Hawaiian Cruise - Kauai... The End

 Kauai was my favorite island.  SOO beautiful with a laid back, relaxing vibe but a lot of outdoor activities.  I would've loved to stay there longer.  Our first day was exploring the city of Po'ipu.  Matt has some business acquaintances who are building a resort there and he wanted to take a peek.  Just as we started heading off toward the city we were pulled over by a cop!  Luckily we were only given a warning as they were just doing a training exercise and pulled over almost everyone passing by.  I asked him a few questions about the beaches nearby and he warned us to be careful... 11 people had died in strong currents in the last 2 months alone! ... A road on the way to Po'ipu... lovely.

We stopped at Sprouting Horn Beach Park... kind of like the ocean blow-hole version of Old Faithful.  For some reason I only took video instead of pictures of the blow hole but I did take a picture of this wild chicken... they are everywhere.

 The following pictures are of our kayaking trip that afternoon.  We kayaked about 5 miles up a river and then hiked through a lush forest a couple of miles to a waterfall.  The kayaking, hike, and lunch at the waterfall were all wonderful!  This is one of my other favorite things we did on the trip.  All these pictures are in order from us pulling out of the river and hiking towards the falls.

 Oh wow, this is cold... are we really going to do this?!

 We all braved the cold to have our obligatory picture under the waterfall.  Matt was such a trooper to go in because his eye pressure was really bothering him at this point in the day but I think the freezing water temperature helped - or at least took his mind off it. ;)  Best story of the trip: Mark and Joann went into the waterfall before Matt and I did.  While they were behind the falls everyone on the rocky beach could clearly hear Joann's amplified yell to Mark, "say it, say the line."  To which Mark hollers back at the top of his lungs in a dramatic voice, "Where ever you go, I WILL find you!!"  Everyone on the beach (There were at least a dozen other people) cracked up and when Mark and Joann came out of the water they had no idea we could all hear their conversation.  Apparently, that line is from "Last of the Mohicans" and it's an inside joke between the two of them... we were all in on the joke that day. :)

Finished with the hike - kayaking back down the river.

 The last day in Kauai was spent at the beach.  The ship was leaving the port right after lunch so we didn't have time for much of anything else, which was fine by us; nothing better than ending your trip relaxing on the sand!  We read for a while and then rented stand up paddle boards again.  We took our first picture and realized we don't have the ocean in the background... 2nd try ended up blurry so we'll just use them both. :)

Before heading back to Oahu, the boat took us past the Napali coastline... incredible!  Someday we want to come back and do some overnight hiking in that area.

On our way home.  The bad thing about going to Hawaii is the full day of traveling each way.  The best thing about our travel day was sitting in these massage chairs.  Seriously, I wanted to cry it felt so good... Matt and I kept feeding the machine money like we were addicts.  I'm considering buying myself, ummm, I mean Matt, one of those chairs for Christmas. ;)

Well, we're home now.  We made some wonderful memories with some good friends.  We may have provided Drew and Toree with some "birth control" by having them watch our kids (Sorry Kim!) but we're so grateful we had a chance to get away with each other. :)

Hawaiian Cruise - The Big Island & The Ship

Day three of the cruise was spent on the Big Island in the city of Hilo.  We spent the morning at Volcano National Park.  The trail we walked on to the volcano overlook was really interesting; we went through such diverse ecosystems in less than 2 miles... it was crazy.

After taking that trail we drove a little further to walk through the empty lava tubes.  They were huge!  You can see in the first picture how tall and wide they are in comparison to Mark and Joann.  I had deja' vu during the tour - I think it may have reminded me of cartoons I watched when I was little with characters running through lava tubes... Scooby Doo maybe??

After we left the park we headed to the other side of the city to grab some lunch and see some waterfalls.  Below is one of my favorite places of the entire trip... Akaka Falls.  Words cannot describe the scenery on the trail to see the falls - unbelievably gorgeous.  My cute Lauren believes in fairies and if they really do exist, I'm sure that they live in this park.

On our way back to the ship we made a quick stop to see Rainbow Falls.  This waterfall is located in town, very close to a high school.  It was fun to drive through town and see the locals going about school and work.  Although this island wouldn't be my first choice for vacation, it might be my first choice if I had to choose one of the islands to live on.

On day four of the cruise, we traveled to the other side of the island - Kona.  The water was too shallow to pull into port so we took a ferry from the ship to the island.  You can't really tell from the picture, but the water here was blue - like a bright royal blue!  It was crazy, beautiful.  We spent half the day in the city, wandering around and playing on the small beach and then we headed back to the boat to relax and read.  

The ship we sailed on was the Norwegian "Pride of America."  As far as cruises go, it was a nice boat it was a great way to get a taste of each island. This ship was different than the other cruises I've been on because it seemed a lot quieter with a lot less night life.  We went to some shows - a comic, a couple of dance/variety shows, a tribute group for The Four Seasons... but our favorite performers were a husband and wife team from a band called Toby Beau.  Supposedly they had a hit in the late 70s but what we enjoyed about them is you could tell they LOVED music.  They were probably in their 60s and they were in great shape; totally rocking out on the stage, the husband was an amazing guitarist, they harmonized beautifully, and they both had huge smiles on the entire set - fun performers.  The food on the ship was great, the window in our room was huge, we both escaped getting sea sick, we had some great servers at dinner, and we went to bed fairly early almost every night. :)

Next up, our final destination... Kauai!