Here are some of the highlights of our trip:
- On Sunday we went to church at the Calvary Chapel in Kapaa and explored the the area around our timeshare at Kapaa Shores a little. The slow pace of life there is very refreshing. The highest speed limit is 50 and near schools is 15. There is really only one main highway on the island and there is no helmet law for motorcycles, which seemed very strange to us. And chickens & roosters are EVERYWHERE - a byproduct of hurricane Iniki.
- Monday morning at about 4:30 a.m we were awaken to a phone call call from our neighbor asking us if we had a cat carrier, where our important papers were, and had we heard about the fire. No, we hadn't heard about the fire, so we turned on CNN, but mostly it was talking about the fires in Malibu. The good news was that we saw an amazingly beautiful sunrise. Our unit was on the bottom floor and we could walk directly out onto the lawn which led to the ocean. In the afternoon, we drove north all the way to end of the highway to Haena State Park, stopping at the Kilauea Point Lighthouse and Hanalei Bay on the way.
- Our good friends, Jessica & Jake took care of our home by evacuating with our cat, some important papers, and pictures; we are so thankful to them. It was surreal watching the news...because the news didn't mention much about San Diego county at first and then suddenly it looked like the entire San Diego county was going to burn down!! Though it would have been a bummer to return and find ourselves homeless, we figured there was nothing we could do AND it's all just stuff anyway, so we figured we just evacuated farther than most :-) and we continued to enjoy our vacation! The evacuation of Fallbrook ended on Thursday.
- On Tuesday we took an hour helicopter ride around the island - it was awesome. We got a great discount on the ride, but had to listen to a timeshare presentation in order to get it, which was ok because they also fed us lunch. That timeshare was in Poipu. After lunch we drove around that part of the island some.
- On Wednesday we drove around the island to a few waterfalls and even hiked down to Kipu Falls. It was at these falls that we really wished we'd brought our suits because there was a great place to jump in. Rick ended up jumping anyway......he had a blast and his shorts dried pretty quickly. On the other hand I got a bunch of bug bites, while we were there. This was the day that we toured the Kauai Coffee Company in Kalaheo.
- Thursday morning we took a kayak trip up the Wailua River. There were 6 kayaks plus our guide "Hollywood". He was very knowledgeable about the plants, animals, and Hawaiian history. We rowed the kayaks up the river about two miles and then beached the kayaks and hiked about 1 1/2 miles to the beautifully amazing Koholalele Falls (Secret Falls - yea right!). We had lunch there and enjoyed in the water before hiking back out.
- We began Friday with breakfast at the Gaylord's Restaurant on the Kilohana Plantation Estate. After breakfast, we took a carriage ride around the estate. The driver, Christine, shared more Hawaiian history with us and the clydesdale pulling the carriage was Levi. Then we drove to end of the highway on the west side of the island all the way up to Barking Sands Beach. The road off the highway to the beach was dirt and bumpy. It took us about 1/2 hour to drive 5 miles, but once we arrived at the beach, we thought it was well worth the drive - the beach is incredible. On the way back we stopped in Waimea to eat. However, as we started to head back to our condo, the oil light came on and we discovered a huge puddle of oil :-( It actually was a blessing that we stopped to eat because otherwise we might have been stuck at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. As it was, we had to wait about 2 1/2 hours for the tow truck to arrive to pick our car and give us another car for the remainder of our trip.
- Saturday was our last day on Kauai and since our flight didn't leave until 9:30 p.m., we packed our stuff (we ended up having to get another bag to fit all of our stuff in - and we really didn't buy that many souviners!) We sat at watched the sun set near the Spouting Horn - a fitting way to end a wonderful trip.
- We arrived at LAX early Sunday morning - gotta love those "red eyes." Our home was still standing when we arrived home......it was a little smokey and there was soot and ashes in and around the house, but that's it.
