I’m not sure Elizabeth and I were prepared for how quickly the whole thing would pass by. I’m talking about the wedding, not the honeymoon. Oh trust me, I’ll get to the honeymoon. We had been engaged for a year and a half, had plenty of time to prepare everything, the wedding weekend would be a walk in the park right? In hind sight, it was a walk in the park as everyone, friends and family included, were unbelievably helpful. However, in the moment, things past by like a bullet train headed for the 4th of July. It was the best day of my life! And interestingly enough, with each passing day from the wedding; the memories of the day seem to get better and better… I’m no love expert but I feel like we done-did something right then.
The wedding weekend quickly came and past. We blinked and it was over but at the same time just beginning. Liz and I had the first flight out of Indy to Phoenix on Monday morning. We then flew the too many hour long flight to Kauai. Lets get it started up in herr.
DAY 1 – CHICKENS AND MAI TAIS
We got off our flight and located our locally rented rental car. It was a smoking hot 2001, white Hyundai Accent. We had to walk through a few roosters to get to the car. We chuckled, thought of the character Hay-Hay from Moana and thought “oh what a funny one time experience that was ha ha ha”… WRONG. We had no clue that roosters had taken over the island. They were everywhere for the whole week. You couldn’t always see them, but you can hear them… especially at 3 am.
Here’s a picture of Grandma, our smoking hot 2001 Accent with no power windows. It did have power steering and could dominate the intense Kauai terrain! We also blended right in with the local crowd. All the tourists who use Hertz or Enterprise get fancy Mustangs or Cadillacs but we had Grandma!
We stopped into a restaurant called Lemongrass on our way up to our condo. I was heavily influenced by the sign which read something to the extent of “Happy Hour 4-5 pm Come drink lots”… Okay, okay, it didn’t say exactly that but that’s how I read it in my mind. I looked at Grandma’s faded time and it was 3:53. I made a squeeling turn decision to stop for food there. Liz was very happy with my driving so far! We had our first Mai Tai’s and dinner which were both amazing! Goodness did it feel great to sit with no where else to go, or anything to get done. Let the good times role.
DAY 2 – TO THE WEST
We got up early on Tuesday to make our way to the rigorous west side of the island. It was a two-hour drive and we were nearly circling the entire island to get there. Picture driving clockwise from 1 o’clock to 10 o’clock on a analog clock. That’s what we did. It would have been quicker to drive counterclockwise but that’s not how time works! But for real though, to get from 1 to 10 o’clock the short way would involve getting through the intense terrain of the Napali Coast. This is impossible as there are no roads that traverse the Napali Coast. You can only traverse it on foot. Liz and I actually had permits to hike the beautiful coastline but it was closed due to the historic flooding that occurred there in April (I was more disappointed about this than Liz was… The Napali Coast is a intense hike!). Napali aside, we drove over to the Kalalau Lookout and had a few hours just to chill and talk in the car on our way there. As we ascended into the high terrain of the west side of the island, it felt like we were approaching Arizona’s Grand Canyon. It was very rocky, canyon-like terrain!
We ended up hiking an unofficial trail off the Kalalau Lookout which a local told us had great views of the Napali Coast and wasn’t too strenuous… The local was actually our waitress from Lemongrass the evening before. From beginning to end, the locals were a huge help. We sat next to a Mrs. Morgan on our flight in who gave us so many great tips! Basically, don’t be nervous to talk to the locals. Back to the hike… IT WAS A GREAT HIKE! Breathtaking views the entire way. Probably because we were staring down a thousand foot drop on either side of the ridge we were hiking. Needless to say, there was some fairly decent exposure but the trail was dry and well established so we were never worried for our safety. Although I have much more hiking experience than Liz, she was more comfortable on this hike than I was. You see, I am afraid of heights and I kid you not that the views were amazing the entire way. The rush of nature was overwhelming. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
On our drive back, we stopped at Kokee Lodge and Museum for our 2nd round of mai tais. We were happy hikers.
As we slowly made our way back, we decided to go to Polihale State Park to catch the sunset and some well needed beach time. Little did I know what we had to go over to get there. I do not suggest traversing a 3 mile rocky road with a 2001 Hyundai Accent. I think my thoughts the entire way down this road consisted of something like, “PLEASE GRANDMA, JUST HANG IN THERE.” It was slow going, 15 mph slow, but we made it to the beach and we nearly had the whole beach to ourselves! It was well worth the wait. We played some ultimate frisbee for a while and Liz wants me to comment on the fact that I threw it in the water multiple times to make her chase after it. I will say that it may or may not have been on purpose. We left the beach as it started getting dark and it stormed our entire way back to the condo as we made our way through the south and east side of the island. We had easterly flow most of the week which means the west side of the island was high and dry but the east side of the island was a different story. WEST SIDE, DRY SIDE!
