30th Anniversary Vacation – Kauai (pt 3)

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The next day after breakfast we drove to the Kauai Plantation, where we had scheduled a four hour tour which included riding on the plantation’s railroad, feeding some of the animals living there, lunch, and a hike where we tasted a multitude of different fruits (and picked some to take back to the condo). I struck up a conversation with Lou the engineer, and hearing that I worked in the industry, he invited me to ride with him in the 1948 GE locomotive for the return leg of the trip.

Kauai Plantation Railroad

The following day we instead directed ourselves to the north side of the island. Our first stop was to see the beautiful and photogenic Kilauea Lighthouse.

Kilauea Lighthouse

We continued on until we could drive no further — the highway was closed to all but locals due to landslides from last year’s heavy rainstorms. It happened to be right at Hanalei Beach Park on Hanalei Bay. It was very pleasant walking along the bay thanks to the nearby mountain cloud cover shading us from the direct sun.

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30th Anniversary Vacation – Kauai (pt 2)

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Upon our arrival to Kauai, we drove the short distance north to our Kapa’a condo, and soon learned the “Kapa’a Crawl” — named after the unfortunate traffic pattern in the area. The weather was a bit overcast and breezy, and we were happy to find groceries and eating establishments just across the street, so we did a little shopping and set up our home away from home.

The next morning we made our first outing on Kauai, driving the hour or so to the 18-mile scenic route along Waimea Canyon. Two words: Oh wow!

Waimea Canyon, with Waipo’o Falls

There were several places where one could pull off the road and view the huge vista stretching from the north to the south, with most featuring the Waipo’o Falls somewhere in view. We went to the very end to Kalalau Lookout, but the cloud cover just gave us ghostly glimpses of the tops of the landscape on either side.

At this point I should probably mention the ubiquitous fowl of Kauai: chickens! There are banty chickens anywhere you look on the island: at high elevations, at the beaches, along roads, in parking lots — you name it. You can read about the chickens and Hurricane Iniki here.

30th Anniversary Vacation – Hawai’i redux (pt 1)

As our 30^th anniversary approached, and as Southwest Airlines rumors spread of flights to Hawaii in the future, Mo began planning a reprise trip of our earlier visit the Hawaiian islands. In this case, we beat Southwest there.

While our trip five years ago was to the Big Island and Oahu, this time around we are returning to the Big Island and then visiting Kauai for the first time. After a rough flight out, we arrived in Kona, picked up our rental car, and checked in to our condo. We already knew the area a bit as it was only a couple blocks from the Royal Kona Resort where we had stayed previously.

the view from our Kona condo

We had a bit of déjà vu when again my tour of the summit of Mauna Kea and evening stargazing was thwarted by overcast/bad weather.