In November, Jim and I went on our 15-year anniversary trip to Kauai that was postponed in March/April 2020. We were so grateful that my parents stayed with our kids!
We were able to get the daily weather from this weather station.
On our first morning, Jim went for a long run. He left before sunrise. Here is an old car he came across.
I left a little later than Jim and ran a shorter distance to the beach to watch the sunrise.
Then, I ran along the road to meet up with Jim for the end of his run. I had many roosters and peacocks cross my path.
There's Jim running on the winding road.
After checking out of our hotel (we stayed in a place close to the airport the first night), we got a ride with an employee to the west entrance to the Sleeping Giant Trail.
It was incredibly muddy. Some hikers who were finishing their hike gave us their walking sticks. I hadn't realized how helpful they would be. We were glad to have them!
The first part of the trail was through beautiful, tall trees.
There were several lookouts when we got to the top of the mountain.
We climbed out onto the "Giant's chin."
We hiked down the east side of the trail and walked to Wailua and had lunch. Then, we took a bus and an Uber to our resort near Poipu. The view from our room was incredible!
The next day, Jim and I did a hike that started at Shipwreck Beach. We climbed a tall cliff at the start of the hike.
We hiked about 2 miles along the coast.
We hiked to Mahaulepu Beach.
Before our 2 mile return hike, we walked along the Makauwahi Cave Trail. I did not get any pictures, but it was a nice little trail. In addition to the cave, we saw some large tortoises.
Back at the resort, we sat in one of the hot tubs as the sun set.
That night we went to Brennecke's for dinner to celebrate Jim's birthday.
The next day we drove to
Waimea Canyon and Kōkeʻe State Park. The first hike we did was the Awa'awapuhi Trail. We hiked 3 miles through rainforest to a cliff overlooking the Nāpali Coast.The views at the end were spectacular!
We climbed across a narrow "bridge" to get closer to the edge of the cliff.
After enjoying the view and having a snack, we hiked the 3 miles back to our car.
We stopped for a quick picture in front of a NASA sign.
There are chickens and roosters everywhere on the island!
Then, we hiked 2 miles on the Kuikui Trail.
The next day we went to the beach in Poipu.
Jim spent most of the time on a zoom call while I played in the water.
While Jim was at a conference during the mornings, I would relax at the resort.
We drove north to Princeville and Hanalei Bay, stopping to see some waterfalls along the way.
Hanalei Bay was a beautiful beach.
Since we were celebrating a belated anniversary...
The Hanalei Pier.
The next morning we woke early to take a shuttle to
Haena State Park so we could hike part of the Kalalau Trail.The views along the coast were spectacular!
We hiked 2 miles to
Hanakāpīʻai Beach.We had to cross a river to get to the beach.
Then we hiked another 2 miles (not along the Kalalau Trail) to Hanakāpīʻai Falls. We had to cross the river a few times along the way.We saw giant bamboo that people had carved their names in.
We could see the waterfall from far away.
We had a snack and rested when we reached the 300 foot waterfall.
Then, we turned around to hike the 4 miles back. We stopped briefly at Ke'e Beach, where I remember staying with Charlie and Maggie 7 years ago while Jim took the older boys on the very first part of the Kalalau Trail.
Jim stood under the big roots of a tree at the beach.
On our last night, we went to Hideaways Beach. The path to get to the beach was closed due to dangerous conditions, but we followed some other more experienced beachgoers down the hill.
The beach was "hidden" so we didn't have a lot of company.
On our final day, we said good-bye to Princeville and the Hanalei Valley.
We stopped at Kilauea Point on our way to the airport. If it had been a couple months later, we might have seen some humpback whales.
