Adventures of a Midwestern Girl (and Her Hillbilly Hermit Tennessean) in Sunny, Sunny California

Steve and I just returned from a two-week vacation in Hawaii. It is my general feeling that it isn’t too wise to write that we’re on vacation on my public blog while we are actually gone, particularly when it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to deduce where we live. Just asking for trouble unnecessarily. So, I wrote several entries for our vacation while in Hawaii and will be posting them over the next several days now that we are home.

Monday 11/12

We flew out of Oakland on Sunday, the 11th, and headed back to Kauai. We had been on the island 3 years ago on our last real vacation, but there was a lot we didn’t have time to do, so we decided to go back. It is such a beautiful island that this was not too big of a sacrifice on our part.

One of the benefits of travelling to the west on vacation is that, with the time difference, we get to feel like we're sleeping in, but the clock still says it's early when we get up. On Kauai, we stayed in Kapa'a in an ocean-front, east-facing condo. As a consequence, I woke up early every morning and got to watch the sunrise without any alarm clock or other trauma.

The sunrise on the first morning was gorgeous, all pinks and reds rather than the yellows and oranges I normally associate with sunrise.

The guide book series we use as our bible on these trips to Hawaii is the “Revealed” series, henceforth to be referred to as “the book”. These guys always describe such gorgeous hikes, I thought we should go on a few of them. Bright and early our first full day on Kauai, we lathered on the sun block and headed out to the Kuilau Ridge Trail. This is a very nice hike up a ridge to a lovely valley overlook. It continues on past the picnic area into a lush wilderness with views to the ocean in some spots.

Unfortunately, the first part is also a little steep. I realized quite quickly that the 2.5 miles I’d been doing on the infernal machine (our elliptical trainer) in preparation for this trip was nothing like 2.5 miles on a real, steep, hot, and humid trail. And Steve and I are late- and mid-summer chickens, respectively. On the way up, I thought to myself, “Why did I think I liked hiking? I don’t like hiking. Who do I think I am?” We took a nice long rest when we finally made it to the top.

After the hike, we stopped at the Opaekaa Falls and Wailua River overlooks on the way back to our condo for lunch.

Our last excursion for the afternoon was a short hike to Kipu Falls, which drops beautifully into a large swimming hole.

Neither Steve nor I felt particularly inclined to use the rope swing to plunge into the depths, but Steve did climb down the ladder and had a nice swim.