I realize that this post is really late in showing up.  Honestly, I had planned to type it while I was waiting at the airport in Honolulu but I just never got around to it.  The last post of any trip is always bittersweet.  On one hand there is still so much to say.  One the other, it reinforces the fact that your trip is truly coming to an end.  For our last day on Kauai, we decided to have a beach day.

We took our time getting going on Friday and then drove to the end of Hwy. 56 to Ke’e Beach.  This is where the Kalalau Trail begins.  We had thought about doing the trail, but this time opted for other adventures this time.  There was no parking to be had anywhere near the beach, so we checked off hitting the end of the road from our to-do list and headed back towards town.  We stopped for a few minutes at Haena Beach park.  The surf was up today and the lifeguards were telling folks to stay away from the surf.  We decided to heed his advice and comfortably sat on the sand and read for a time.  One interesting thing of note.  I’ve been to lots of beaches but today was the first time I saw beach yoga.  One lady seemed to think that performing various yoga positions in her bikini was a good idea.  I agreed with her.

After a time here we grabbed some food from Chicken in a Barrel in Hanalei and hit the beach there.  We found a patch of dry sand 30 yards or so from the water and made camp.  Our food was great until the tail end of lunch when the ocean decided that we were too close.  We saw the water coming and it kept coming.  Surely it would stop before reaching us, but nope.  We quickly grabbed up our stuff and sprinted 20 yards closer to the grass.  This would be far enough-or so we thought.  Again the ocean told us no and we were forced to even higher ground.  Eventually it was time to leave and after a few stops for souvenirs we went back to our condo.

Last time on island, we never made it to the St. Regis so this time we did.  We went for drinks and while the view was good, it truly wasn’t worth the price.  One cocktail and one beer was $30 and that was just not worth it.  While it was cool to watch surfers being towed into 30 foot waves, it couldn’t justify the cost so we left and returned to the Happy Talk Lounge.  Here we enjoyed a couple of rounds and made friends with a couple from California.  Soon enough, our day had drawn to a close and we had to go prepare to leave Kauai.

On Saturday, we cleared out of the condo, stopped at several beaches on the way, visited the ABC Store in Kapaa, and decided that we had time for a mimosa at the Lava Lava Beach Club before going to the airport.  All of this accomplished, we made it to the airport, checked in, and left dear Kauai.  After a short layover in Honolulu, we were bound for Atlanta.  At 10am, we were back in Raleigh.

A few things of note.  I truly feel alive when I travel.  I’m not sure what it is about being somewhere different that brings out the joy in me.  What I hope I can do is carry over this feeling when I get home and try to bring that joy out in my day to day life.  I need to work to find the happiness in the little moments at home, not just away.  I am even more in love with Kauai that the first time I came.  It truly remains one of the places where I am most content.  Margeaux and I continue to be great travel companions.  She is game for anything and we made lots of memories and I was encouraged to hear her talk about things we’d do the next time we come.  It was good to get back to my girls.  I did miss them.  Travel gives us the chance to do things out of the ordinary in extraordinary places.  But life, in itself, can be extraordinary, I need to seek those moments and not just wait to feel alive.  If I wait, my life might just pass me by.

Titling this entry was an easy one as you’re sure to see.  Given the fact we have driven lots over the past few days, today we decided to stay a little closer to the North Shore.  We had no real plans, we decided to just let the day happen.  As we were eating breakfast we thought that visiting the stone dam near us sounded neat.  So that is where our day will begin.

We made the short drive to Kilauea and checked in at the Anaina Hou Commuinty Park.  While Margeaux called her office I went inside and rented two mountain bikes for us to ride the almost 5 mile Wai Koa Loop Trail.  Those of you who have read this blog on previous adventures, might recall the day I rented bikes in San Francisco.  While that technically wasn’t a complete fiasco, we didn’t exactly win with that adventure.  Today, though, this activity actually quite pleasant.  We rode bikes through some mud, through a mahogany forest, past some mango trees, saw a few horses, and went to the stone dam.  The dam itself was dedicated in 1881 and was used to aid in the sugar production nearby.  Also, there was a rope swing.  I obliged whoever put it there and had about 5 good turns.  The water was freezing but it was completely worth it.  Margeaux wanted to walk a little closer to the river and found herself being sucked to the center of the earth by some form of mud creature.  At one point she came out of her shoes and then had to rinse the mud from her shoes and socks.  After doing laundry in the creek, we pedaled back to the shop, had an ono pop and a soft drink, and planned our next move.

