Day 3

The weather our 3rd day in Kauai consisted of (you guessed it) rain, clouds, and rain...but we didn't let it stop us!!  We had a number of hikes that we wanted to accomplish while we were in Kauai...but most of those didn't happen unfortunately because of the weather.  However!  We accomplished (sort of) the Sleeping Giant:

Nounou Mountain

The beginning is between hedges of pretty awesome homes.

I loved how different the forest was from what we are used to!

Um, that's not rain...it was humid!

So we got to what we thought was the top, since there was nowhere to go up anymore.  Turns out, we didn't quite finish the hike and had slightly more to go up.  Next time!

After hiking, we headed out for our surfing lessons.  We went with this small set-up that doesn't seem very official, but it was super cheap.  The waves were not super intense, but the water was high and for a shorty like me, a little too high.  It took me like 3x as long to get back out to the instructor as the 3 guys doing it...not fair!  We both caught a few waves.  When we left, I never wanted to surf again, since I felt like I sucked in more salt water than air...but Steve had a blast and we decided to give it another go later on in the week...we had more success!

The beach where we surfed...please note, those waves look smaller than they are... at least the water level is deeper. :)

Exhausted

It then began raining.  We hadn't eaten lunch since our early morning breakfast and it was late afternoon after our lesson, so we ate at a Mexican restaurant that we'd heard was the best on the island.  It was good...the most fun was the people watching, but isn't that usually how it goes?  We then headed back south and checked out another beach, where we saw our first (but not last!) sea turtle:

Kauai Day Two: Stand Up Paddleboarding, Waimea Canyon, and Glass beach

Our second day in Kauai, we both woke up about 5:30am...which is 930am MST, so actually got a bit of a sleep-in.  But!  We didn't miss the sunrise-is there any better way to sleep in but still take advantage of the day?  Love that kind of time difference!  We headed down to Shipwreck beach for an absolutely beautiful sunrise:

My favorite thing was seeing the water turn the color of the sky-amazing!

We were by far not the only people with the idea of seeing the sunrise.

After sunrise, we headed over to Lappert's, an ice cream parlor and cafe to get a fresh brewed cup of organic Kona coffee:

Delicious!

One of the things we learned on this trip is that in order to earn the label of Kona coffee, a blend only has to contain 10% Kona beans.  100% Kona coffee is extremely pricey...for instance, that 16 oz cup of 100% Kona coffee in Steve's hand was $5.  For just coffee, no latte, nothing fancy.  Well, just fancy coffee.  It was very good and we thoroughly enjoyed it, but we didn't not buy any bags of Kona coffee, lol.

Our first full day in Kauai was supposed to start with an early morning sea kayak adventure.  However, there was a front blowing in and the currents/waves/ocean was unfriendly and so it was canceled.  While we were totally bummed, we rolled with the punches and instead headed up to Kalapaki bay to do this:

Nooo, this isn't me.  The few pictures we took are still on a disposable camera.

This was a blast - and so easy to do!  We were originally going to take lessons, but they were booked for the time we wanted.  We figured it didn't look so hard and after a brief run down on how to start, we headed out on this bay:

We only did an hour and this day only tried to catch a couple waves, but loved enjoying the scenery and watching all the surfers and more experienced paddleboarders catching the waves you can see breaking on the right of the picture.

We then headed down to Waimea Canyon to check it out.  We'd heard some awesome things about this place and while we had it planned a little later in our trip, thought we'd work in some hiking and just do it twice.  As nature had it, turns out the day we went was the best day to go before it started raining buckets.

Waimea Canyon-It's a long way down from here...

While it looks like you'll head over a cliff if you go forward, it's actually just part of the hike...very steep!  My chacos were super appreciated.

Another view of the canyon

After this hike, we headed down, picked up some Thai iced tea (yum!) at a little joint in Waimea, and headed to this place:

Glass beach

This is located in a industrial part of Port Allen.  Most of the beach is composed of sea glass.  We read that a long time ago, there were actually large pieces of sea glass, but because you are permitted to take home a bucketfull a day, it now is just full of small pieces:

Still interesting and beautiful!

We then headed to one more beach, Brennecke's beach, but it was getting pretty cloudy and so we just hung out for a little bit and watched the boogie boarders...no surfers in these waters.  Then we had an easygoing dinner at Tortilla Republic, enjoying the beautiful atmosphere and had an early bedtime (830 was our average...lol!)

