Me, Mike, and Kauai

As December drew to a close, ending three-months of intense work hours for Mike and three-months of lonesome parenting and holiday-making for me, and our December 29th anniversary passed with little fanfare (Mike worked till midnight and I took care of my ninth throwing-up child for the week), Mike and I began to increasingly feel that we could use a little get-away; that, perhaps, we had somehow even earned a little get away. (In fact, I became so confident in how needed and well-deserved a vacation was, that I began to half expect one might simply ... fall from the sky!)

Unfortunately, feeling entitled to a vacation ... has rarely, in my twenty-two consecutive years of caring for small children, made a vacation appear. In fact, for most of the last two decades I have felt some form of, "I could really use a break" ... without a break forthcoming. And, before long, it seemed likely that this time would be no different. (The college kids, our best [and perhaps only] option for babysitters, returned to their busy lives of school and jobs away from home; and Mike's limited days off, we both knew, should be safeguarded for getting Logan stuff done.)

But when Goldie mentioned that she'd be home during Utah State's Spring Break in March, and that she'd be happy to let us go somewhere, I started boldly imagining up a weekend, on one side of her break or the other, at the cabin with just me and Mike. It could probably only be one night, I knew, but possibly we could find a way to swing two. Mike could fix the leaking cabin toilet. I could wash all the cabin-bed sheets. And between times, well, we would have at least one day to sleep in, go out to eat, watch movies, and focus our attention solely on each other (well, and on the toilet ... and the laundry). 

That was about as far as my trip imagining dared take me.

Which is why I was extra startled when, on a Friday afternoon, only a week before the start of Goldie's Spring Break, Mike texted "I think I'll take you to Kauai on 3/8 to 3/12".

Kauai?

It had never even occurred to me that we might go to Hawaii. Never mind that half my friends and family seem to go there on the regular. It just wasn't even a possibility in my mind for us. 

And yet by the next day our flights and hotel were booked. Goldie had eagerly agreed to tend. ("What?!? No way!!!" she'd texted. "I can totally tend, we can't have you missing out on HAWAII!!!" Bless her heart.) And Daisy had promised to come home on the weekend to help. (She might have used slightly fewer exclamation marks in her response, but she was every bit as willing 😄.) And that fast, Kauai was really happening. A vacation falling from the sky after all!

I went into a bit of a panic mode for a day or two after we'd made things official. There was very little time. And I didn't want to mess this rare opportunity up by somehow not seeing or doing ... whatever things we most ought to see or do. And, having no experience with the island, I quickly became overwhelmed as I tried to look things up online, keep all the must-see things straight in my head, and determine which ones we would most like to do, which ones made sense to do, and how much we should plan verses just (as is more our natures) do what we felt with each new day. There were things that would be amazing to do but that were too expensive; things I got excited to see, only to discover they were closed due to winter rains and waves (which last through March), and a million things that all looked to be the one "don't miss" ... based on which stranger's opinion I read. (At one point, in the midst of all these things swirling madly in my mind, I asked Mike, "Which side of the island are we staying on again?" And when he answered, "the east side", I nearly said, "And how many sides are there?" 🤦🏼‍♀️)

But, I'd forgotten my niece Tessa had actually lived on Kauai for six months before she got married. And talking to her gave me a little more of a concrete feel for things, and reassured me that we really couldn't go wrong. "Even if all you did was drive around and look at how pretty things right next to the road are," she promised me. "It would be an amazing and totally worth it trip." (And look at the dear little utterly charming sketch she texted me. 💛)

And so, off Mike and I went!

I didn't take my big camera (it seemed it might only complicate hiking, etc.), I'm not incredibly gifted with nature photos, and seeing my kids in various settings is what usually prompts me to take pictures, so much of our trip isn't visually recorded in any glory, but I still managed a tidy pile of cell-phone shots which will give a fair idea of some of our time on the island.

A quick run-down of our days:

We arrived late Wednesday night. Late enough and dark enough that we could get no real feel for how the island looked. We just made our way to our hotel--grabbing cheese, crackers and fruit (from a small market)--for our dinner.

(Our hotel in morning light.)

Thursday we went on an ATV tour on the South Side of the Island. We drove a side-by-side to an out-of-the-way beach, around some old sugar-cane areas (including up to a cool old tunnel they used to take sugar-cane trucks through to save time), and up to a lookout where they pointed out various movie filming locations. 

That night we wandered around Kapa'a, ate Hawaiian ice and went to dinner.

The trees above the tunnel are albizia trees and they are everywhere. I commented to Mike, on our drive to our ATV tour, that, with their spread-out branches and flat tops, they looked like taller versions of trees from the African Savannah. Turns out they are non-native trees from Africa! And they are taking over much of the island!

Cool old sugar cane mill. 

The entire island is covered with chickens and roosters. I don't know that there was ever a time when I wasn't hearing crowing. If you had a mind to, I imagine you could go round up an enormous chicken dinner within minutes. 

Opaeka'a Falls. (Which I'd been sure we could walk to. But we could not.)

The sides of the road on our drive towards Poipu.

Not a food stand of great note. Just a small spot we grabbed a lunch on the go one day.

