Honeymoon Post.
From Myspace.
I posted all the pictures there.
So. Here goes.
We took a flight to Newark, waited a couple hours.
Took a flight to Honolulu, waited about an hour. (Bought ice cream)
We took a flight to Kauai that lasted 45 minutes and they served us my favorite juice ever. It was wonderful.
So. We had "Flat Stanley" (a piece of paper shaped like a man folded and mailed to us from a first grader) and took some pictures with him. We walked out of the airport, which had NO windows because the weather is so perfect all the time. At baggage claim we picked up our bags and every brochure we liked. (Which was about 25)
It's about 10pm so we have to wait a bit for the Thrifty shuttle to pick us up but it was worth it. We got an AMAZING Jeep Wrangler. We didn't have our cottage the first night and it was almost 10:30 so we stayed at a motel called "Tip Top Hotel". haha I love it. It was four walls and a bathroom. It had a bed, a dresser with broken drawers, a nightstand with broken drawers, and a TV with cable. Don't get me wrong. I really did love it. It WAS clean and we didnt see any bugs. In hotels like that it is easy to have them because of how the windows are over there. They are hardly ever closed and just look like glass slates that you can turn to make them line up into a window. They work like blinds and they aren't clear so they kind of are blinds.
The next morning we woke up at 6am. (That's 11am here) The first day we drove almost straight to the Napali Coast. It's my favorite place on the whole island. We drove there and put on TONS of sun screen, but apparently it was old or something so we burnt to a crisp on the first day. Awesome-town. lol TOTALLY WORTH IT though. So we hang around and do some shopping and eat lunch at Bubba's Burgers. We could go to the room by 3pm and it was aboout 2 so it was time to go. We drive pretty much straight there (I mean...didn't get lost, just passed the driveway) and pulled up on a little cottage surrounded by trees and flowers. Everything in it was amazing.
It wasn't like a hotel, it was like a house. A small one...but why did we need anything? It had a bathroom with a stone shower and floor and everything we needed. It had a kitchen with every dish we needed after we went to get some food. It had a washer and dryer, a dishwasher, and a storage closet with extra towels, snorkel sets, water shoes, umbrellas, beach mats, bug spray, soaps for the washer and dishwasher. We were set. The bed was in the main room with the couch but you can't see in the cottage unless you are standing on the deck and even then you can only see the kitchen. It was beautiful and all we needed was food.
On our way out to shop for food we met two kitties. We bought them some food too. We fed three strays for the whole week. Seemed like a good idea at the time. haha We bought a lot of food and ate almost all of it. Everything is more expensive there so we spent like $100 at the grocery store but it's ok, because we DID eat it. After shopping we rented the Stand (6 hours) and Riding the Bullet (2 hours). We love Steven King.
Second day. First full day with the cottage. We woke up around 8 so we went North. We stopped at a phenomenal smelling shop where we bought a phenominal amount of soups and candles. haha It was so great. We bought them for mothers day presents since we were gone on Mother's day. (Tyler, if you read this don't say a word until we get home.) After a bit of shopping we kept on trucking to the Kilaeua Light House. Then it was time for our LUAU! First we walked around the awe inspiring grounds feeding the birds and Kip fed a PEACOCK out of his HANDS! Don't believe it? We got video! haha Then we watched them take the pig out of the ground. That's where they cook it. Then we ate and listened to the band for a while. After they played we were recognized as honeymooners as well as some other couples. Then it was time for the show. We took at least 6 videos of all the dancing and fire dancers. It was completely freakin great. When we got home we started watching the stand and went to sleep in our sweet little home for the week.
Day 3 on the island we wanted to explore the side of the island we were on so we went ever farther North. We got to the absolute end of the road and parked. We ended up spending the whole day hiking up and down a mountain and ended up at a beach. There were giant black rocks and caves all over. Only about 15 people in and out of this beach. Lots of hikers but no one really stayed long. The waves were pretty big. Some kids were surfing. At some point on the mountain there is a water fall so the stream comes all the way down through the rocks until it hits the sand and runs into the ocean. Don't worry. I will post pictures with captions for all of these things. (This the northern most part of the road. There is only one road that goes from one end to the other. It does not connect all the way around. It stops at the Napali Coast and starts again on the other side. So we are on the North and East side with this stream and the caves. The first day we went to the North and West side with the mountains and total of 10 people for 5 miles of beach.) On the way we stopped at some shops and ate at Bubba's again. That was our favorite place to go out. I ended up getting sick that night but by the time I fell asleep I felt fine. So burnt and tired we watched a bit of the Stand, made some dinner and passed out.
