Kauai vacation
April 22nd - Fly to Kauai
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We flew out of San Francisco and landed at Honolulu. There is a long walk from the main terminal to the inter-island terminal where we caught our plane for Kauai. We had plenty of time at the airport, but it would have been better if we could have a nonstop in Lihue. Because of the 3 hour time change, it was only early afternoon when we arrived on Kauai at the Lihue airport.
We stayed at a nice place called the Aloha Beach Resort. It is at the mouth of the Wailua River on the eastern side of the island. This turns out to be an ideal location, because it is about the middle of the one main road on the island. At Wailua, we were about as far from Waimea Canyon as we were from Kee Beach on the north shore. If we had instead stayed in Princeville, for example, the drive to Waimea Canyon would have been very long indeed. There can be significant traffic at rush hour, because the locals all have to take the same main road to get to work.
Outside the hotel is Lydgate Beach Park. We walked down there, and saw there was a breakwater setup to shield a small area for swimming. It was a popular spot, a lot of people came to the park to swim there and use the picnic tables. We followed a sidewalk along the shore heading south, and walked by the Radison. Everything is very nice of course, this is island paradise! This photo view is looking south toward Lihue. We tried to spot Oahu from various points on Kauai, but we never could see it. Locals told us that it was visible. We saw several cruise ships out on the water heading toward Oahu.
Since we arrived at our hotel relatively early, we drove out to the Kuilua Ridge Trail. It starts in an arboretum, and is 2.1 miles long through some lush hills. We only went the first 1.5 miles, just a little ways beyond the picnic ground/overlook. It was starting to sprinkle on us, and it was also starting to get dark, so we headed back for some dinner in town. I was delighted with everything. Beautiful island paradise! I am on vacation! What could be better? I knew we would have a great time in the upcoming week because we had a lot of fun planned. Our vacations always seem to turn out very well.
