Goodbye Kauai

Our last day in Kauai came and we were not ready to leave. This vacation was seriously the best. I have never traveled somewhere and in the end not felt ready to go home. No matter how much fun we had before I was always ready and a little relieved to be heading home. Not from Kauai, it was so perfect I never wanted to leave. We packed up our little cottage. in the morning. It took a while since we had unpacked all our stuff. Our cottage really felt like it was our little home away from home.

We built our plan for our final day throughout the trip. We don't like to go to the beach on a day we will fly. We hate being all sandy and salty on our way home. During the week as we traveled around the island, we made a list of all the places that looked interesting, but which we didn't have time for on our other days. Our first stop was Yumi's, which is a local restaurant in Waimea. We heard they had a good breakfast and we were not disappointed. It took a long time for them to make our omelets, but that is part of the charm of Hawaii - everything is on island time and is so relaxed.

We visited two other sites in Waimea. One is the Captain Cook monument. We learned that Waimea was the first place Captain Cook landed in the Hawaiian islands. In the middle of town, they erected a monument and a statue commemorating the event. Much of how Hawaii is today, for better and worse, is attributable to Captain Cook's landing in Waimea. The second site was an old Russian fort right at the edge of Waimea. We learned that the last King of Kauai liked to fly a Russian flag from the fort to keep the Americans off balance. Today it is basically a big pile of rocks in roughly a large rectangular shape. It is built right near the beach and from the fort, you can see the forbidden island. We stopped for a few minutes, but there really wasn't much to see.

We stopped by Hanapepe because we saw lots of signs advertising "Hawaii's biggest small-town main street." There was supposed to be a bunch of art and shopping. It was a little disappointing. We did find a swinging bridge that was pretty cool and we bought a Christmas tree ornament.

Next, we stopped by the Kauai coffee plantation. We don't drink coffee, but it was interesting to learn about how they cultivate the land in Kauai. We enjoyed walking among the coffee plants. There was a lot of beautiful vegetation on the plantation as well.

As we continued our loop around the island we stopped by Gaylord's. We ate dinner there the night before and wanted to see it in the daytime. There was a lot of shopping there as well. We bought a few small gifts to take home with us. The old plantation was beautiful.

Next, we drove over to Wailua falls. This is one of the most beautiful waterfalls on the island. It is a large waterfall that you can see from the road. It was one of the most unique waterfalls I have ever seen.

We drove over to the Kilauea lighthouse. We tried to stop here on the second day of our trip, but it was closed. Today it was open. When we arrived we found out it cost $10 to go out to the lighthouse. Fortunately, our national parks pass got us free admission. I love our national parks pass - it has been very handy. Walking around the lighthouse was nice. There were lots of cool birds and we even saw a monk seal taking a nap on some rocks - it was awesome.

We stopped at a local market on our way back to Lihue and got lunch plates. I got some Kailua pork and Alison got teriyaki chicken. Lunch plates are my favorite meal in Hawaii. They are so tasty.

The highlight of our day was a helicopter tour. We went back on forth on whether or not we wanted to do one on this trip. They are a little expensive. Let me tell you it was well worth the money. We went with Safari helicopter tours because they had great reviews. They required us to check in really early (2:45pm for a 3:30pm flight). We arrived and got all checked in. Then Sharrell (the ground crew) came out to entertain us. He was pretty weird and had the craziest toupee - it was out of control. His job was really to stall until the helicopter was ready for us to leave. He was pretty funny, but it got old really fast. After a few minutes, we drove out to the landing pad and watched our helicopter land from its last flight. After a brief safety briefing, they loaded us up. The tour was amazing. Alison and I have never flown in a helicopter before. Our pilot was a local, who served in the military, and now flies helicopter tours. He told us about the island and himself as we flew. we saw the Na Pali coast one last time. We were able to see it by land, sea, and air on this trip. The views of the island were truly stunning. The pictures do not even look real and don't even do the views justice. This was the perfect way to wrap up our trip.

Jurassic Park falls 

After the helicopter tour, we headed back to Kapaa for a walk along the beach. We discovered the best shave ice on the island. They used fresh fruit for all of their dips and it was heavenly. It was so good. We just wish we would have found it earlier. We also found a swing by the ocean and we just enjoyed our last few moments in this beautiful place. For dinner, we went to the Mermaid Café, which was a great fresh local place.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Kauai.

This was our favorite vacation. We truly treated it like a second honeymoon. We did everything we wanted to do and we reveled in the amount of time we were able to spend together. For one week we spent every waking moment together and it was wonderful. Kauai was a dream. It was so relaxing. We learned that there is island time and then there is Kauai time and it is even more laid back. We also realized it gets late early here, which was perfect because we turned in early every day and got up early every morning. We shared an adventure every day and we relaxed by the beach every day. There are not many things in life more wonderful than that kind of day.

We cannot wait to come back and do it all again.