8/2/12 - Waimea Canyon - the Grand Canyon of the Pacific

Absolutely the most stunning view. The colors are amazing, and change with the light. It's almost impossible to get a grasp of the scale until you see a helicopter fly through, looking like a tiny gnat. Make that a tiny baby gnat...

Waimea Canyon, also known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, is a large canyon, approximately ten miles (16 km) long and up to 3,000 feet (900 m) deep, located on the western side of Kauaʻi in the Hawaiian Islands of the United States. Waimea is Hawaiian for "reddish water", a reference to the erosion of the canyon's red soil. The canyon was formed by a deep incision of the Waimea River arising from the extreme rainfall on the island's central peak, Mount Waiʻaleʻale, among the wettest places on earth.

The earth is so red, it is what you imagine Mars would look like. The soil is packed hard, but crumbles away easily. The top layer is very pillish, yet powdery. Somewhat like powdered Ovaltine, and if you've ever made it, you know what I mean.

8/1/12 - Hyatt Resort Day

Today we just spent the day enjoying the resort and pools. The kids (all 3 of them) participated in the water slide contest. Austin came in 2nd for his age group, Mike was 3rd for his, and Emma didn't place : ( Austin and Mike got to pick any prize from the recreation desk, so Austin got an inflatable ring, and Mike wisely chose 15 spf.

Salt water lagoon and beach

Dinner was at Bubba's Burger Joint in the Kukui'ula Shopping Village - Bubba's burgers are made from Kauai grass fed beef, "Always Juicy, Never Greasy" and a place where they 'relish' your buns (as the picture over Austin's right shoulder atests). I had a burger with pineapple on it - and it was yum! Austin had a corn dog...Mike had fried fish, and it was overfried, Em was healthy and had a Caesar salad with chicken.

Dessert was a shave ice at Uncle's Shave Ice and Smoothies.

Here is a little tuorial on shave ice, not to be confused with shaved ice, Italian ice, or sno cones (and superior to all three, imo!).

 

 

Shave ice or Hawaiian shave ice is an ice-based dessert made by shaving a block of ice. While the product can resemble a snow cone, snow cones are made with crushed, rather than shaved, ice. Shaving produces a very fine ice that appears snow-like. This extremely fine texture causes syrups added to it to be absorbed by the ice rather than simply surrounding.^[1][2] A properly made shave ice product rarely requires a straw, since the flavors are in the ice and not at the bottom of the cup. Although the traditional American flavors are common, shave ice in Hawai'i is often flavored with local ingredients such as guava, pineapple, coconut cream,passion fruit, li hing mui, lychee, kiwi fruit and mango. Hawaiian shave ice is traditionally served in a conical paper or plastic cup with multiple flavors and with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and/or azuki bean paste at the bottom of the cup. Sweetened condensed milk drizzled over the top is sometimes called a "snow cap." This style of shave ice is the signature dessert of Haleiwa on the north shore of the island of Oahu.

Both Em and I decided to indulge, and we had trouble finishing them because they were so HUGE! Mine was leche, a Mexican flavor which is cinnamon with condensed milk. Em got chocolate and birthday cake flavors, but wasn't all too happy with that choice. I decided to try the scoop of vanilla ice cream on the bottom and wasn't sure how that would work out, but it was actually a nice addition. Although I enjoyed the cinnamon flavor, the fruity flavors like lime, pineapple and guava are much better suited to the shave ice experience.

7/31 - Arriving in Kauai

Very behind on posts - having a great time and too tired at the end of the day, but if I don't keep up with it, I won't even remember what we did. Each day in paradise melting into the next!!

As me and the kids were waiting to collect our luggage after the flight, Mike was picking up the rental car. The kids have been asking if we are ever going to get the Mustang convertible, since that seems to be the rental car of choice in Hawaii. I told them we would never be able to fit all the luggage! Never say never to a Baxendell... where there is a will, there is a way, and so with 7 suitcases, this was our 20 minute ride from the airport to the hotel:

Hilarious! And funny, and embarrassing all at the same time. YOLO!

Upon arriving at the Hyatt resort in Poipu beach, we all got leid for the first time since being in Hawaii. It was a touching welcome, all jokes aside!

