All About our Trip to Kauai, Part Two

In case you missed it, I shared Part One of our Kauai Adventures earlier this week. The post started getting so crazy long that I had to split it into two posts to keep from overwhelming you (… and me).

Here’s Part One: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday

Let’s pick up where we left off…

Sunday

On Sunday it was another sunny and beautiful day so we decided to head East and North. We started out by following the signs to the Opaeka’a Falls. There was a nice little parking lot for us to stop in and we walked over to the viewing areas to catch sight of the falls.

It was so beautiful and quiet. We hopped back in the jeep to go find the Wailua Falls, which had a much busier lookout area. There were cars and jeeps packed on the small road that took you to overlook the falls and lots of people selling fruit and food. We ended up buying some white Sugarloaf pineapple, which was absolutely delicious. We also got a homemade mochi/rum/pineapple cake thing that a nice German lady was selling. What can I say, eating random road food is what you do in Kauai!

Here is our view of Wailua Falls:

After visiting the falls, we decided to keep going North to visit the little town of Hanalei. As soon as we got to the North side of the island it got humid and would rain on us every 45 minutes or so. We walked around the town a bit and then decided to work our way back towards Poipu. We ended up stopping to see the Kiluea Lighthouse.

We also got a delicious taco lunch from a random food truck. We ended the day with yet another visit to Puka Dog (what can I say, they are so good!) and topped ourselves off with a visit to Lepparts Ice Cream.

Monday

We had another lazy coffee and HGTV morning on Monday with another serving of Little Fish Coffee acai bowls for breakfast. From there we grabbed our beach chairs and set out for a beach we saw on the way to Spouting Horn. We did some beach sitting and snorkeling for a bit and just enjoyed the quiet. We grabbed lunch at Savage Shrimp and then showered and prepared for our evening adventure… a sunset cruise of the Napali coast!

We went through Holo Charters, which offered a sunset dinner cruise. We shared the catamaran with a couple dozen guests and enjoyed snacks on our way out from the island. There was a little rain and fog here and there, but mostly it was cool and calm.

The views were absolutely beautiful. There were cliffs and caves and waterfalls. There were even mountain goats climbing up on the sides of cliffs and pretty much defying gravity. At about the halfway point, the crew served us dinner – all the makings for some homemade tacos, with fresh pineapple on the side and cookies for dessert. There was an open bar too with local beers and Mai Tais. The return ride was breathtaking.

And then the sun went down:

We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful night!

Tuesday

On Tuesday we decided that we wanted to do a fancy dinner for our last night, which meant that we had to buy a nice shirt for Travis to wear. Everyone on the island sports Hawaiian shirts, so we decided to venture out to buy one for him. We stopped at the Hawaiian Trading post and they had some silly photo opportunities outside:

From there we visited Old Koloa Town and stopped by the Fish Market for an authentic and delicious poke bowl:

Travis and I are both fans of sushi, so the poke bowl was so delicious to us! From there we hit up a pie shop that we had driven past a few times and had some mini pies for dessert. THEN, we went rum tasting at the Kauai Rum Company.

To do a tasting in the Rum Company Tasting Room is free, you just have to be 21 years old or order. We tasted: Koloa Kauai Dark Rum, Koloa Kauai Gold Rum, Koloa Kauai Spice Rum, Koloa Kauai Coconut Rum, Koloa Kauai Coffee Rum, and Koloa Hawaiian Pineapple Passion Rum Cocktail Punch.

Travis has a stomach condition, so he can’t really drink hard alcohol (only beer and wine), so he would basically stick his tongue in the rum to try it and then I’d drink both our shots. We were being sneaky about it so that nobody got annoyed, but apparently the couple next to Travis was giving me the hairy eyeball for being a rum glutton. My favorites were the Coconut Rum and the Coffee Rum and Travis really liked the Pineapple Passion Rum Cocktail Punch.

After rum, we got yet another shave ice. This time it was a snow ice from Uncle’s Shave Ice. It was really cool how every single place we tried had a different take on the shave ice. I, of course, loved them all.

For our fancy anniversary dinner we went to Keoki’s Paradise (find it here) . We went online to reserve a table and put in the notes that we were celebrating our anniversary. They had a live band and the food was AMAZING. There was a poke appetizer, fish and scallops’ risotto for me, a double fish meal for Travis, and their famous Hula Pie for dessert. They surprised us with the hula pie for our anniversary and it was an amazing end to a delicious dinner.

Also, Travis looked awfully cute in his Hawaiian shirt.

Wednesday

After having a super relaxing and amazing week, I woke up on Wednesday feeling rather horrible. Something hit me stomach bug-ish, so we just spent the morning hanging around the condo, watching HGTV and drinking a ton of water. We packed up and drove to the airport to return our jeep and jump on the 1pm plane.

The first 5-hour plane ride was absolutely miserable for me. I felt a combo of nauseous and feverish, so I basically was just trying to keep myself together and not vomit. I had some ginger ale and basically dabbed my forehead with ice water for 5 hours.

We got off the plane in LA and had a 90-minute layover, so Travis had a terrible airport burger and I slowly drank a coke. We hopped on another 5-hour flight – this one a red eye – which would take us back to Maryland. I was feeling a little better by this point. I was still nauseous but the feverish feeling was gone.

And THEN.

In the middle of the night while everyone on the plane was trying to sleep.

A MAN VOMITED 4 times on the 5-hour flight.

He didn’t even bother to get up from his seat. He just got out his sick bag, loudly vomited and then went back to whatever else he was doing. So. Gross. Even if I had not been fighting back the pukeys for the last 10 hours, it would have made me ill listening to him. I can’t believe he didn’t take his dang butt to the bathroom to do it there. But instead just did it WHILE SITTING NEXT TO STRANGERS.

Ew.

Thank god he was on the other side of the aisle from me. But, really. EW.

I am happy to say I was NOT sick on the plane coming home. We landed around 6 am Maryland time (that 6-hour time change really bit us on the return), scooped up Jack and Ollie from my parent’s house on our way by, dropped Jack at school and then went straight into our house and took a 5-hour nap.

All in all, it was an absolutely wonderful trip. It was relaxing and exciting and fun and romantic. Basically everything I hoped it would be! The only thing we didn’t fit in was going to a luau, but considering that we did everything else – well, so much stuff it took up two blog posts – I feel like we really crushed the whole grown up vacation thing.

I think I covered everything, but I’m sure there are bits I forgot here in there. Do you have any questions about our Kauai adventures?