Friday we hiked a large chunk of the Kalalau Trail (on the north side of the island) towards the Na Pali coast. (The green cliffs in the distance are really, to me, the prettiest thing about the island.) The portion of the hike we took went first to Hanakapi'ai Beach. (That was the most breathtaking part of the trail--with the ocean and the cliffs visible most of the way. We even saw whales spouting in the distance several times.) Apparently, the winter waves (which we were still in the thick of) around the island (and especially on the north side) are much larger and harsher than the summer waves, so the sand portion of the beach was not even visible, though I've seen pictures of people playing in the surf there. I think you would have died playing in the surf while we were there, but we still hiked with our swimsuits and got plenty wet ... especially on the next portion of the hike.

After hiking through a lot of cool bamboo, the second half took us through multiple tricky river crossings (one time I fell on a slippery rock--soaking the only dry clothing I'd brought--luckily I'd transferred my phone from my pocket to Mike's backpack moments before) to the 300 ft. Hanakapi'ai Falls. There's a large pool at the base of it that I braved swimming in (it was very cold and the rocks getting to it none too easy to navigate). Then it immediately began pouring rain. We threw our ponchos on (which was perhaps unnecessary since I was already soaking wet, but I didn't want to just hike along in a swimsuit, and my jumper was soaked from my river fall) and headed back.

It was a very difficult and muddy hike. And, combined with our drive getting there and the shuttle bus we had to take up to the start, took about ten hours! (We'd thought to stroll around nearby Hanalei Bay afterwards, but we were so wet, exhausted and muddy that it was about all we could do to get back to our hotel and pick up a pizza!) We both sort of felt that perhaps we should have just done the first half, but looking back, I am happy we had that big adventurous day!

Saturday we went to Poipu on the south side and went snorkeling. I hadn't snorkeled since my time at the Red Sea back in college, and it was so fun to do it again! From the beach it didn't look like there would be much to see in the water, but the moment you went in, there were fish of every bright and bold color literally everywhere! Urchins, sea slugs, eels. That was maybe the most enjoyable of our activities. We spent a little more time after snorkeling just seeing things in the area (like this Spouting Horn which sometimes shoots water as high as 50 ft. in the air). We (well I) ate spam musubi (which Tessa had told me she'd been missing) and we (both of us) ate malasadas (which I quickly realized we should have been eating every day), and we called it a day.

This fellow was just lounging unconcernedly on this busy beach. One would almost worry he was deceased. But no. Just lazy. I watched him reach back to scratch his back a few times before going back to his snoozing.

Sunday we went to one of the wards in Kapa'a. (Mike and I spent a fair amount of time the night before, when we went online to search for a Latter Day Saint congregation) marveling at the number of wards and branches in the Hawaiian Islands (and then we started looking at branches and wards in every obscure island we could think of and being even more amazed). I've learned a bit about the church's early history in Hawaii through reading the Saints books, and I really just felt ... oh, I don't know, nearly like crying during every sacrament meeting hymn as I imagined George Q. Cannon and those early missionaries seeing the Hawaiian islands now with multiple congregations full of saints from multiple nations all worshipping together. It was a happy experience for me to be there singing with them.

After church, we drove all about the island--seeing last things before having to return our rental car and get to the airport. We went to look at Glass Beach (the sand is literally a huge portion worn down bits of colored glass from years of glass bottles being dumped there). We also drove to the north side one last time and walked out on the pier in Hanalei.

I couldn't figure out what all the white things were on these lava cliffs at Glass Beach, but, upon closer inspection, I realized people had placed bits of coral in every crevice. It reminded me a bit of tucking papers in the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, so, when Mike and I stuck our own pieces of coral in the rock, I placed mine with a little prayer for my family.

I thought it would be fun to bring our kids a piece of beach glass, but apparently it has been being carted off far too quickly by tourists, so I refrained. (Some people were less scrupulous however. I saw one woman with a large bag down their collecting all she could! Ha.)

We chanced upon this old cemetery near the beach. Many of the inscriptions on the graves couldn't even be read. It turns out it was a cemetery near an old sugarcane plantation. It had gotten overgrown and was only rediscovered a decade or two ago.

Hanalei. These pictures just do not clearly show the layers of green mountains that I loved so much about Kauai!

And then we flew through the night and into Monday and arrived back home! 

The kids had been marvelously taken care of by their sisters. Goldie, in particular, had gone out of her way to plan a host of fun activities for the kids. She'd made salt dough creations with them and sock bunnies. They'd had root beer floats and made rock candy. The girls had taken them to the library and The Treehouse Museum. And they'd even washed and folded multiple loads of laundry! I was so grateful, and, while sometimes coming home has felt a bit of a shock to my system (the sharp contrast between carefree and my usual, daily, ceaseless demands), this time I really did feel a renewed patience and gratitude for my life here. I found I missed some of our routine things--things I often don't even think about (like Friday night treats and movies)--and I was grateful for a wonderful getaway with Mike that also reminded me of the many wonderful little things I have in my life when I'm not getting away at all. (Though I certainly wouldn't mind this sort of thing being a more regular occurrence!)