Kauai Day One

What a whirlwind of a relaxing week!  I figured I'd take it day by day, since it feels like we fit so much in every day, even with poor weather that happened.  If it's one thing we've learned as adults, it's that rain happens and you can either let it ruin your plans or just suck it up and proceed (if safe).

The week that we left was pretty busy at work.  Busy where I'd come home and almost immediately fall into bed I was so exhausted.  Luckily, I'd begun packing the week before, so I didn't end up forgetting too much.  I did forget to print this "master" itinerary that I'd cooked up that had phone numbers, flight numbers, activities, itinerary by day, restaurants to try...and we didn't realize it until we were almost in Grand Junction the night before we left.  But...we sucked it up, saved the gas back home and just went with it.  As it turns out, I had most of it memorized anyways and any phone numbers we needed were accessible in my email, so wasn't so big a deal.  We dropped the dogs off at the boarders night before and headed to Grand Junction to spend the night, since our flight was fairly early.  Lucky we did, since it was snowing!  That's CO for ya...60 degrees one day, snow, then 60 degrees again.  Fortunately, our flight wasn't delayed at all and we set off on time for our grand Hawaiian adventure, from Grand Junction to a VERY short layover in Phoenix (love those short layovers that you don't miss the connecting flight!) and then straight to Lihue, the biggest city on Kauai.

People had been telling me that stepping off the plane in Hawaii was their best memory and that it was one to remember.  Well, for me it felt like stepping into OK in July, so I wasn't impressed, just really hot and sticky, since I was still wearing cold weather gear.  I did think it was pretty cool that most of the airport is outdoors, taking advantage of the tradewinds that the Hawaiians seem to love so much.  We collected our rental car and headed off to Poipu, where we were staying the first few nights.

We rented a suite in a house that was located right off beach next to the Hyatt from a website called airbnb.com.  We used this when we went to England and felt like giving it another shot, since it seemed a lot more affordable than the hotels I was seeing to stay in.  The suite in Koloa was great; private entrance, refrigerator, coffee maker (essential!), and with easy access to this place:

Shipwreck Beach

Our flight arrived around 2 in the afternoon and after doing the necessary run to Costco, etc, and checking in at the suite, we headed straight to the beach.  Little did we know, it would be one of the few sunny days we had in Kauai! Luckily, we soaked it up (with sunscreen, of course).  We were both sort of intimidated of the waves after watching the warning videos at the airport that essentially tell you to never get in the water, so we didn't get in these waves.  Instead, we just did this:

Please note, we were both this pale...and yet, we were asked a couple times if we were from the area.  Like somebody told us, the migratory two legged white tailed buck quickly becomes unrecognizable when they shed their winter coats and become the two legged red tail buck...  :)

Then we headed out for tapas at Josselin's, which was good but we had better food other places on the island.  However, it was still fun and beautiful.  We crashed early every night we were in HI since the 4 hour time difference and definitely got some great rest that night...after all, day 2 and Waimea Canyon was next!

Let the traveling begin!

It was always our goal when we were done with school and settling into our careers to do some traveling.  Living in a vacation state is such a luxury since we get to do so many things on our average weekend that others have to take time off, travel, hotels, etc.  It also means that when we go on vacation, I want to go somewhere big.  Well, that's me, anyway.  Go big or just don't do it.  We have several trips lined up on the horizon-most tentative, but one approaching fast!  In less than 6 days, we will be setting off for a week in Kauai!

Neither Steve nor I have ever been and we are so excited to be setting off to the Garden Island for our first Hawaii experience.  I absolutely love my job, we love Montrose, and Steve is extremely satisfied to be working from home...but we need a vacation stat!  I have been planning for months, lining up activities, finding where we will be staying, and researching restaurants (my fave!)  I plan to blog about everything we do, but will do so when we get back, since I won't be bringing my computer.  Here's a brief run-down of our itinerary (so I remember what to blog about!)

First 4 days, will be staying on the southside, Poipu, in a little condo 400ft from the beach.  On the docket:

-Sea kayaking

-Surfing lessons

-Crossfit Kauai

-Kauai Coffee Company

-Sleeping Giant Hike

-Snorkeling

-Waimea Canyon Hikes

-Barking Sands Beach?

-Beaches!

Then we will be making our way up towards the northside, the rainier side and staying on an organic farm (because THAT'S got to be an experience to remember, right??)

-Kalalau Trail to the beach

-Napali coast boat tour

-Hiking

-Paddleboarding

-Beaches and snorkeling!

We plan on taking LOADS of pictures and are so pumped for this trip!