Trip of the Decade: Final Edition

 There is only one main road on the entire island in Kauai, and it isn't connected, which means that you drive until you get to the end of the road at the NaPali coast, and then turn around and drive until you get to the other end.  On Friday, we drove to the end of the road to hike the most famous hike in all of Hawaii, the Kalalau Trail on the NaPali coast.

 The trail, like all the others we had encountered, was super slippery and muddy...and awesome.

 The entire hike across the NaPali coast is an overnighter and requires a permit.  We opted for the shorter 4hour down and back version.  We hiked to Hanakapi'ai Beach where we ran into some hippies with dreadlocks smoking something besides tobacco.  We sat on the beach and ate our picnic and laughed at the people who would put their stuff down in the sand and then walk off to take pictures and then race after their things as a wave was washing it out to sea. 

When we finished hiking, we stopped at Tunnels Beach and Ke'e Beach.  They are famous for surfing (think Soul Surfer) but we just enjoyed the sand and the sun.  Then we shopped around Hanalei.  It was the most eclectic town we had been to.  We loved the shopping and the food and the live musicians.  Hanalei really has an end-of-the-road feeling and it was fun to spend the afternoon there.

 There was a high surf advisory that day, but we really wanted to get some more snorkeling in if we could.  After Tunnels and Ke'e didn't provide any snorkeling, we decided to give it one last shot and hiked down to Sea Lodge Beach to try our luck.  No snorkeling, but we did find the beach completely deserted.  No, really, Jeff and I had an entire beach in Kauai all to ourselves.  Sounds like a dream, doesn't it?  It was.

 The hike to Sea Lodge Beach required some tricky trapezing over the rocks you see on the right, which may have dissuaded the casual beach goer, especially with the high surf.  We were glad they were dissuaded.

 The next morning we awoke to our last day on the island.  We made breakfast together and ate on the lanai with the chickens (since everything you do in Kauai is with the chickens.)  Then we locked up our condo for the last time and bid farewell.  We stopped at the Kilauea Lighthouse on our way to the airport.

 The lighthouse is actually more of a bird sanctuary than a lighthouse now, but the view is postcard perfect.

 The women in Hawaii wears flowers - live flowers - in their hair or around their necks like every day.  The flowers are everywhere in every color.  I think locals must wake up in the morning, walk outside (since there isn't a real distinction between indoors and outdoors there) and choose a flower for the day just like I choose which earrings to wear.

And that was it.  We stopped and bought some snacks for the dreadfully long flight ahead, turned in our rental car, and checked in at the airport.  These are our sad faces that we had to leave.  We landed in Vegas at midnight and found an In-N-Out Burger stat, which I must say did a lot to relieve my sadness.  Then we crashed.  The next day was day 10, the last day of our Trip of the Decade, the end of our months and months of planning, saving, and anticipation.  But it wasn't really the end.  Now we have the memories...and many more wonderful decades to go.