Hawaii Vacation, Part 4

We docked on Kauai on Thursday morning. Our excursion was fantastic! This is such a beautiful island, so even our drive to our actual destination was wonderful. Look at some of this just off the side of the road. 

After an hour or so's drive, we made it to Waimea Canyon which is often called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. It was so expansive and beautiful!

We left the canyon and drove to the famous "spouting horn" which is a cool geyser to watch.

After this we boarded a little river boat and headed upriver towards the Fern Grotto.

There's an easy little path to walk on from the boat dock to the grotto; the flora on the way was stunning.

We made it to the gorgeous grotto!

Afterwards we made our way back to the boat dock and as we headed back down river, a young lady sang some lovely Hawaiian music while playing the ukilele. Another lady taught everyone how to hula to the music too which was fun. It was a great little ride. We made it back to our tour bus and headed on back to the cruise ship late in the afternoon. This was a wonderful way to spend the day!

On Friday, we only had until 2pm before the ship left, so we decided to forgo any excursions on that day, and we simply took the trolley into the nearby town. We did a little shopping, and then decided to have lunch at Duke's. It was so delicious!

I love hanging out with these two goofies!

Enjoying the water view in town.

Trolley time!

The ship had to leave at 2 so we could cruise by the Na Pali Coast. Pictures do not come anywhere close to capturing the beauty of this area. It is one breathtaking view after another. Absolutely stunning!

We ended the evening by enjoying delicious room service on our balcony while the sunset beside us.

It's hard to believe the cruise is over!

Hawaii Vacation, Part 3

 On Tuesday we arrived at Hilo on the Big Island. We booked an excursion to go see some of the highlights on this side of the island. It was a great way to see a lot of different parts.

First up was actually seeing the main path of destruction from the volcanic eruption of 2018. It was interesting to see how this cut right through parts of the island. In a couple of places houses were left perfectly fine but all of their neighboring houses were wiped out. We stopped and examined these areas closely.

From there we drove to a small national forest for an easy hike. The coolest feature here were all the volcanic statutes that had popped up. Of course there were several pretty flowers and plants to see on this as well.

We then drove to the Star of the Sea Catholic Church which was founded by Father Damien in 1864. I believe it's still the oldest church on the islands. Father Damien was known for his care of lepers in a nearby colony. This church has been moved three times by residents to keep it from destruction by lava. It was a lovely little site to visit.

We did have a picnic lunch but we also stopped for snacks at a little convenience store. I bought this dragonfruit lilipop, and it was absolutely delicious. Seriously one of my favorite things that I ate on this trip!

We were all very excited to get to explore a black sand beach! It was truly beautiful! Our guide explained how the lava hardens and over time is broken down into this sand. It's fine and soft, and I'm so glad we got to see this.

There are hot springs by the beach too. This actually used to be part of the ocean, but as other eruptions happened, this area was cut off from the ocean, so they became permanent hot springs instead.

Our guide also drove our group to another beautiful area on the island. Unfortunately I don't remember exactly what this area was called, but it was really beautiful too!

We left Hilo late Tuesday night to awake near Kona on Wednesday morning. We had made a last minute decision on Tuesday night to cancel our early Wednesday tour in favor of rest and relaxation. We took the morning slowly and then tendered in to shore. We found a farmers market in town which was selling the famous Kona coffee and macadamia nuts at half the price of the port stores. We bought a ton of these to bring back as gifts for family and friends; what a find!

We walked a little further until we came upon a restaurant called Kai that we'd heard great things about. It had both fantastic views and delicious food, so it was a win all around! We'd highly recommend this restaurant to others.

As we moseyed back into town, we opted for more shave ice - both in the Lily form and Ululani's form!

It was a slower paced day, but it was just what we needed.