That wasn't good enough for Bobbi and Ryan.  We hopped the fence and climbed down a steep jungle trail, using ropes.  In a few minutes we were all swimming in the pool at the base of the falls.  As Ryan says, he's like moth to the flame for swimming in a waterfall.  I think we swam in 6 different waterfall pools while there.  After this we headed up Wailua Canyon road.  This was our biggest adventure.  We were following directions from a guide book to a 'jungle hike'.  We wouldn't have come anywhere near it without the jeep we had for a rental car.  It was also a good thing Ryan knew his way around 4-wheeling trails because it got pretty sketchy.  We finally found a pull out and asked some locals about the trail.  We then floated down a canal on our boogie boards, through a pitch black tunnel.  I think it ended up being about 3 minutes we were in there, when we watched to go-pro footage.  The tunnel came out at the base of another small waterfall.  After we got back down, we spent a little more time on a beach.  

The next day we scheduled some tandem kayaks and paddled up Wailua River and went to Secret Falls.  Ironically, it wasn't much of a secret as this was the most crowded place we found.  The falls were pretty cool, but not as fun as the others we'd seen so we ate lunch (about 10am) and moved on.  We found a cool cliff jumping spot on the river and spent some time there as well.  We did walk through the Fern Grotto, but it was pretty lame.  After we went back, we went to go check out Queen's bath.  The water was very rough and was very impressive to watch.  Then it was to dinner, ice cream and to the condo for bed.

The next morning was more snorkeling and beach hunting.  We went to Secret Beach and Ryan and I went hiking down the shore looking for lava pools.  The girls stayed back and checked out the nudists.  I wasn't wearing shoes at this point because I had blisters from every pair of shoes.  We were hiking over lava rock, but it wasn't too bad.  We found some awesome lava pools and swam in them for a while.  After watching the water for a while we decided to try one closer to the ocean.  The first wave that came after I got in, took me for a ride.  I went about 10 feet tumbling over the lava rock.  After the spinning stopped we jumped up and ran for cover.  We had sat there for at least half an hour watching the water.  Ryan had put our sunglasses and shirts by the cliff that was 20 feet from anything wet.  When we got back to them, this wave had pulled them into the nearest pool.  Luckily we found everything.  We spent some time at Anini Beach and had fun counting all the Portuguese Man of War jelly fish on the sand.  That night we went to a Luau.  It was a lot of fun and pretty good food, but not the adventure we were used to having on this trip.

The next day we needed to find something new, so we found another waterfall to go check out. (We found out later it is called Ho'opi'i Falls) It ended up being my favorite place to swim because you could jump off the cliff into the pool under the waterfall.  We played there for quite sometime. After this we went back to Queen's bath to see if the water had calmed down.  Sure enough it wasn't even recognizable.  There were people swimming in places that looked like death 2 days before.  We jumped off the rocks into the pool and swam for a while.  We then went and spent more time at our favorite spot at Hanalei Bay.  That night we went to a restaurant that had an amazing view of the beach and the moon through the palm trees.  

Our last day we decided to have more of a driving tour and went to Waimea Canyon.  They call it the grand canyon of Hawaii.  I sure wish we had more time (and less blisters) to go on some hiking trails from there.  We found a jeep trail that ended up overlooking the ocean to have lunch.  We then went to the top where we could look out over Napali coast, from Kalalau Lookout.  Of course that wasn't good enough and we had to get closer.  We watched some people come back up and asked about the trail.  We decided to 'run' down and check it out.  Kelsie stayed behind on this one, she didn't want to trip and die.  It was an amazing trail and my heart pounds just thinking about it.  Most of the trail is along a ridge with a 3000 foot drop to the right.  It ended looking down from one of the spires on the Napali coast.  All I can say is wow, what a view.  We ran back up and headed to the airport to catch our flight home.

Tips for travelers:  It matters where you get the snow cones.  Just because you are in Hawaii doesn't mean that every place has Hawaiian snow cones. 

Costco is a good place to eat to save a lot of money.