The Parents Arrive - Trip to Kauai

This past week, my parents (Paul & Janet) have been visiting us from Alexandria, Virginia! We've been trying to get them out to Hawaii since Winter, but the schedules have only now aligned. It's been a busy and grand week. Because of flight availabilities (they used air miles), the flights in and out were on Tuesday.

This wasn't so bad except that I was teaching a class all last week, so I couldn't take any time off to visit except in the evenings. Fortunately, we had a plan... During previous visits to Hawaii, my parents were able to see Oahu and Hawaii and Maui, but had never been to Kauai, so DeAnna arranged a special trip over to see the Garden Isle! While I taught, they toured Kauai and had a grand time. They visited several waterfalls, and took a river tour to the Fern Grotto on a boat with Hawaiian music and stories!


They toured the north shoreline beaches and sights, having lunch at Princeville where the views of the tropical mountains and ocean were stunning!




The next day everyone went down to the beach and get in some snorkeling! Although the water was kind of rough on the windward shore, DeAnna and Dad managed to get in and swim for a while. Then after a cleanup, they headed out to Waimea Canyon up in the mountains on the west side of Kauai.

Waimea Canyon is a long drive across the island and up into the mountains before looking out on the deep canyon from 3,400 feet altitude. As mentioned before in this blog, the site is called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific - and it lives up to that reputation with huge gorges, waterfalls and rivers!

From there, they took in the sites at the Na Pali coast from 4,000ft. This is where they filmed some of the movie, "King Kong" although you wouldn't recognize it (we rented the movie later and there wasn't much to see of Kauai for all the special effects). The view of the coast was stunning though and worth the trip to the top of the ridge.

The rest of the trip was a relaxing drive to see various sites, but after a while it was time to head to the airport for a quick flight back to Oahu where I had finished teaching and was ready to pick everyone up. After all, There was still lots of Oahu to explore!