OMG! I thought the Hilton was amazing, this place is 10x more amazing! The pools and property are unbelievable - beautifully landscaped and maintained. Thankfully it is not as spread out as the Hilton was, with it's tram and boat ride to take you around the property. It's much more relaxed and sophisticated, and doesn't have the Disney World-ish feel that the Hilton had (thankfully!) This is the view out of our ground room terrace, which we can walk right out to the adult pool.

Random views of the property:

There are basically two areas for swimming, an upper area and a lower area, but you can get to the lower area by using the big water slide. The upper area has a lazy river with two small grotto water fall areas. All of the pools have their own little lagoons that you can nestle into. The lower pool is bigger, and called the 'action' pool because you can play basketball and volleyball. There is also a little hot tub island in the middle.

 

Aside from the maze of pools, the resort has their own salt water lagoon and sand beach. The resort fronts Shipwreck beach, which has amazing waves and views of a cliff that people are crazy enough to jump off of. We have yet to make our way up to it, but we will! I place my bets that Mike jumps off...

After ooogling over the property, we headed to the shops at Kukui'ula and had dinner at a tiny fish restaurant called Savage Shrimp. They started out as a shrimp truck, and opened up a tiny restaurant at the shopping village. When you are done eating, you are encouraged to sign the walls, which naturally the kids did. They don't sell alcohol, so you could go to the market within the shops any BYOB, which everyone did and thought was pretty cool. Our meal was amazing - they make all kinds of shrimp scampi. I had ono fish tacos with a fruit salsa that rivals Mike's homemade salsa - they were delish! Austin had Grasshopper shrimp, which he put tons of hot sauce on and then regretted it... Emma had fried shrimp, and Mike had... shrimp! We all left stuffed.

 

But that didn't stop us from having an amazing ice cream at Lappert's Ice Cream and Bakery - the Starbucks of ice cream and coffee in Hawaii. I had the Kaui Pie flavor - Kona coffee ice cream swirled with chocolate fudge, coconut flakes, macadamia nuts and vanilla cake crunch. To DIE for! The best coffee flavored ice cream I have ever had - to fakey or overpowering coffee flavor here! Austin has been dying to get back ever since he had a peanut butter sunday with brownie chunks.

 

 

7/30 snorkeling at Molokini Crater

It took us an hour to get out to Molokini Crater. It's only 1 of three volcanic craters in the world submerged in water. The snorkeling was pretty good - saw some beautiful butterfly angel fish, parrot fish, lots of sea urchins, coral, and a bunch of friendly little black fish with a white stripe where the tail meets its body. It got to be pretty crowded out at the crater by the time we left. Most of the tour boats have their own 'area' to try and stay within, but as you get floating around, there is always going to be someone bumping into you.

From there they took us to what they called 'turtle ghetto', rather than the 'turtle city' that all the other boats take people to. Just as we arrived there was a sea turtle at the surface, making his way back down below. After swimming around for about 20 minutes, we finally saw one turtle snuggled up under the tire that held the buoy in place. Austin swam down and dropped the GoPro camera right next to the big guy to get some footage. The ride back to harbor took FOREVER, since we were working against the wind and waves the whole way. I just wanted to take a nap! Being on the water is so tiring.

 

After some rest and packing, it was beach time - we finally checked out the beach park right across the street from our condo.

It didn't look too promising from our point of view on the 4th floor (not much beach and rocky), but it turned out not to be a bad beach at all. It was very windy, which seems to be the general rule in Hawaii. The kids and Mike had fun using the boogie boards. Apparenty I missed the drama while I was still at the condo - Mike saved some guy who was drunk and falling off his surf board in the waves. Mike brought the guy into shore, and the surf board ended up on the rocks. The lifeguards drove down with their 4-wheelers and applied first aid, then saved his surf board. All in a day's work!

The kids wanted Hawaiian pizza, so we made our way down the street to find out if Hawaiian pizza is an American thing, or if there is an 'authentic' Hawaiian pizza. I don't think we went to the right place for any kind of 'real' Hawaiian pizza. They had it alright, with pineapple and ham, but you could tell they used canned pineapple chunks (with the taste of Maui gold pineapples, that should be a crime on this island!) Oh, and we had to send it back because it had a nice, juicy, black fly baked right into the cheese! Of course that didn't stop Mike and Austin from having a slice first!

 

Last sunset in Maui - on Big Mekena Beach. Mike and the kids did some boogie boarding - the waves were pretty big and the undertow was harsh. Emma got tossed under and decided she isn't going to boogie board ever again!