After the wedding Amy and I drove back Des Moines to find our house still in the giant mess we left it from moving. We then brought all of our wedding gifts in and added to the mess. We packed until around 11:30pm and decided we better get to sleep. Kari was picking us up 6:30am the next morning to give us time to get to the airport and get our tickets picked up for our 8am flight.

Monday June 26, 2006 - We boarded our plane and landed in Phoenix for our 5 hour layover. Im glad that airport is so big because we had time to explore every part of it. We walked around for a while on the moving sidewalks and looked at the scenary and watched the planes. Finally our flight to Lihue was boarding. 6 hours later we landed in Lihue, HI. It was only 7pm there but to us it was 12am so we were exhausted. We got our car, drove to our hotel, and checked out the ocean really quick before getting to sleep.

Tuesday June 27, 2006 - The next morning we walked around and checked out the resort and had breakfast looking over the ocean. Then we went to Wailua Falls and took some pictures. We hiked, walked on the beach, and went swimming. When we were at a state park we found this small creek that probably 6-7 feet deep at one point and there was a rope hanging from the tree that someone had hung up so of course I had to try it out. That night Amy and I went to luau. They did the whole thing with cooking a whole pig in a pit all day and pulling it out after we all got there. After they prepared it the Kalua pork was delicious. We drank a lot of mai-tai's and watched demonstations of all the different kinds of South Pacific dancing styles.

Wednesday June 28, 2006 - We woke up and I quickly realized that I had got a bad sunburn from laying on the beach the day before. so I was a little pissed about that. We had a nice breakfast in our room that morning and tried to figure out where we could go. First we went to a small shopping center so I could get a tshirt to cover my sweet sunburn so I could still go out of the beach. We went to this hotdog place called Puka-Dog and had Hawaiian style sausages which, surprisingly, were really good. Then it was time to head to the port for our catamaran tour of the north coast. The majority of the north coast of Kauai is not accessable by land so the only way in is by boat of plane. We boarded Captian Andys catamaran and he took us up to the Na Pali coast which is the area they filmed Jurassic Park. Amy and I sat in a bad spot on the way up. By the time we were done we were completely soaking wet. When we got to our turn around point we were served dinner and again more mai-tais. The coast was incredible. The pictures cant show how big these cliffs were. I think we were told that the highest points were 4500 feet up. It was awesome.

Thursday June 29, 2006 - This was the first day of our trip that we didnt have anything planned yet so we decided to drive up the west edge of the island and check out Waimea canyon. We drove and drove and drove and finally reached the top. (the funny thing about Kauai is the highway forms a big "U". when you reach a certain point the highway just stops.) we checked out all the look-outs over the canyon and went hiking on some trails which ended up taking us back to a look-out we had just been at. On the way back we stopped at the Waimea brewing company where I had the Westside Wheat and the Lilikoi Light. Both were excellent. After that we stopped at the Kauai Coffee estates and looked at their huge fields and processing areas. We went back to the hotel and took a quick nap then had dinner at a restaurant called Pizzetta. Of course we had Hawaiian pizza and I had a Longboard Lager.

Friday June 30, 2006 - The last day of the trip came to soon. This was a very long day. We had to check out of the Grand Hyatt by noon and the plane didnt leave until 10:40pm. So we had a good 10 hours to kill. We walked the beach by the hotel, walked along some cliffs, and chased some crabs. We drove way up to the other end of the island and checked out Kilauea Point and took some pictures. The scenary was amazing up there. On the way back I had to get gas for the first time of the trip. The cheapest I could find was $3.92/gallon. Then we headed back towards the airport area and into town for a little shopping. We ended up eating at a place called Genkei Sushi. It was a fast-food sushi place like the ones in Japan. The sushi is on a conveyor belt and goes around the restaurant and you just take off what you want. The plates were all color coded for different prices. it was good. Then we went to this nice sandwich shop so Amy could get something for dinner. It was getting close to time to get on the plane. We parked the car by the ocean and hung out for a while wawtching planes come in over the water. We took the car back and got on the plane. I didnt sleep the whole way back so by the time we got back to our house I had been awake for well over 24 hours straight.

We had a ton of fun and we will definately be going back. 5 days was no where near enough time to experience everything that we wanted to.

Pictures

[Listening to: NLO Episode 96: Super Bean - Patrick and Hollywood Adam]