Glad you guys are still enjoying this. Let's see if we can catch up a little faster. I was planning on doing these posts live from Vegas but I haven't even really started Hawaii yet.
Vegas is great, btw. I went to the National Atomic Testing Museum yesterday. Pretty cool if you have any interest in the era or in nuclear science. Definitely worth the admission price, though I probably could have skipped the Area 51 exhibit.
I'm still only goofing around with poker, playing less than twice a week, usually Fri/Sat evenings at the Bellagio. 0 for 5 in tournaments, but 10 for 13 in 1/3NLHE.
But who cares about poker when there is Kauai to look at. I shrunk the size of the photos a little more because the other pages take forever to load. Hopefully these will load faster.
Originally I had defaulted to going to Maui, but everyone I spoke with who had been to Kauai and Maui said I'd prefer Kauai. Kauai is called the Garden Island, and is known for its lush foliage and significantly lower tourist activity. There is very little nightlife and no cities to speak of. Just towns and villages. Much greater focus on outdoors activities than the more popular islands. Exactly what I preferred.
My thought was that I'd go to Kauai for a couple of weeks, then head over to Maui. I ended up loving Kauai and just staying there the entire time.
Well, thanks, Kauai! Glad to be here!
One of the first thing I noticed about Kauai was the pairing of cows and egrets. I wasn't expecting to see cows, but wasn't really surprised. Same for egrets. What I was surprised by was that wherever I saw a cow, there was an egret hanging out next to it. Always one egret per cow. I have no idea why. I guess maybe they were
cattle egrets? I noticed this phenomena dozens of times, and there aren't that many cows on the island so I'm pretty confident this was pretty much universal.
Kauai is not a very big place. It's about 550 square miles. I traveled around pretty much every major area of the island. One of the first things I did was drive up into the "mountains" on the east side of the island. Everything was supergreen and lush, but especially here. There were lots of pastures and little houses like this. Lots of horses, too. I was pretty surprised by all the horses I saw.
This is the coastline near Kapa'a, which is the biggest town on Kauai. Coming from the Caribbean, this water was significantly rougher than I was used to seeing. I guess that's why surfing is so popular in Hawaii and not so much on St Thomas.
This is a pretty standard road. Somewhat worn, but in decent condition. Infinite green stuff everywhere you look, and little mountains covered in verdant green right in front of you. I got used to this sight quickly, but never stopped enjoying it. There's something about how the foliage covers these jagged little mountains that makes them really sweet to look at.
I never actually saw a monk seal, but I was assured that they exist. Saw a ton of enormous sea turtles, though.
Agriculture is very important to the island and has a long history. There is a lot of focus on the importance of sustainable use of resources, which gladdened my heart. This is another juxtaposition I never got tired of looking at - the little mountains with their little verdant valleys and small rivers irrigating crops. One of the things I didn't get around to doing was kayaking one of those rivers, but I'll be doing that for sure on the next trip.
For the most part, I stayed at places I found on VRBO or similar. I prefer staying at vacation rental properties over hotels because I don't care about things like daily maid service, room service, etc; and I do care about things like having a kitchen. VRBOs are generally less expensive though you need to commit to longer stays as a tradeoff. They are often much larger than hotel rooms if you need space, which I don't. This is a shot from the first place I stayed at in Kapa'a. It was about a 30 second walk to the beach.
There used to be a lot more biodiversity on Kauai, but you know how we humans do. LOL at blaming this on goats.
This as well as the last one were taken at the
Limahuli Garden & Preserve, which is a nature preserve located on the north edge of the island. They have a great little path you follow and learn about the flora and fauna of the island. There is a focus on discussing the impact of invasive species and the history of the changes the island's f&f have gone through. I dig botanical gardens and nature preserves, so I enjoyed this.
The Na Pali coast is maybe the most famous part of Kauai. Lots of movies film scenes here. It's where the "welcome to the island" scene from Jurassic Park where they fly past enormous waterfalls in their helicopter was filmed. Stunning geography. To get here, you drive to the literal end of the road on the northwest side of the island, then get out and walk to the coastline.
Sunsets on the Na Pali coast are pretty amazing.
As evidenced by the small group here who showed up solely to photograph the sunset.
It's pretty sweet to be there and look west out over the ocean. There is literally nothing but ocean for like 5,000 miles until you get to Taiwan.