Kauai: Day 4

2 years, 6 months old

At this point, I had been taking notes throughout our trip but I fell off the wagon on Day 4 so this will be mostly from memory (which is pretty crappy these days..)

Monday, March 17: This was a day that we turned a corner some, in terms of time change. Barrett slept until 5:30 (!) which isn't a whole lot different than a normal day at home so we were all happy. We laid around a while and got some breakfast. Our original plan was to head a little northwest to the beach and some could hike the Hanakapaii trail along the Na Pali coast. The weather on the north was not as ideal (catching a theme?) as we would like so we changed plans and decided to head all the way south to check out that side of the island. It took us a while to pack up after hemming and hawing about what to do and we eventually loaded up. I was really hoping that B would nap on the drive but I wasn't really banking on it. Thankfully, he did! On the island, there is only 1 main road that you take around the entire perimeter to get to each little town. There is some construction happening so it took us about an hour to get to Wailua for our first detour. We stopped off to see the Wailua Falls which is in one of the scenes in Jurassic Park. Barrett woke up the second we turned off the car so we hopped out to check them out. There is a railing and then you basically plummet to your death so while the falls were incredibly beautiful, I did not stick around for more than a few minutes. Crazy people were standing on the railing!



Next up, we headed to Poipu. We wanted to go to the shopping center first to get some lunch at Puka Dogs. It was featured on Diners, Drive in and Dives (maybe? or some show on Food Network). It is a tiny hut basically where you order a hot dog or polish sausage then a certain garlic butter (mild, hot, spicy) and then a special relish. Joe and I got mango and it was SO good. Some people got plain ol hot dogs and others got a mixture of various relishes. We ate al fresco and then headed over to Poipu Beach. It was HOT down here which was exactly what we were looking for!





It was spring break on the island so there seemed to be a decent amount of locals around. We had more than enough space for all of us to set up though. Barrett played with his sand toys and played catch with everyone.



We basically laid on the beach, soaking in the sun and occasionally dipping our feet in the water. The guys all got in but it was pretty wave heavy and the water wasn't near warm enough for my liking. It did feel good on our feet when we needed to cool off.



After a while, the group next to us left so we shifted our camp over to the shade as the sun was beaming pretty strongly. Barrett took it upon himself to play with the sticks and bang on a tree.



After about 3 hours (before we were too fried) we decided to pack up and head back north. We wanted to beat the normal rush hour traffic of people leaving to go home so we rinsed off and headed back. I managed to snag a front seat spot so I could get some scenery shots. Kauai is the "garden isle" so it's very mountainous and green. Pictures cannot possible do anything justice here. It's crazy how amazing the island is.










Kauai's tunnel of trees is a stretch along the south shore and again way cooler in person then in pictures.


After we got back to the hotel, we headed straight for the pool to relax for a bit before getting ready for dinner.






Tonight was dinner in with the Saxton's cooking. We had various kabobs, asparagus, fresh pineapple and bread. We just lounged in the hotel for the night. I had planned on getting a dessert smoothie from the bar but they closed before I could make it down there! It was another early-ish night in.