We had worked hard on our pedal adventure and now we wanted lunch.  Margeaux found a great looking sushi place near the end of the road called Sushi Girl.  It meant driving through Hanalei and into Wainiha.  To say “into” might be a bit of a stretch for the “town” consists of a store (the size of my living room), the Sushi Girl (size of my kitchen), and a clothing shop (size of my bonus room).  But the food.  Oh man the food.  As the girl at window said (I assume she was Sushi Girl) it is easy to make rad food with rad ingredients.  I had a sushi burrito (several kids of fish with rice, corn, beans, and lettuce in a rice paper wrap), Margeaux had a spicy tuna roll, and we split a poke’ bowl.  We took our food to the nearest beach at Wainiha Beach sat on a blanket and enjoyed one of our best on island meals.  It was awesome and the view was pretty spectacular as well.

By now, it was shortly after one and I had read that Kayak Hanalei had discounted paddle board and kayak rentals after one.  To complete the paddle portion of the day, we headed back to Hanalei where we rented our gear and paddled up the Hanalei River.  It was a relaxing 3 mile or so paddle up the river to the pass under the single lane bridge into town, travel a little further into the wildlife refuge, and then paddle back down the river again.  Cool water and stunning views made this another unique experience.  So far to this point we had had a fairly full day.  Margeaux said she had places hurting on her that hadn’t hurt in a while.  As a reward for all of our hard work, we went to Kalypso’s for pau hana.  After a couple of rounds we decided to head home and get cleaned up.  One of the guys a the kayak place invited us to hear his band play from 6-9. Told ya-pedal, paddle, poke’, and pau hana.  Clear as can be.

We cleaned up, with Margeaux finally succeeding in getting all of the mud and sand she accumulated throughout the day off her, and shock of all shocks, left our place after 6!  We made the short drive to the Happy Talk Lounge to hear some music.  The place was booked solid and no one at the bar appeared to be leaving.  I did notice a solitary two-top table that looked so lonely. We asked the hostess and she said it was reserved for someone at 7:30.  7:30 we said, ha!  We’ll be long gone by then.  She sat us, we listened to a fairly decent group that consisted of our guy on acoustic guitar, a guy on bongos, and a guy on ukulele.  All in all with the drink, the band, the scenery, and even the company, it was a great way to bring an end to a day that had no plans at the beginning.  Today was about the little surprises that show up over the course of a day.  A smart guy once said “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”  Today life happened to us and we squeezed all we could out of it. 

What to do with a Wednesday on Kauai?  Stay close to home or head out yet again?  On the top of Nou Nou the day before, the older gentleman who was really chatty started to quiz us about what hikes we had done.  He suggested we do the hike that began at Shipwreck’s Beach in Poipu.  Given that we had not done this one and this seemed like just as good of an idea as any, south we went.  Knowing that the south of the island is typically hotter and drier than the north side, we figured we get as early as a start a possible.  For us that meant pulling out of Princeville around 7:30.  We navigated our way thorough all of the small towns on the island and shortly before 9 we arrived.

The trail that we were to take was the Mahaulepu Heritage Trail.  So we walked, up dunes, around ancient limestone formations, down the 15th fairway of a golf course, through an ancient fishing temple, and once I think we were in the jungles of Vietnam.  That was on the way back though, and  I think I may have strayed from the ill-defined “path”.  As I told Margeaux, so people follow trails, others like to make things complicated and make their own paths.  Admittedly, there were some neat views, but on the whole the hike was not the best one we had done on island.  We got back to Shipwreck’s in time to see the ocean patrol guys come flying up on a jet ski to save some guys.  According to folks on the beach, the guys had jumped off of one of the cliffs (I’m assuming for fun) and got stuck in the rip current.  Since, I am not keen on dying just yet, I really thought this was dumb.  But in the end, it made for a cool thing to watch.  From the beach.

