Kauai - West Coast

It’s our last full day in Kauai. I’ve been wanting to make a trek to the far west side of Kauai so we can say we saw the whole island. After making breakfast in our condo we headed out to Waimea Canyon. Surprisingly enough, the boys did not fight on the way there. Stephen let Kyle rest on his leg, which never happens. We stopped at a few of the lookout areas as we drove up the mountain. There were so many red rocks. It looks a little like Sedona mixed with the trees of Flagstaff and the rocks of the Grand Canyon. The topography of this island continues to amaze me. Everything is so green even in this “dry” area. 

My initial plan was to hike one of the trails here but the family was not big on hiking so I did not push the issue. Instead we went to the Waimea Canyon Lookout. We took a bunch of pictures. It’s clear why this is called the Grand Canyon of Hawaii. In my opinion it is much more beautiful than the Grand Canyon though with the waterfall in the distance.

We continued up the mountain and went to Canyon Viewpoint which was nice and Ni’ihau Viewpoint which wasn’t a view of anything that we could see. The vegetation was so overgrown we couldn’t see beyond the giant shrubs. As we drove back down the mountain, we took several pictures of the ocean in the distance. We continued on our journey west and went to the end of the paved road to Polihale State Park. There wasn’t anything spectacular to see on this side of the island so we headed back towards “home”. We stopped in at the Kauai Island Brewery & Grill. Mike got some warm beer in a cold glass. He said he liked the beer but was not happy it was warm. Mike, Kyle and I all got bar food (fried fish, fried shrimp, chicken wings and fries). Stephen of course got a salad. The food was all good. I had a couple of delicious Mai Tai’s and was feeling no pain! We then went souvenir shopping and we had to pick up some cookies from the Kauai Kookie Company. I was so stuffed I could barely walk but I had room for some cookie samples.

We then headed back to Kapa’a. The boys were adamant about getting certain souvenirs that they could not find at the other shops so we had to stop at a few more locations. They picked up a few more small things then we headed to JoJo’s for our last round of shave ice treats. Mike and I shared a colada special but I was still so stuffed I could not enjoy it like I did on our first day here. We made it home and relaxed for awhile.

We still had two steaks and all of Stephen’s Mahi Mahi in the fridge so we had to make dinner even though we weren’t hungry. We used a $5 grill we picked up to grill the steaks. While Mike was grilling the steaks, he taught Stephen how to filet the fish. As he was fileting the fish, the steaks burnt. It wasn’t a total loss because one side was edible and they were still pink in the middle. I cut off the burnt sections and it was good to go!

Mike battered and fried the fish. It was so fresh and delicious. I can’t believe our family of fish haters has been eating fish almost daily. It’s amazing how good fish tastes when it’s fresh. After dinner we all went to separate parts of the condo and watched television. Our theme of being full, fat and happy continued.
 

Best thing about today: Stephen – “Waimea Canyon”, Kyle – “Eating shave ice from JoJo’s”, Mike – “Waimea Canyon”, Amber – “Waimea Canyon”