Greetings from Kauai!

I thought I would write a couple of posts while I was here, but honestly, I’m having too much fun to be on the computer (besides cramming in a bit of homework in the early mornings. We’re still on mainland time, which means we’re waking up between 2:30 and 3:30 a.m. in the mornings, lol).

Before I share pictures and details from our trip (so far), I wanted to alert you to a special sale on Loving the Wind that starts tomorrow. DO NOT MISS THIS SALE! Sign up for my newsletter HERE and I’ll email you tomorrow so that you can read the story of Tiger Lily and Peter Pan at a discounted price (plus, you get a different free book!).

Here’s a quick recap of our trip so far. We traveled all day on Tuesday to get here. All. Day. Seriously. We left the house at 5:30 a.m. California time, and arrived at our condo around 6 p.m. Hawaii time. Added up, that’s about 15 hours of traveling (and a lot of sitting). We were spent! But we arrived just in time to see the sunset from our lanai. It was well worth the wait. Because we couldn’t wait, we hiked down to the beach and took an evening swim in the ocean. The water was warm and refreshing, nothing like the freezing ocean in Northern California!

Wednesday, we woke up at 2:30 a.m., and after an hour, it was clear there would be no going back to sleep. So we got up early and got our busy work out of the way, had breakfast out on the lanai, and enjoyed the early morning before anyone was awake. Then we took a drive out to Hanakapi’ai for a 4 hour hike. This hike was 2 miles to a beach, with lots of steep hills, slick mud, and rocky trails, surrounded by stunning views, greenery, and tropical smells. I seriously used up half my breath just smelling the air. It was heavenly. It was also a really tough hike. It wasn’t so much the uphill climbs (though some of those were brutal), it was the downhill slippery slopes that did me in. I managed to stay upright the whole time, but took everything I had.

We reached the beach and chilled for a little while, enjoying the surf (which was intense) and the sun. Then we hiked the 2 miles back. At the last 1/2 mile, Shawn (my husband) stepped down wrong and twisted his ankle. We had already passed one woman who had hurt herself and was being helped by her family to make the trek back. Without help, they’d probably reach the bottom of the hill in about 8 hours. Luckily, we found out she was getting heli-vacced (sp?) out of there. When I saw Shawn go down, I was worried it would be the same for him. afraid he had broken his ankle. Luckily, that wasn’t the case, just twisted or sprained. A Good Samaritan happened to be near us at the same time with a First-Aid kit that had an ice pack. We found out they were from San Jose, California, just south of us, and were transitioning into retirement on Kauai. What a good life….

We made it to the bottom with hands up in the air, our muscles reminding us we weren’t the 20-year-olds who practically sprinted the slick trail. Nope, we’re seasoned human beings who tackled a difficult hike with battle wounds as our bragging rights. We made it!

On the drive back, I told Shawn to stop at a place called Sushi Girl, which I had learned about through a cool Instagrammer that shares Kauai food posts. There, we had some of the best ahi poke bowls the island has to offer, plus a shared bowl of miso soup. We had used up so many calories, this food was SOUL food. I swear, nothing has ever tasted better.

The rain started as we got closer to our condo. It had been sunny the whole morning, and we realized just how fortunate our timing had been. By the time we got to our condo, it was pouring. We chilled at the condo, reading and resting as the rain served as our soundtrack. For dinner, we had grilled ahi and steak, our own surf and turf made by my talented chef husband. Then we went to the resort’s hot tub and soaked in the hot water in the rain. It was a perfect end to the evening.

This morning we slept in until 3:30 a.m. Lol. Both of are feeling our old, tired muscles. I have no idea what’s in store for today. We had an itinerary, but the plans we had kind of fell through. We see this as a blessing in disguise, as we can now create our own adventure depending on our mood. I can still hear the rain outside, so today might be a shopping and sightseeing day.

I don’t think I’m ever going to leave. 🙂

Here are a few pictures from our trip so far.