Post wedding I was definitely ready for a nice vacation! Sunday afternoon after the wedding we all headed over to the parents house for a little lunch party and to see everyone off. Just a few minutes before we (and most other people) were planning to head to the airport, it decided to start snowing. This was no light dusting either, it was a downright blizzard! By the time we had finished packing and started driving to the airport, there was a good 3-4 inches on the ground and it was still coming down hard. Luckily everyone made it to the airport, unfortunately not everyone was able to make it out of the airport that night. As soon as we got there, flights were getting canceled left and right. We kept checking our flight status hoping for no change so we could make it back to Seattle in time to make our next flight to Hawaii! About half of our people at the airport were cancelled and forced to stay at least one more night in Detroit, the other half got significantly delayed and had to sit on the tarmac for several hours waiting for runways to get cleared from snow and planes to get de-iced. Somehow we managed to have the best luck out of everyone and only got delayed about an hour and hardly sat on the tarmac at all! To top it all off, I was actually offered a free upgrade to first class for the flight as well. Unfortunately there was only one seat available so I had to decline so I could sit with my new husband. We were able, however, to give the offer to the other guy in our row so we could at least have a little extra space. I hope that guy appreciated his free first class upgrade! One of these days I'll get one that I can actually accept too! We made it back to Seattle and got to play with the puppies for one night while changing out our bags from winter clothes to beach clothes!
Monday morning we were off to Hawaii! No problems at all this time. We flew on Hawaiin Airlines which I must say if I was ever going to be a flight attendant, I would be on this airline...they get to wear pretty flowers in their hair and bright colorful dresses everyday! Jealous! We touched down for a quick hour to change planes in Honolulu before making it to our final destination in Kauai in the early evening. After we got settled in, we threw on our swimmies to enjoy a little hot tubbing and the surrounding hotel facilities.
Tuesday we got a little more familiar with our surroundings. Our hotel (the Lihue Marriott Resort) was on it's own private little cove. Our views from the room were amazing. Across the cove was a beautifully green small mountain range and our side of the cove was a beautiful private beach for our resort. That's were we speant most of the day on Tuesday just enjoying the sun and beach and the fabulously expansive pool facilities while getting in a good read and making plans for the rest of the week. Turns out the island is so sparsley populated that in order to get anywhere it was pretty necessary to rent a car, so we made plans to do that for the rest of the week.
Wednesday morning we picked up our rental car and headed off to our first adventure, kayaking up a river to a waterfall hike. We kayaked about a mile up the river to a little landing where we started a super muddy hike up to a waterfall. All the info on the hike we read said you should definitely have hiking shoes and that it would be super muddy. I can't argue with the second point although I'm almost glad I wasn't wearing hiking shoes! The mud in some places came all the way up to mid calf, so it really ended up being a better idea to just go barefoot and get a nice little mud bath for your feet while you hiked. The final destination was about a mile in and it was a beautiful and huge waterfall with a great little swimming hole at the bottom of it. We stopped here for a quick snack and a little swim in the pool before heading back to continue down the river in the kayak. We made a few more stops down the river before heading back to the start just in time to miss out on the rain! While it rained, we headed down to Poipu beach at the south end of the island and grabbed some lunch on a beach front balcony. By the time we were done it was nice and sunny out so we headed down to explore the beach. We ran into a rather massice sea turtle taking a little nap. We assumed he was dead for a few minutes till he finally opened his eyes and moved his head a little bit. He later retired back into the ocean. Another interesting this about this whole island is that there are roosters and chickens EVERYWHERE! It's just a funny thing to see walking down the beach!
Thursday we explored a few more beaches on the island. We headed up to the northern part of the island making out first stop at a historic lighthouse. Apparently this point of the island is also used for bird and whale watching, of which we saw both! There were several huge humpbacks off the point of the lighthouse playing in the water. We also apparently saw an albatross flying overhead (only known because some tour group was oggling over it). From here we headed off to a nice sandy beach to relax and soak in a little sun. Again...roosters everywhere. It was perfect out and the beach was lovely, so we ate some lunch and enjoyed the views for a while. After a while we headed out to the next beach with a few stops along the way to check out some caves on the side of the road. We ended up at Ke'e beach which is the furthest beach north that you can drive to. It had a nice little swimming aread that we took advantage of before we settled in to watch the sunset. This is supposed to be one of the best places to watch the sunset on the island. While we were waiting for it to set we also got to see a few more whales playing in the distance. The sunset was really pretty and it was great weather out for a relaxing evening on the beach!
Friday we headed out for a day hike. Our destination was the Waimea Canyon. To preface this, I must reflect on my initial observations of the Grand Canyon...I was not impressed. Apparently I had a pre-concieved notion of what the Grand Canyon was supposed to look like, and I was highly disapointed at the reality. Perhaps it was because I didn't have any visions of what this canyon was like, but I was completely blown away and would like this to be my grand canyon! Our initial hike took us along the canyon with some amazing views, and ended up at a couple of waterfalls. It looked like most other people who ventured out to see this ended up at the waterfalls and turned around. We planned to continue on and I'm so glad we did! We hiked along the side of the canyon for a couple more miles and there were several places where the ridge opened up with great views of the massive expanse of canyon. I think one of the things that made this canyon beautiful was how green it was with a few waterfalls plumetting off the edges of it as well. It was amazing. We finished off the hike bath through the woods looping around to our starting point. After a day of rigorous hiking we headed back to the hotel for a nice relaxing evening of cold beverages in the hot tub :) Everything's better with a little umbrela in your drink!
Saturday was our last day in Kauai, but luckily we weren't heading out till late that night which meant we had all day to take advantage of. We started out with a cruise along the Na'Pali coast which isn't really accessible by car. Everyone kept saying how perfect the weather was for the cruise. Turns out we really lucked out by having great weather all week in February! The cruise took us up the coast pointint out several different land marks including where a few movies were shot. Apparently Harrison Ford has shot quite a few movies along this coast ;) When we reached about the end of this coastline, we headed back to a reef to do a little snorkeling. Luckily my old roomie, Sarah, had gotten us a little underwater camera to take advantage of our underwater fun! After snorkeling we also got to enjoy a nice little lunch on the boat and complimentary beverages for the ride back. On the whole cruise we also got to see quite a few whales as well as spinner dolphins off the side of our boat, and a few sea turtles on the shoreline. We may have also gotten quite a lot of sun. It was hard to tell while we had the wind in our face, but afterwards, I definitely felt a little crispier.
We spent the rest of the afternoon at the hotel in the pool relaxing before heading to the airport that night. We were on the red eye back to Seattle and got in bright and early Sunday morning just in time for a nice long nap and relaxing day before having to get ready to head back into the real world of work. It was such a great week with the new husband and felt so relaxing now that we can just enjoy eachothers company without having to plan a wedding anymore :)
