Kauai Day 3.5

Another day dawned, another adventure begun. Today was the day that we did the major things on Sabrina's wish list for the trip. We kayaked to Kipu ranch and did a zipline tour. After the kayaking portion of the trip, we hiked for a mile or two and met up with a tractor. Yes folks, we road on a trailer behind a tractor. Too bad I don't have any pictures of that. During the hike, we stopped at a few swimming holes and got to rope swing and drop in. The tractor dropped us off near the ziplines where we ate lunch and proceeded to do a couple of ziplines. It was pretty awesome, as neither of us had been on any that big before.

After our tour, we headed to spouting horn, which isn't quite as dramatic as some of the geyers in Yellowstone, but cool in it's own right.

Then we headed to Hanapepe for Art Night. There was a some good art, but the kalua pork was the highlight of the evening.

 Sabrina is already to go with her phone in the waterproof pouch (and hey, it even worked!)

 Sabrina was in front for our kayak ride. She even kept us going mostly straight.

It was incredibly green. Go figure, tropical island and all.

Something about the island is that the cloud cover was constantly changing, sometimes it looked like it would rain and a few minutes later it looked nice and clear.

 Reminds me of Tarzan or Swiss Family Robinson.

 There was some of Johnny Depp's sweat in that pool behind us. Apparently they filmed one scene in one of the Pirate's movie there.

Paradise.

 There was even a small zipline into a water hole. Sabrina was brave enough to try.

 Spouting Horn

 If you've ever wondered where all the phone booths in the U.S. have gone, they are in Hawaii. These things were all over, and they actually worked!

Took this picture for our book nerd friends. You know who you are.

Kauai Day 2.5

Day 2.5 dawned nice and early. We headed west to the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific", Waimea. We did lots of small to medium hiking while enjoying the beautiful scenery. We didn't take the advice to go clear to the top to start the day and ended up regretting it, as the clouds rolled in, though they provided a pretty awesome view as well. 

After Waimea, we headed down to Poipu to the beach where we saw some sea lions. Something not captured in these pictures was the sandbar (more like rockbar) that we walked out on to see the sea lions.

We then made it all the way to the North side of the island (lots of driving that day) to see the sunset at Hanalei Bay.

 These sorts of signs were all over the place. Apparently nature is not a curated boardwalk that is free from danger, who knew?

Here's some of the clouds that rolled in and prevented seeing the north side of the island.

 You really can't tell, but there's over a thousand foot drop right there (it's not shear, but it's still a very steep hill).

Lazing in the sun...

 This area of the island was likely the most beautiful place I've ever been to.

Kauai Day 1.5

It wasn't truly day one, as we'd flown in the night before and didn't get to bed until midnight or so (which was equivalent to 4 am MDT). After a late start to the morning and a stop to procure provisions, we headed to the eastern start of the Sleeping Giant Hike.  While it wasn't our favorite hike on the trip, it was still a good warm up. One of the things that stands out from this trip is that it really takes a long time to get different places because many of the roads are marked 25 or 35 MPH.

Once we got on the trail, it was a little confusing at one point which direction we should go. There was a group ahead of us that went one direction and so we started following them. After climbing up a hill that was clearly not the trail and passing by some Do Not Enter tape, we turned around, looked things up on the GPS, and headed another direction. I don't know what ever happened to the other group, but we never saw them again. Maybe that will turn into a ghost story some day...

 We ate at a lot of food trucks on our trip. They were all very good.

 I brought a gorillapod that I put my SLR on. It only last a few seconds before the weight of it caused it to droop. However, we got this picture before it did.

 I confess that many of the pictures that I'll be posting I have pushed the dynamic range to get the exposure right because the clouds were awesome.

Believe it or not, this is one of the least beautiful places on the island. Just puts things in perspective as to how incredible the rest of it was.

The first of many hikes on the trip.

That evening we played frisbee on the beach at our hotel. It was a hotwire special. The room wasn't nice at all (thought it was clean) but the outside area was great. And let's be honest, if you're spending much time inside in Hawaii, you're doing it wrong.

One post a year is pretty good, right?

(Brett here again, I'm too lazy to log out of Sabrina's google account) So, just like the post last year said, we're still alive. In lieu of trying to catch up the 3 of you that still look at our blog, we're just going to press ahead. Sabrina and I just spent a week in Kauai, and besides having spent waaaaaay too much on Mauna Loa milk chocolate toffee macadamia nuts, we went hiking, biking, zip lining, kayaking, helicopter riding, and more. Still working on the pictures, but if nothing else, the post for this year deserve a picture.

Enjoy. Who knows, maybe I'll do at least two posts this year...

Waimea Canyon, Kauai