At this point we went further west than before and ventured in to Waimea.  Waimea was the spot where the west first set foot in Hawaii.  It is also the location of really good fish tacos and shave ice.  We split a plate of fish tacos from Island Taco.  Grilled mahi with rice, cabbage, and a great crema and salsa combination was wonderful.  Oddly, it was the first time we’ve had seafood here.  After splitting the tacos we made our way to the shrimp station for some shrimp and rice.  Splitting plates was a real stroke of genius here and a good way to try some things while saving a bit of money.  From shrimp, we decided to have dessert and visited JoJo’s Shave Ice.  Here at JoJo’s one can get a shave ice the size of your head with pretty much any flavors you can imagine.  Over the course of eating mine, I got about 10 ice cream headaches (never learned to slow down), lost feeling in my face, and spilled some of the ice cream melt onto my leg.  Essentially, I looked like I had never eaten before.  Margeaux has forbidden me from ever eating shave ice again.

On a sugar rush, we drove back to Poipu to visit the beach.  Securing a parking spot, we called home before hitting the beach.  We plopped our stuff on the sand and commenced to reading.  Also, I commenced to photo-bombing a group of Japanese tourist taking selfies on the beach.  In my defense, they were standing between me and the ocean and that wasn’t cool.  I also tried to take my own selfie with a group of beach chicks but they were too fast for me.  Also, they were actual baby chickens.  After a bit we headed back to the car and started our drive north.  But before we departed, we finally saw our first seal on the beach.  So darn cute it was almost silly.  If this was my last time on Kauai’s south coast, he was a great parting shot.

On the way home, Margeaux suggested we stop by the Lava Lava Beach Club for happy hour and I thought this was a great idea.  We stopped, valet parked, and sat in on a comfy couch on the sand while sipping drinks.  It was sort of the first time where we had been waited on this entire trip and was neat.  Also, the beach was gorgeous and the couple on the neighboring couch we pleasant to talk to.  These were the first people we’ve engaged in conversation since we’ve been here, glad they were friendly.  Given the fact I still had to get us safely from Kapaa to Princeville, we left Lava Lava and headed home.

Exhausted, but not quite ready to call it a day, I pulled over at the lookout near our Foodland.  Purple mountains, green taro, and the Hanalei River made a spectacular backdrop for our close to the day.  Until we started up the hill and saw a huge full moon hanging over the palm trees.  All in all, nature was the winner here at the end of the day.  She put on a heck of a show to close out our Wednesday.  Once home, we noshed on homemade bacon cheese fries (gotta clean out the fridge) and did a load of laundry.  A fun day to be sure with more still ahead.

Since I had driven so much the day before, we both thought it would be good to stay fairly close to home on Tuesday.  One of the mountains here, Nou Nou or Sleeping Giant, has several hiking trails and it is only 30 minutes from Princeville.  To us, this seemed like a good plan.  We got going fairly early and left our condo around 6:30.  After a quick pit stop, we made it to the trailhead just outside of Kapaa right as the sun was beginning to come up.

Pulling into the parking lot, I was encouraged as we were one of 4 cars in the lot at that time.  So we began our ascent.  Up we went.  Each turn brought new vistas of Kapaa below as well as the Wailua River.  We chose to tackle the East Trail for we believed that might provide good sunrise views.  We were not wrong.  The trail to the top was 1.75 miles long and was not that challenging.  Steadily climbing the equivalent of 100 flights of stairs does tend to wind someone but the trail itself was not bad.  Upon reaching the summit we had a quick snack and made sure to take a picture of the “End of Trail” sign.  The summit began to get a bit crowded while we were there.  Families, people with dogs, and an extremely chatty older man from Minnesota joined us at the top.  Still, though, the views were incredible.  We took the same path down (much easier than up) and stopped for lots of photos.  We had to pause several times on the way down to let people coming up pass and it started to feel crowded.  Upon returning to the car, we noticed that now we were one of about 25 cars in the lot.  For Kauai, that constitutes a crowd.

