Dave, Alison, and Maddy arrived the 16th, with everyone else dribbling in over the next three days. We dodged a storm going out, and (as it turned out), the "bomb cyclone" once-in-a-generation storm on the way back (mostly, more details later). We'd rented a beach house with four bedrooms on the south side of the island (Poipu beach area) that was right on the water.
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Literally moments after we landed, Alison and Dave were excited at the sight of a rooster running down the road as they left the airport in a rental SUV. Maddy, who had arrived a few hours earlier, told us on the phone, "Get use to it." And, indeed, it turns out Kauai has roosters everywhere (after apparently have been scatter across the entire island by a huge tropical storm). Rather than spread it out, here are some of them in all their rooster glory:
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Day 1, we visited the beach next door, the "Spouting Horn" landmark, and admired the sunset from the balcony.
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Day 2, it was a drive up Waimea canyon for Brenna, Maddy, Alison and Dave, while Will and Carley slept in (having just arrived from their own version of the 24 hour travel day). A huge storm was blowing in, and while it hadn't hit true gale conditions, the entire island was socked in, and the higher elevations where buried in clouds. But while the scenery was obscured, it was still a fun drive.
 This is actually the Hanapepe Valley Lookout on the way to Waimea Canyon |
 Don't we look happy! |
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 The Kokee Natural History Museum |
 Trifle foggy! |
 Had more of a view on the way down |
 Almost at Ellee! |
 Storm was hitting hard by the time we returned |
 Rain, intermittent .. wind, constant! |
 Lot of debris falling from the trees |
 But we still went shopping at the local mall! |
Day 3 the weather had cleared up, but we had to pick up Emily from the airport (she was a bridesmaid at a wedding on the big Island and was joining us a bit late). Alison, Noah and I went early enought to visit the Kaua'i Museum, which was small and had a number of interesting artifacts but displayed them without enough context, leaving you with the vague impression that the Polynesian settlers that populated the islands spent most of their time trying to conquer each other, with short periods of peace where they played simple games or boxed (with a side note that during boxing "many people died.") Otherwise, the history of the Islands pretty much started with arrival of Captain Kirk ... I mean, Cook ... in 1778. That ushered in a lot of Japanese settleres who may or may not have been on the big sugar plantations that went out of business for some reason and now the islands produce a lot of world class surfers.
Something like that.
So we did a little shopping as well, and the countryside was beautiful and lush everywhere we went, and the sunset was amazing. Plus nothing wrong with hanging out in the beach house. So it was still a pretty awesome day.
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 A lot of interesting vegitation |
 Like these big flat trees that made it look like Africa | |
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Day 4: In the morning Maddy, Brenna, Alison and Dave did Maha'ulepu Heritage Trail: Shipwreck Beach to Punahoa point hike. It's theoratically about 4 miles, but we did some side jaunts to Makauwaki Cave, the Giant Land Tortoise habitat, and Punahoa point bearch so probably more around five miles. The rest of the gang went shopping and/or hung out at the house. In the afternoon, we all did the Kauai Safari Rum Tour, driving around in a big open safari truck to see the beautiful 105-acre Kilohana Plantation. There were plants, there were farm animals, and most of all, there was rum. The tour ended at The Plantation House by Gaylords, where we went to the bar and had more rum. We ended up having dinner (and wine) there as well.
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Day 5: Noah, Emily, Carley and Will went golfing while Alison, Dave, Maddy and Brenna went to explore Hanapepe (home of Lilo and Stitch!), where we crossed the hanging bridge to get to the other side. Sandy beach was near by, so we stopped there first. On our return to the house, the other kids (young adults) were still out, so Dave went snorkeling on the nearby beach (as it turned out, the only skorkeling anyone did!). We all gathered together again for dinner at Keoki's paradise, which served up pina coladas in carved out pineapples.
This is a sunrise instead of a sunset!
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Our final day, we did the half day Kauai Sea Tour catamaran along the west side of the island, hugging the Na Pali coast (famous for being the actual background for "Jurassic Park"). Dophins, whales, sea turtles and other sea life abound, but the previous storms had churned up the water to the point where they cancelled the snorkling part of the trip. But we did see the most vivid rainbow any of us have every witnessed!
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We returned to open presents:
And then had one last sunset from the deck before leaving to take a red eye out of Lithe airport. The "Bomb Cyclone" was hitting the US at the time, and our connecting flight from Pheonix to Boston was cancelled, but we managed to reroute through Philadelphia. That was almost a disaster because the flight from Philly to Boston was a little late, then boarded ... and sat on the runway for two hours due to a sticky fuel gauge. It finally freed itself when we hit a bump pulling back into the airport, so we ended up getting to Boston, just seven hours after the original schedule (which made it just over 24 hours flying back from Kauai).
All in all, a great trip!
