Kaua'i Trip

Danielle's mom arrived the day after Danielle, Gabbi, and Jacqui returned from their New England visit. It was absolutely wonderful to have her spend 2.5 weeks with us! She was really loving and spent lots of quality time with us (especially Gabbi and Jacqui). She took them to Waikiki for a night at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. They had a blast! Thanks, Mom for such an incredible visit!!

Waiting for the airplane for our inter-island flight.

We had the opportunity to travel for a long weekend on Kaua'i, while she was here. We spent the first 2 nights in Po'ipu and explored Waimea Canyon and Koke'e State Park, Po'ipu, Sea Glass beach, and more. We were pretty disappointed on our first afternoon, when we attempted to get out the far western beaches. We found out that Barking Sands Beach is completely closed to the public at the Pacific Missile Range Facility. Then, we found the state park and the road closed just past Barking Sands.

Gabbi and Jacqui love to climb and they found this great spot at the north end of "sea glass beach"

Nonni's first Kaua'i beach, exploring for sea glass after driving through the lovely petroleum district of Port Allen...

We even got Nonni to cross this suspension bridge in Hanapepe!


At one end of the bridge we found this spectacular looking spider.

Hanapepe is known for Bougainvillea. This truck serves as a flower pot.

The morning our our second day we headed to the Kalalau lookout and got incredible views of Kalalau Valley (accessible only by hiking or kayaking). We got there early, because when we came in June fog rolled in and completely obscured the view by 10 a.m. Nonni indulged us and did a great job joining us for most of our hike along the rim of the valley.

Hiking along the valley.

Then, on the way down from Kalalau and Koke'e State Park, we took our time and explored plenty of views of Waimea Canyon, including this view of Waimea Falls.

A beautiful view with nice scenery behind...

While we were on Kaua'i we had a chance to see 3 different monk seals basking in the sun. There were 2 at Po'ipu beach on our first afternoon and this one on Salt Pond Beach.

We climbed around on the rocks at Salt Pond Beach. I especially enjoyed this view.

This one is great as well!

And how could you miss this beauty!!

And of course, the 3 lovely beach beauties.

On the way from Po'ipu to Princeville, we stopped at Wailua Falls (some of you may recognize this as the opening shot from Fantasy Island, from re-runs of course).

The second part of the trip we spent in Princeville. I had a couple of days of meetings at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, while the ladies explored Hanalei, Ke'e Beach, Princeville and the north coast.

Hanging loose on the beach in Hanalei.

The girls had a couple of nene visit our condo in Princeville.

The pool did not get a lot of use, it was pretty chilly...

Kilauea lighthouse.

A view across from Kilauea lighthouse at a portion of Kilauea National Wildlife Refuge and the red-footed booby colony.

Enjoying time with Nonni at Kilauea Point.

The sunset from the window on our return flight to O'ahu.

Lava

I had a recent trip to Hilo (on the Big Island) for work. We finished up our first day of meetings in time for me to make the hour long trek to watch lava flowing from Kilauea volcano into the ocean. It was pretty amazing. I only caught fleeting glimpses of the red lava from the quarter mile vantage point, but the steam and spray that were rising up from the ocean give a real sense of something special going on. The pictures certainly don't do it justice!

I was there about an hour and a half before sunset. I thought about sticking around until dark, but really needed some dinner.

Right at the point on the very left, I would catch sight of lava spurting up as it hit the cool ocean water. Cooler lava seemed to explode out of the water.
The lava fields between the viewing area and the lava are only a few weeks old and not very stable. When the eruption first started flowing in this area viewing was within about 25 feet of the lava!
The road into the lava field passed over the lava flow from a decade or so ago that wiped out a subdivision. They're hard to make out, but those are rebuilt houses on the lava flow in the distance. I guess they are going on the lightning never strikes twice theory of lava flow....