Tired from our 8 hour overnight layover in Seattle we arrived to Kauai with an extra hour thanks to daylight savings. Flying into the island you could see the beauty and reasoning behind the nickname the garden island and immediately we were bright eyed and bushy tailed. Once at the airport we both realized how overdressed we were in our long-sleeved travel clothes, it did not take us long to get too hot! We took the shuttle to the rental car office and quickly discovered the island’s unofficial mascot is the chicken, as in they are in invasive specie that can be found all over the island - roosters, hens and chicks alike.
We got our rental car, a hard top Jeep that was supposed to be a soft top, but were immediately won over by everyone’s friendly and “aloha” attitude. The airport is in Lihue, on the East side of the island, and our hotel was on the south shore. We pulled out the GPS on our phone and hit the road to the south shore. It was a quick but beautiful drive made complete by the island’s variety of gorgeous trees, plants and foliage. The most beautiful part of the drive is by far the “tunnel of trees” which is a stretch of road that is completely lined with large gorgeous trees and vines. We discovered how quickly the weather can change, in one area it can be sunny and 3 miles later you are in a heavy rain. After a few mis-turns into resort and condominium parking lots we arrived at the Ko Ke’a hotel.
This is a valet-only hotel and the amenities and service matches the upscale attitude. We were checked in by a friendly staff member, shown to our room, and blown away by our view - we truly got an ocean front room.
We had some trouble finding condos for the first part of our trip, which is also when we are getting married, so we splurged (we meaning Josephine acted and Scott agreed) and got an ocean front room at one of the swankiest hotels on the island. Unlike the surrounding large-scale resorts, we are in a boutique hotel that has around 100 rooms. We are on the top floor (third) and have a corner room that literally overlooks the ocean and beach. The bell hop arrived to drop off our bags and kindly took about 10 pictures of us on our lanai with the ocean and beach in the background.
We quickly changed into Hawaii appropriate gear and set off the feed our hungry bellies at the tikki bar next to the pool. We order paninis which turned out to be less than impressive but did the job at curbing our hunger. We then grabbed our snorkel gear and went to the beach that is right in front of the hotel. I proved to be rusty with my snorkel abilities. This was apparent from the start when I went to put on my fins while still on the beach until Scott corrected me and prevented me from walking down the beach looking like Scuba Steve. We entered the water which was cooler than expected and got to snorkeling. This area of the beach was a little shallow but there was some critters to look at like parrot fish, eel, needle fish, angel fish and more. I was pretty paranoid due to the shallowness of the water - we were not to far above the corral and rocks and there was the occasional surge of waves to factor in - as such I regularly grabbed on to Scott’s fins and he ended up mostly traveling with his arms. After snorkeling we laid out on the beach for awhile until we noticed the sun start to fade and most other beach goers were heading in. We followed suit and headed back to our room to find a nice surprise of champagne waiting for us. We broke out the bubbly, almost literally broke out as the cork escaped Scott’s hand for a moment, and toasted to Hawaii while watching the sunset from our lanai.
Then we got dressed, walked a ways down the road for dinner at Keoki’s Paradise. There were quite a few people waiting so we were surprised when we got called after only a 5 minute wait. We then discovered why as they were offering us a table that was front and off center to the live band. We toughed it out and enjoyed the local Hawaiian band while indulging in calamari steaks, sliders, kale salad and the biggest piece of pie (hula pie) we have ever seen.
A shame to our nation we were unable to finish the pie slice but walked away satisfied. Earlier that day Scott had commented that he hadn’t been able to reach a level of fullness yet - this dinner proved to be successful with him reaching past that point. We walked back to the hotel, cutting across a large condominium complex grounds and turned in by 10 PM. Falling asleep listening to waves is definitely something we could get used to. At the start of the day I suggested we should move here and Scott quickly responded that the cost of living was too high and there were no jobs. By the end of the day Scott retracted his statement and said maybe with the right location and our work history we could make it work. This is our island dreaming of course so no need to worry about us packing up across the Pacific....yet.
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