Day 4: We woke up at about 4:30am. By choice, not by accident. Today was the day we decided we wanted to fly to the Big Island! We rented a convertable Mustang and headed to Volcanoes Park. It's a national park with tons of craters and steam vents. One of the bigger ones had just recently opened a new vent! A small quick note that will live in my mind forever. Do not EVER go to the Volcano House. The shops are expensive, the hotel is HORRIBLE (we read from reviews) and there was a SLUG in my salad. On top of all this...the food was gross. So. DO NOT GO THERE.
Hawaii has the most active volcano in the world and we hiked a couple miles to see it...from a couple of miles away...but still! We saw LAVA hit the ocean! We did get pictures. We didn't have much space left so we didn't get video...but we were still like two or three miles away so I suppose it doesn't make much difference. We got to the airport and realized Kip left his credit card at the cafe we went to before we hiked to the volcano. When we got to the gate I realized I had left my flip flops in the car. (He ran to get them.) I suppose he has to order a new card today. We had it stopped immediately and just used mine the rest of the trip.
Day 5: Thankfully, since we got home so late, we only had one thing to do the next day. We went horseback riding for 2.5 hours. I rode Hoeke (Hoe-eek-ay) and Kip rode Ohia (Oh-hee-ah). It was just us and the guide. We walked, trotted cantered and sprinted.) We weren't supposed to sprint but the guide thought we would like it...and we did. haha It was beautiful. Not too many oppertunities to take pictures but we will never forget it. I loved it. It was one of my favorite parts. But...there wasn't much that wasn't my favorite part on this trip. We stopped at some look outs on the way back but it was Thursday...so we went home, made some steaks and waiting for LOST. We weren't sure when it would be on...but it was AMAZING. Great day, great night. :-)
Day 6: We went back up to the light house because we realized that my camera was set on the lowest quality for the whole week so all of our pictures will look like crap when printed. We shopped at gift fairs and the mall for gifts to bring home. That took most of the day. We wanted to catch the sunset at the north west side of the Napali Coast so we got there at about 5 and waited almost two hours before we realized that there would be no sunset to see because of the "vog". (The fog from the volcano that covered the islands when the trade winds didn't blow. The began to blow again on Sunday, the day we left.) Though that does sound sad, this was my favorite part of the whole trip. There were a total of 6 people on the whole beach. Kip played in the ocean. I took more pictures. We made words out of sea shells and took pictures of them to put in our photo album we bought for our honeymoon pictures. We just got to lay there and not worry about what we had to do later. The next day was the day we left Kauai and we both knew we didn't want to leave so we just layed there and laughed about nothing. Definatly a memory I'll cherish forever.
We trucked it back because we had to get all of our stuff out of the cottage before 10am and we had something planned for 8am that lasted for three hours and then we wanted to get to Waimeia Canyon before our flight.
Day 7: Woke up at 5:45 and got everything ready to go. Everything was packed, everything was ready to go. We headed off to check in at 7:30am for out ZIP LINE TOUR! I was really scared at first but after the first "bunny slope" line I loved it. I went first on the second one. The second one was the second highest in the country. There were 7 lines total and at the end we got a free lunch and there was a swimming hole for us but we didn't go because we had to get on a plane later and didn't have a cottage to shower in anymore.
We took the car back and went to the airport. Kip was worried about agriculture giving us trouble for our crap but they didn't so we were on our way. We flew to Honolulu with no trouble. We had a bit of a lay over there before we flew to the mainland so we shopped in every shop and smelled all the fresh pineapple in boxes ready to ship home. We found out pretty close to boarding that our plane had been decomitted. That means they sent a different plane to take us to Houtson. They were asking for TWENTY FIVE volunteers. That's 25 people who would have to take different flights to get to the mainland and most of them would have to wait for morning to get another flight.
SO. Since we had a huge lay over in Houston, then flew to some other place with a lay over there and THEN went home...We hopped off. They offered us a free hotel, cab rides to and from the airport, three free meals and 500$ each in free tickets for Continental airlines. We stayed at a REALLY nice hotel called the Pacific Beach. It was ocean front.
Day 8: We took a shuttle to Pearl Harbor and visited the museums and took a ride to see the USS Airsona Memorial. We wanted to go "stumble" upon the set of LOST but we didn't have time. Our flight left at 4:19pm so we pretty much just had to back to the hotel, relax for a minute and then head to the airport. We flew to Chicago, had a 5 hour lay over, then flew home. Kip had to go straight to work, which means I had to drive him from the airport to work. Then I picked him up and he had to go to St. Louis for more work. Poor guy. No wonder he thanked me every day for picking the most secluded relaxing island on Hawaii.
So that was it. Sorry it was so long but that's just about everything I remember. haha It was a perfect trip. We had the time of our lives and it was so wonderful to see all those things with the one I love. Thanks for reading.
Quote: "Laws Yes!" -Tom Cullen. The Stand.
-Ashley-