Climbing mountains does tend to cause one to get hungry.  With Kapaa being so close it only made since to go there for an early lunch.  We ducked into a few shops while waiting for 11am.  Pretty soon after 11 we were back at Chicken in a Barrel.  Today, we split the chicken for two lunch plate, and I had them throw a couple of ribs on the plate.  Again, very tasty.  As today, was the day of limited driving, we pointed the car back north with the intentions of hitting a few beaches.  We popped over to Anahola Beach Park for a bit.  This beach was almost empty of people.  I think I counted around 10 on the entire expanse of beach.  The water was too rough to enter and the coral on the bottom would’ve made for tough going.  There were some folks camping there and the view they had was spectacular.

Once we had our fill of Anahola, we drove to Secret Beach.  Secret Beach is off of the main road, down an unpaved dirt road.  Then you park and you walk about .75 miles downhill to get to the beach.  When you get to the beach, you really have your choice of spots.  We spent the entire afternoon on the beach and never were within 200 yards of the closest people.  Surfers would walk by occasionally, but for the most part, we were undisturbed by anyone or anything.  The waves were fairly big and loud.  Couple that with the steady breeze and the shade we had, the afternoon was just about perfect.  It passed quickly and soon enough, it was time to head home.  The only downside to going downhill one way, is that it is uphill the other.  But no matter, we made it back to the car and drove home.

A quick dinner tonight and some lounging around brought the day to an end.  The time here is going quickly.  I kind of wish my last few days here would slow down just a bit…

There’s a saying here.  You’re supposed to “let Hawaii happen”.  What that means to me is that you have no plans, no time constraints, no real needs.  This is a difficult thing for me to accomplish because I so much want to do as much as I can.  Our plan has been to set out our plans one day at a time.  With that in mind, on Monday, we turned to the south coast with the sole purpose of going to the westernmost bookstore in the US.  That’s right, our plans were to go to a bookstore.

We headed out around 8:15 or so to begin the very long drive towards Hanapepe.  By distance, it’s not really that far, maybe 45 miles.  But, by time, wowzers.  On the way, we decided to stop by the Kauai Coffee Company.  They have a self-guided tour of part of the grounds where you can learn more about coffee from plant to pot (came up with that gem just now).  A fun fact or two-dark roast coffee beans have less caffeine and they have 4 million coffee trees on site.  Enough learning.  A big benefit of going to the plantation is the ability to try every single one of their varieties.  We tried several, purchased a few, and then hopped up on caffeine we ran to Hanapepe (actually we drove).

Hanapepe is a neat little town between Kalaheo and Waimea.  The old main street was actually the basis for the town in Lilo and Stich.  We made it our bookstore, Talk Story, and met the owners.  We bought several books that are more or less local.  It took us longer to get here than the actual time spent in the store, but that was never the point.  It was about the trip.  After placing the books in the car, we walked through town, visited some shops, walked out on the Hanapepe Swinging Bridge, and grabbed an ono pop (popsicle).  Margeuax grabbed a avocado sandwich and we drove to Salt Pond Beach for her to eat.  Hanapepe is known for its salt production-just beside the beach is where they farm(?) the salt, hence the name-Salt Pond.

By now, we pointed the car back the other direction.  I stopped to grab some lunch.  Just a bit of advice to the restaurant.  If I place my order, and point to the requested item, and you mess up the order, it is generally poor form to bring out a bill for the difference.  Good customer service would dictate that you just lose the 3 bucks.  Anyways, glad to have something in my stomach, we drove back to Lihue.

Another fun little stop was at the Koloa Rum Store.  We signed up for one of the tasting sessions and kicked around the store while we waited.  It was a good session.  They allowed us to sample light, dark, spiced, and coconut rums.  Margeaux and the others in attendance even had rum cake.  All of us were taught the proper way to make a mai tai.  So don’t worry local friends, I’ll be glad to show you how at our next get together.  Great little stop and maybe one to stop back at later in the week.

Margeaux wanted to get a chair for the beach, so we stopped in Kapaa to do that and then tried to find a beach where she could use it.  We ended up at Anini Beach.  A long beach with small crowds, this would suffice for the time being.  The ocean bottom was full of dead coral, so walking the in the water was painful.  Also, the water was cold.  But we were able to see some turtles and she was able to sit in her chair.  By now, after driving, for what seemed like days, I was fairly spent and was sort of ready to head home.  A quick dip into the Foodland for some spinach and we went home.

