Cooking, Travel and just Other Stuff

You have to understand. I come from a line of very crafty people. My sister paints, one niece can knit anything out of a ball of yarn...oh and she paints and wood carves and makes jewelery. The other niece designs things and then sews them and then my great niece...well we will just call her insanely crafty. They all have blogs where they show all of their wonderful things they do. So, that brings me here. I decided I wanted a blog too, but what to write about. I'm not insanely crafty, can't paint, don't wood carve, tried knitting-didn't work....hummm, what do I do? Well, I like to cook and travel and eat, so I thought maybe we can start there. My blog will be about recipes I've made, places I go and restaurants I eat at with a few other things thrown in along the way. I've also heard that writing is good for you brain, so I figure-as I'm getting older now-this could be a good thing. So anyway, if you find my rantings worth commenting over, I'd love to hear from you. If I post a recipe you like, please let me know, other wise you can keep your opinions to yourself. This, after all, is my blog to make myself feel better, to try and compete with my family, because I don't do anything crafty.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Adventures in Paradise......Day 5, last day.

Yes, I am way behind but I did want to do our last day on Kaua'i. It was sad to have to leave because it was such a relaxing trip, but that whole earning money thing gets in the way sometimes. One of the great things about staying at Pali Ke Kua was that we had our own access to Hideaways Beach. You can get to Hideaways from a public access but our side of the beach was only accessible by our private pathway or by swimming around a point. There are no private beaches in Kaua'i, but this was about as private as you can get. We had the beach all to ourselves.
Well almost to ourselves. Remember those chickens that are all over Kaua'i? Well we had our very own beach chicken. She was all by herself. Not another chicken in sight and she shared our lunch. She loved strawberries.
The day we went there was a storm rolling in. The waves and surf were unbelievable. It was almost scary the waves were pounding so hard. Brent was going to try to do some snorkeling but the rip currents were way to strong. Snorkeling is really the best on the south shore of the island, but if it's calm Hideaways is a good place.









We relaxed for a while, had lunch and then headed off for our next adventure.






We drove over to Kilauea Lighthouse. It is a beautiful lighthouse that sits on an incredible part of the coast. I was so counting on getting a picture of the lighthouse and was so disappointed when we got there and the lighthouse was covered up because they were painting it. You have to pay to get out to the lighthouse point as it is a state park. Pay the money and go out. It is worth it just to see the view off the point. It is like standing at the end of the world. You can feel the power of the waves around you.






Someday soon I want to go back and get a picture of the lighthouse. Oh, and did I say that you drive past Tropical Dreams ice cream to get there? Guess where we stopped on our way back?







For our last night we decided to go out to a really nice place to eat. We hadn't eaten dinner out yet so we wanted to go someplace really nice. The book recommended Duke's at the Kaua'i Marriott and we have some friends that had said it was good, so that's where we decided to go. Definitely a must if you want to have dinner out. Dinner was fabulous and the view.....well just look.
 It over looks Nawili'wili Harbor and we sat and watched the paddle surfers as we were having dinner. It a beautiful restaurant, great service and dinner was amazing.

As the sun set on our beautiful trip we brought home many wonderful memories and very relaxed spirits. Can't wait to go back. There is truly no place like it on earth.