Quinn is now the Big Man on Campus! He started the 8th grade this week — in person and on campus. Wahoo! He wasn’t looking forward to going back to school, but I believe it was the ‘medicine’ that he didn’t know he needed.
He met his buddy Elias so that they could walk in together. Here he is with Principal Klinger.
After school there was an impromptu fro-yo meet up with a mishmash of friends. All of these kids have been Quinn’s classmates since the 1st grade. After yogurt this band of teens roamed the mall independently. It was great to see after 17 months of being at home. This was the icing on the cake of a great first day of school.
Thursday was a beach and snorkeling day at our hotel/condo.
One treat that you find all over Hawaii is Spam Masubi. You can find them in every little market, in gas stations, and in restaurants. They are the perfect snack on the go. It’s rice, spam, and teriyaki sauce wrapped in nori (seaweed). It’s perfectly sweet and salty and fatty and light. We told Quinn he might enjoy one and did he ever! This was his first of many over the last couple of days.
The snorkeling was not that great but Quinn spotted these 2 small eels under a rock. They were both squirming around quite a bit. A lovely day on the beach.
Mad Magazine on the Beach
That afternoon Don and I made a trip out to the local rum store. Unfortunately we could not get in on a tasting or tour but we bought a couple of things to bring home.
We once again cancelled our dinner reservations and had dinner at the hotel Honu Beach Bar. Their frozen Mai Tai was so darned good.
After dinner sunset pictures.
Friday was our last day on the island and we decided on another chill beach day. Don visited a local market in the morning and loaded up on Spam Masubis. The boy can eat some masubi!
The first time we went to Kauai was in October 2008 when Quinn has just turned 1 year old. We had recently found out that Don’s employer, Washington Mutual, was going under and was being bought by Chase Bank but Don’s future employment was unknown. He got a call while we were on Poipu Beach that he was being offered a job with Chase in Columbus, OH (it was later changed to NJ). So this beach always has a special meaning to us.
And here we are on that same beach 13 years later.
The hotel has activities every day and Friday at noon was a Spam Cooking Demonstration. We learned how to make a Spam Masubi and then we each got one. Yum! We also took advantage of some of the other activities. In the ping pong picture, you can see our balcony above on the 3rd floor.
One more Shave Ice before we got home. I got the Chai and Cream and Quinn got the Strawberries & Banana. It was good but my least favorite of the trip.
This might be my favorite picture of the trip!
We had rain every day, several times a day. But it would come and go quickly. Once last rainy look from our balcony.
We had such a great, relaxing week but it is time to go home.
On Tuesday we had to be on the road at 6:30 am for an 8 am catamaran ride up the NaPali Coast. We picked a large catamaran that would provide a smoother ride.
Such beautiful Jurassic Park like scenery as we went up the NaPali coast.
We had a snorkel stop before lunch. We saw a small turtle as soon as we jumped in but the Kauai snorkeling just isn’t that great.
We had a fabulous lunch and started heading back. Our catamaran travelled with an identical sister boat that can be seen in this picture.
We got back to the dock around 1 pm and were off to find more Shave Ice. There are lots of food trucks all over Kauai and we decided on this little one outside a local market. Pineapple & Coconut with a scoop of vanilla mac ice cream and all the toppings. Pretty delicious!
We knew we would be pretty tired that night so we had dinner at the little hotel Honu Beach Bar. Their food was surprisingly delicious and while most other restaurants were packed with reservations we were able to easily get an ocean side table. And then an after dinner sunset. So lovely.
On Wednesday we hiked the Maha’ulepu Heritage Trail which starts at a beach about a mile from the condo. Lots of beautiful cliffside ocean views and walks through tunnels of trees.
And then we hiked to this hidden gem — we have never seen anything like this. It’s this huge “sinkhole” where the roof has collapsed on this cave and it is full of fossils and archeological finds.
In order to get into this cave you had to crawl through this small opening (below left) and you come out in a large cave (seen in the picture above on the right side). The picture below right is inside looking out.
We got a really informative tour from a volunteer docent and learned that 95% of the plants on Kauai are not native. Most were brought by canoe by the Polynesians. So a group of volunteers are trying to return this cave area and surroundings to native plants. One way they are doing it is with tortoises that mimic one of the extinct birds on the island.
Right next door is a tortoise preserve. Some of the tortoises roam free in a large penned in area, like Mr. #2, and some are in smaller penned in areas. The 2nd guy came running towards us so he must have thought it was feeding time.
When I booked our trip I made dinner reservations for every night just so we had a back up plan. We ended up cancelling about half of them and doing something more simple, but this night we at dinner at one of Roy Yamaguchi’s restaurants and were treated to a beautiful sunset.
The White House 