DAY 3 – SLEEPING GIANT
Liz and I didn’t realize how much we really did on Tuesday (Day 2). How we were even alive the next day is beyond us, especially following the wedding weekend. So we chilled out and enjoyed some Kalua coffee in the morning with our bird friend Frank (see below) and then shipped out to hike sleeping giant in the afternoon despite the soreness. This is a very popular hike, I figured it would be fairly easy and quick. Which it was! We were just a little sore from all the walking around we did from the previous day which made this hike a little strenuous. There also weren’t amazing views to distract you from your tiredness like the day before. This hike is located on the eastern-middle side of the island, so the ecosystem is much more tropical on this side of the island. We trudged through what felt like jungle until we reached the summit which treated us with some awesome views of Kapaa and the eastern side of the island.
Afterwards we ran over to Sleeping Giant Grill for their fish tacos (a different local told us to go there… the locals were very friendly) and they were AMAZING! It could have been how hungry we were, but the fish in these tacos were amazing!! We ate a ton of fish throughout the week and it was some of the best fish I’ve ever had. There was a dance bar called Tree’s in the same complex as the grill which we went to after thinking we could find a place to dance for a while. We had none of it though. Nobody was dancing. Not that it would have stopped us but the DJ was playing some weird low-fi hip hop music which I enjoy, but not when you’re trying to get people dancing. Either way, we still had a good time dancing to a few songs and enjoyed more mai tais!
DAY 4 – SURFS UP!
Learned how to surf in the morning. Our instructor set the standard from the stereotypical surfer bro. His name was Clay. Good guy. Seeing as we were in the water, there are no pictures, but I can assure you that both Liz and I got up on a surf board. Interesting tid bit, I was talking to Clay while we were waiting for a good set of waves to come in and was asking how his place survived the rains in April. He wasn’t on Kauai at the time but told me to look at the mountains in the back drop of Hanalei Beach. You could see many brown stripes which extended the entirety of the cliffs on these mountains. Apparently, they were all waterfalls back in April. The mountains I was looking at had received 3 feet of rainfall within 24 hours, so it was a historic amount of rain we are talking about. Here’s an article about it. From surfing in the morning, we rented and road some bikes on the east side trail in the afternoon and finally got some time for Liz to shop around Kapaa. We had a great dinner at Olympic Café which is located right on the main road through Kapaa. We got a table right on the road and we had some great views. Liz wants me to say her Pina Colada was excellent!
Small note, throughout the whole week we nearly exclusively referred to one another as husband and wife to make it sound like this was all real… I’m still not sure if it was or not.
DAY 5 – What Day Is It?
We had lost track of the days at this point in the honeymoon. What a blast we were having. We had no plans starting off each day, we more or less planned our days as they came. This day, I managed to go on a run earlier in the morning which allowed me to explore the area we were staying which was Princeville. I managed to run my way to an abandon resort off of Hanalei Bay! This was not on purpose, I just stumbled upon it. It was incredible looking. I felt like I was discovering the abandon Jurassic Park. It was a huge resort on the east side of the bay back in the 1970s but Hurricane Iniki in 1992 wiped it out and it was never rebuilt. Being alert for dinosaurs, I managed to find my way down to the beach following a relatively defined path. To my left, a gentleman was painting the forgotten views of the mountains behind Hanalei. What I ended up finding was another extremely secluded beach. Personally, I found this beach to be much nicer than Polihale. I ran back to tell Liz about the place and we ended up spending the afternoon enjoying that beach.
And in the evening, we EAT!!! We had tickets to a Luau in the evening and I’m not sure I have ever eaten so much food… I kid you not, just ask Liz. I was sooo full. It was an all you can eat buffet and open bar (yes the bar included mai tai’s). We had a great time and enjoyed the show that went along with it. Liz’s favorite guy was the one that spun the fire… To which I say typical. In addition, we were not the only Bauer’s there! There was another table which was filled with Bauer’s. We were not related but based off there enthusiasm for life, I wanted to say we were.
DAY 6 – Rocky Day
Enjoyed the condo in the morning. By this point in the week, we learned that we had a smart TV which had Netflix on it so we enjoyed bits of a few movies. Overall though, we didn’t spend too much time in the condo but it really was VERY nice. We got it through AirBnB which is basically a website which rents out houses like a hotel, except in most situations you get the whole house to yourself. Its also cheaper than hotels. Anyway, come the afternoon we made our way to another hike which would take us to Secret Falls. With all the hiking and walking around we had done throughout the week, we were unadmittedly pretty tired. That being said, we were defeated by this hike. There was some rather significant rock maneuvering which made for a pretty slow and exhaustive hike. Not to mention that it was mud city everywhere. This was hike where all the bugs came out to play as well, otherwise the bugs on the island were minimal. We got very dirty on this one. We didn’t make it to the falls but still had a fun time enjoying what I would say was the closest we came to seeing what Kauai was truly like.