We thought about trying to hike to a nearby beach, but when the option was to ford a stream or balance your way across a fallen tree, we thought it best to turn back.  I didn’t want to have to call the girls and start out with “remember your mom???  Well, we thought a hike sounded fun…Back in the room we sautéed the spinach, threw in some day old bacon, sliced the pineapple, and made mac and cheese.  Honestly, eating this on the lanai with a drink in hand was a great way to top off what became a busy day.  We went 1 for 3 on beaches but hit home runs everywhere else.  I’ll edit this post later to add pictures (I forgot the cable in the car to upload the photos)  Aloha until next time.

Sometimes after traveling all you want to do is spend some time at rest.  On Sunday, we did just that.  After we got stirring, we had a great breakfast of eggs, bacon, rice, and mimosas on our lanai.  The day looked to be bright and clear and with that we thought a bit of time at Hanalei might be perfect.

We drove the short distance to the town where Margeaux was able to buy sunglasses, which are quite a useful accessory here in the tropics.  Since she was wearing my hat, I decided to get a new one.  Once we had acquired our needed goods, we parked at one of the beach access points with a bathroom and shower.  For the next couple of hours, we simply sat.  Occasionally, I’d get in the water, but mostly we sat.  The weather was spectacular and sitting was simply sublime.  Eventually, though, we got hungry and had to leave the beach.  Kalypso’s looked like a good option for lunch so we went there.

Margeaux had the largest half-order of nachos I’ve ever seen and I went with the taco appetizer.  Our food and drinks were good, our server was on point, and they even had the football game on the tv.  I made note that the temperature where we are was about 70 degrees warmer than where the game was being played.  That kind of made me happy.  After lunch we tooled around town for a bit ducking into the shops.

We brought our stuff back to the room and I suggested that we go to Hideaways Beach.  The beach is only about a mile from where we are staying.  We were lucky enough to find a parking spot at the very limited parking area.  There are only enough spots for about 8 cars.  The trail to get to the beach is steep, with a jagged metal handrail in spots.  Other spots have a piece of rope for you to hold onto while you try your best not to let gravity help you down quickly.  Once we arrived, the other folks were heading up the hill so we had the beach essentially to ourselves.  The plan was to try and stay for sunset, but tons of clouds had rolled in, and thinking that trying to hoist ourselves up the hill in dark was a poor choice, we decided to leave.  At the top of the trail the views were great.  Beaches like this one are one of the many reasons I love Kauai.  With a little effort, you can pretty much have your own slice of paradise to yourself.  As for Monday, I think we’re going to go to the south side of the island.  When we get there, we have no plans.

I just celebrated a milestone birthday.  The way I figure it, I’m probably about half-done with this whole living thing.  So as this birthday approached, I knew that I wanted to do something to make it truly memorable.  My actual birthday was back on November 23rd, therefore it seemed only fitting to stretch the celebration into January and have a Ron-a-thon.  I can’t take credit for the name though, that belongs to the best wine guy in the triangle area.  Celebrating my actual birthday with my girls in Charlottesville, Virginia was great.  We went to Monticello, visited a winery, and had a great dinner.  But, I knew I’d need more.  With that in mind, I began to plan my true birthday escape.  I knew I had to get back to the islands.  Not just any island.  My island.  Kauai.  The boss (heretofore known as Margeaux) reluctantly, I mean very reluctantly, agreed.  Plans were made.  Time had to pass.

Time passes.  The week of the trip approaches.  The weather forecast isn’t looking very promising.  The day we are to leave, the snowpocolypse is supposed to descend upon the southern US.  Raleigh is supposed to be ground zero.  Anxiously, I checked every weather website around to figure out when the weather would get rough.  Every one had the timing where we would be safely flying west when the stuff got real.  Hence the name for the post, escape.  We made it.  The day dawned gray and nasty and we were out of RDU on time.  Our connecting flight in Atlanta was flawless, and we settled in for our short hop of 4,500 miles to Honolulu.  I tried my best to stay entertained on the flight, but one can only watch so many movies.  I’ve also never been on a flight that was entirely during daylight where every single shade on the flight was pulled.  It was weird.  Soon enough (10 hours later) we were making our approach to the airport.  I tried to comfort myself with the fact that we just covered in 10 hours a trip to a location that used to take months.  So score one for technology.

