Kauai #1 - 5/26 - 5/28

Saturday, May 26
While we waited for the Hertz van at the Kauai airport we were greeted by a rooster. Little did we know how popular they are here. One of the theories of why there are so many is that when hurricane Iniki hit in 1992 chicken farms and backyard chicken coops were destroyed setting the chickens free and they've been free to roam ever since.

Once we got to Hertz it was another wait, 3 planes arrived at the same time.  Hertz passed out water and granola bars.

Halfway through our drive we did some shopping at a Foodland.

Big mistake, or some of our purchases were a mistake.  I didn't want to buy a rotisserie chicken because I didn't want it to sit in the car so why did I buy the Poke?  We wound up throwing it out the next day because it seemed funny to me.  One of the big problems was that when we checked in it took forever until we got to our room since we had to chat with the concierge first and then even longer for our stuff to get to our room.
We decided to go to one of the local churches that had a Saturday 5 PM mass.  It was a small round church and it was their music mass with a guiter and violin player.  After the mass, since it was Pentercost they had a huge dinner that everyone was invited to.  There was more food than anyone could eat and most of it we couldn't identify.  There were a lot of foods that were similar to what you could get in a Chinese restaurant but the desserts were definitely unique, different flavors of trays of little squares with a sticky consistency.

Sunday, May 27
We went to the hottub first thing in the morning and it was HOT!!  It soothed all our aching joints.

This is a whole different world from where we stayed in Maui.  Very lush, since we're at the North Shore which is the rainy side, and so peaceful.  Our building is closest to the ocean and has it's own little pool which also seems a world away from the main pool which is large and filled with kids.  Haven't seen any kids at our end, probably way too boring but we love it.
Later on we took a drive as far as we could go until we hit the Napali Coast.

On the way we stopped in Hanalei and walked around the town and the Bay.

No one seemed to pay any attention to the sign posted right next to where they were all jumping into the water.

Back on our lanei for Happy Hour it only took a few crackers to attract all kinds of birds up there with us and the brave ones took the crackers out of my hand.  Down on the ground we got the geese and chickens.

Monday, May 28
In the morning the Westin held a "Vacation Kick Off" to learn about the activities on and off site.  Mimosas and door prize tickets were distributed.  As the presentation continued, a door prize was given after each speaker. Someone won a $25 gift certificate to the restaurant after the chef spoke and there was the free massage following the presentation by the head of the Spa. Other prizes included a kayak trip, and 2 for 1 adventure with horses and zip lines.

Larry said he shouldn't be holding the ticket since he never wins anything as they called the number for the final giveaway. No one responded, they must have gotten bored and left so another number was drawn - 111and Larry's hand went up. What a surprise, I didn't even know what our number was. We won a 2 for 1 Big Kahuna Tour around the island with AirVentures.
After reserving our flight for Thursday, we thought it was about time for some exercise. We took the van down to the St.Regis, checked out the beach, which looked better for snorkeling than swimming

 and then walked back. One of the beach guys told us we could take a "shortcut" up a steep hill on the side of the resort and cut through another resort. Don't know how much of a shortcut it was since going up that hill added more footsteps than taking the elevators up to the 9th floor where the lobby is.

St Regis from across Hanalei Bay

We bought some chicken for dinner at Foodland and rented The Descendants to watch that night. It was perfect timing since we recognized so many of the places that were in the movie. I found a really good blog that shows where you can find all the actual locations of houses, etc that were in the movie.

Tuesday, May 28
It was a beautiful morning to go to the pool. We didn't make it to the hottub before 7 so we had to wait until 10:00 - after I watched Good Morning America and The View, which directly follows it in Hawaii. The weather here is more changeable than in Rochester. Sunny and beautiful, then cloudy, then raining - either with the sun out or not.  We were at the pool until after 12:00 and it was sunny the whole time.  Enough sun, we wanted to check out the lighthouse and National Wildlife refuge.

First we went to Anini Beach, the actual Anini Beach is at the end of a 2 mile long stretch of beaches and Anini Beach Park is actually located on Kalihikai Beach across from the Kauai Polo Ckub - no wonder we saw so many horses.

We can get to Anini Beach from our hotel down a steep path which we haven't tried (yet??).  We also went to the Princeville Golf Course which killed Larry that he couldn't play because of his back.  This is the #1 course in Hawaii and the 16th in the US.

We returned The Descendants and took out another one that I thought was Larry Crowne but that night when we were going to watch it saw that it was Memorial Day.  We went into Hanalei for Happy Hour.  We chose Kalypso and had Mai Tais, the largest fried calamari I ever saw and crab quesadilla.  It turned out to suffice for dinner.

Before we went back to our room we stopped to see Connie, our Concierge and signed up to do an owner update so we could get a free dinner on Friday.

Since we didn't want dinner we enjoyed a cocktail out on the lanai before watching the wrong movie.