I almost forgot, we had more mai tai’s in the evening! This should not be a surprise at this point.
DAY 7 – Church Clothes!
Church was done right in Kauai. First off, they celebrated the sacrifice of the mass, this is good! They also greeted us with leis and the church was open so there were birds inside the church. You would think it would be annoying, but it actually sounded natural. It was a very simple church and it was a fantastic mass as they all are. From mass, we had an urge to get a good brunch, we are Catholic after all! So we made our way to the Kountry Kitchen. This was a restaurant filled with pictures of roosters! At this point in the week, if we never had to hear a rooster again; we would be completely okay with it. The roosters had become wild across the island after Hurricane Iniki and they were literally EVERYWHERE and they would never shut up. It would be 3 am and we would still be hearing them. Brunch was awesome though! After brunch, we made our way to Shipwrecks Beach. It was a pretty windy day so we napped on the beach a bit and then decided to hike down the coastline to Makauwahi Cave. I actually have a ton of GoPro pictures from this little adventure so enjoy a few of these below.
DAY 8 – Napali Wannabe
As I mentioned previously, we were unable to hike the Napali Coast because of the rains back in April. I knew this before we got to the island but I was still hoping to be able to get to the trailhead to view the potential for a great hike in the future. So this morning we decided we would drive down there and explore a bit. Well, I was going to explore; Liz was planning on sitting on the beach. Turns out though, they have the national guard blocking the road with M16’s! We drove just past Hanalei before the road was completely blocked off. We weren’t able to get anywhere close to the trailhead. I was pretty bummed about this but we ended up having a good time walking and shopping around Hanalei.
We stayed close to home in the afternoon and decided to knock out Queens Bath which is a very popular site to see on the north side of the island. We walked there and it involves a very brief, but MUDDY hike to get to and the views of the coast are a huge benefit for the amount of time/effort it takes to hike there. Once there, the cliffs were amazingly different than what we had witnessed across the rest of the island and had a great time jumping into one of the inlets which had turtles swimming in it! … Not sure how I felt about swimming with giant sea turtles… Jack Sparrow! A quick side note, I would not recommend jumping in if you are not a good swimmer or climber as it takes some strength to be able to pull yourself out of the very turbulent waters! Many people have actually died jumping into the water in this area. We made sure we had a good exit strategy before we jumped in and had no issues. We continued to hike around the area for a while before we walked back to the condo. We went back to Hanalei in the evening to shop around and then literally ran to the beach to catch what looked like would be an amazing sunset. It decided to rain on us instead… classic Kauai.
DAY 9 – Hippie Day
Our flight left Kauai at 10:01 pm on this day and we had to be checked out of our AirBnB by 10 am. This means we had 8-9 hours to kill before we had to be at the airport. So we decided to do a “usual” touristy activity. We went to Princeville Ranch and did their 4×4 tour which included driving ATV’s, zip lining, swimming and even MORE HIKING. We were a little tired of hiking at this point. We had a fun overall experience. By far the best part about it was not having to worry about food, water or directions. They provided everything and told us where to go for the whole morning which allowed us to just enjoy the experience and each other.
As one can note, we got very muddy again… Mud is everywhere in Kauai… We needed a place to shower after the Ranch. We asked our guides and they explained that there were some public showers at Anini Beach so we headed that way as we no longer had the luxury of being able to go back to the condo to clean off. We were so tired that we ended up going right to the beach and just taking a nap for an hour. We awoke to hermit crabs scavenging for lunch right in front of our eyes which ended up keeping us from falling back asleep. The thought of a crabs crawling across our stomachs was not a pleasant one. I showered at the beach which had functioning showers. This was a very campy, hippie-esque beach. There were multiple people who clearly lived on the beach here. One guy lived out of his van which was filled to the brim with stuff and had grass the size of Kansas wheat surrounding it. He waved and I calmly waved back. The whole island had been unbelievably welcoming to us the entire week. I was not ready to go home.
We got some nice, clean clothes on and made our way back to the big city where we went to the Koloa Rum Company for some free rum! The last thing we did before we headed to the airport was eat dinner at a place called Keokis. It had great food and an awesome atmosphere! Liz also managed to get some last minute shopping in. I was so thrilled.
As we made our way to the airport and dropped off the car, things came down to earth very quickly. We did not realize it, but we had just had the best couple weeks of our lives to date. Liz had graduated, I had my bachelor party, then we had the wedding and we just finished the honeymoon. Now a drive to Wichita would be all that would stand between us and the “real world”. As I finish this blog post nearly a month into marriage, I can say that I still love Liz and I’m pretty sure she still loves me. All is going smoothly in Wichita and we can’t wait to make it back to Kauai someday. Here’s to a life spent happily ever after! Mahalo!
Sorry… had to sneak in a few of my wedding favorites.
A Patient Scientist 