An update on Honolulu traffic.  It is still bad.  An hour to travel about 6 miles to the hotel.  Moving on.  We checked into our hotel, The Vive Hotel, on Kuhio.  I really can’t recommend this place enough.  It is exactly two blocks from Waikiki and a super easy walk.  I booked directly through the hotel and signed up for their loyalty program.  That gave us the chance for a room upgrade and one that we got upon arrival. We were assigned room 2004 on the 20th floor with an ocean view.  We dropped our stuff and headed for the beach.  I had a real need to put my feet in the ocean.  Once that was accomplished, we headed to Duke’s at the Beachcomber and had a couple of drinks.  By this point we were beyond exhausted so we went to the room and died.  Actually, we just fell asleep.

A funny thing about flying 5 time zones away is that you wake up on your normal time.  It so doesn’t matter that it is 4 am where you are, your silly self thinks that it is 9.  So we were up.  I had thought that a trip to the top of Diamond Head might be a good way to take advantage of our early start.  We took a cab to the gate and were dropped off around 5:30am.  We were not alone.  There were 5 or 6 tour buses full of tourists from Japan.  Eventually, we two walkers, were joined by a college swim team on their morning run (silly kids, a cab would’ve been so much easier).  About 5:55 the security guard allowed the walkers a head-start to the crater and we were off.  Seriously, the kids started to run and Margeaux tried to keep up.  And she did.  For about a quarter of a mile.  We paid our 2 dollar entry and were heading up the trail in absolute pitch-black darkness.  Our only light was the light on our phones.  I think, that had we seen what we were about to do, we might have been a bit less enthusiastic.  Up we went.  First on a paved path, then on a path that was a bit more less-developed but every bit as steep.  We entered a 200 foot long tunnel (also sloping up) to some stairs.  Eventually, after a mile of walking steadily uphill we made it to the top.  We did the entire climb in 20 minutes.  A time I am proud of accomplishing  We were among the first 30 on top.  Those darn kids beat us and we were passed by about 8 people on our climb.  The best thing is we beat all of the tour buses.  This was crucial.  Go early if you are going to go.  We took our time coming down enjoying the views and stopping for pictures.

A happy coincidence was that the island’s most popular farmer’s market was happening across the street from Diamond Head, so we went.  We looked at all of the amazing offerings, sampled a few things, bought a couple of things, and then ubered back to the hotel.  All told, by 8am we had covered 10,000 steps, climbed a mountain, and visited local farmers.  A full day for sure.  We packed and headed to the airport for our flight to Kauai.  All was simple on this with no need to delve further, and at 1:10 HST we landed in Lihue.  We picked up our rental car (complete with chickens in the rental car store) and headed north to Princeville.

We decided that a stop a Chicken In A Barrel in Kapa’a was needed.  We stopped and spilt a plate with pulled beef, pulled pork, some chicken, and a rib.  Delicious.  They do their meats right.  In fact, we were so full from lunch we split a frozen pizza for dinner.  We got to our home for the next week, Wyndham Bali Hai, and checked in.  I politely listened to the sales pitch while waiting for the parking pass.  Margeauz called the girls back home (20 degrees and gross) and I picked up our keys.  We settled in to the room, went to the Foodland and got food (duh) and brought our provisions home.  There were free mai-tais and music at the clubhouse so we decided that sounded good.  After a bit we came home, cooked our pizza and hit the sack.

So far, my return to Hawaii has been great.  I actually slept to a reasonable time this morning.  Honolulu is still kind of eh.  I can’t wait to see where my time in Kauai will bring.  We have absolutely no plans.  We may go to a beach today, we may paddle board, we may have some lunch.  We’ll probably do all three.  Happy Ron-a-thon everyone!