2 years, 7 months old
Thursday, March 20: Today would be our last full day on the island and we had a chill but good day on tap. A bunch of the group had massages scheduled for this morning so we bummed around in the morning until it warmed up some and then hit up the pool. This morning was great for me because we left Barrett to fend for himself a bit in the pool while we lounged and read in the chair. Best.ever. He took an occasional break to jump around rocks and play with sticks.
We ordered some smoothies for a snack and I ended up getting a fish basket to have for lunch. I was over eating in the room and wanted something greasy. :) It was a good choice!
We decided to do some beach hopping for our last afternoon. We wanted to stay fairly close to our resort so we chose Kalihiwai Beach first. A certain someone fell asleep on the 10 minute drive but it worked out fine. We pulled right onto the beach under a bunch of trees and I rolled all the windows down and read a book in the front seat while he napped for about 45 minutes.
This was my view which isn't half bad.
This beach was in a little bay which met the Kalihiwai River and was pretty secluded. It was breezy this day and Joe and my dad got out our kite for some runs. It was nice sandy beach and we were practically there alone which is always welcome.
We wanted to try at least one other beach so we packed up to head just another 5 minutes down the road to Anini Beach. We passed a secret waterfall that apparently isn't usually there. Because it's the end of the wet season, random waterfalls will pop up. We stopped quickly so I could get a picture, of course!
Onward to Anini beach which is the beach that was just down from our resort. We drove down the mountain a bit and through the big Anini Park back to a very secluded corner. It was exactly like what you would picture your very own private island beach to look like. It was so small that you could practically lay down at the top of the beach and have your feet touching the water. This spot was SO calm.
The base of the tree is where the beach ended. That's all the wide it was. I loved it!
Three of the boys took snorkel gear ALL the way out to the sandbar to check out the fish. This was where they snorkeled earlier in the week and found some turtles. My mom and Rachel were freaking out that they were going to get swept out to sea. You can see how far they are out (this was even zoomed in).
This beach was more pebbly and authentic, with lots of trees and big roots.
Eventually, we headed back up and hopped in the pool again before going back to the room to freshen up. Our plan was to go to dinner in Hanalei to some BBQ place that I have since forgot. We needed to go to Hanalei to return the snorkel gear and some wanted to do some shopping so we had a very chill night out eating al fresco.
Barrett had to wear his Hawaiian shirt!
Prior to dinner, we made sure to set up the tripod to get some group shots just outside our hotel.
We got back to the hotel and got Barrett in bed and I worked on packing and cleaning up our stuff and doing laundry. It was another great day!
Friday, March 21: Our last day of the trip had arrived. We needed to check out of our hotel by 11am so this morning, we finished laundry (I came home with almost no dirty clothes!!!!) and cleaned up our food and chilled. Eric came over that morning and we found out that Allyson had been up all night sick. This would make for an interesting 18 hour travel day.
Before leaving, I wanted to head down the road to the lookout for some pictures of Hanalei Bay. I really wished I would have made this a priority earlier in the week because this morning was really foggy. Not the best conditions for pictures. Oh well…
Another lookout point looked onto some of the farmland.
We packed up and headed over to the airport. Allyson didn't make it out of the parking lot before throwing up. Our flight left Kauai at 1:30 and was getting to LAX at like 10:30 (time change made it only a 4 hour flight). The flight was mostly uneventful. I think Barrett slept for about 30 minutes and we watched more movies. Allyson only threw up one more time. :) We got to LAX pretty late and ended up sitting on the tarmac waiting for a gate for like 45 minutes. That was a real bummer. Our redeye flight from LAX to Ohare was pretty status quo. We all slept very little but managed to not have any major meltdowns. I have never wanted to be done with travel so bad in my life. We got into Ohare at 6am which felt like 1am for us now that we were adjusted to the time difference. It took a decent amount to get our luggage and then wait for our shuttle when all of us just wanted a freaking bed. Barrett was such a trooper but was really fading. We drove to my parents and stopped for about 10 minutes before getting back in the car to go straight home. Barrett slept for most of these stretches which was great. We were all so tired when we made it home at 11am central time.
It was a pretty perfect vacation in paradise!
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