Filling in the spaces: Kauai and Hawaii

So this is the part where I start to fill in the spaces left when I didn't keep a travel journal. In March, 2007 we headed for the middle of the Pacific Ocean for two weeks. The first week was spent on the absolutely gorgeous island of Kauai. We rented a house, which was an organic fruit and orchid farm. It wasn't on the water, but it was such a peaceful place, except for the roosters. Our daughter, Dana traveled with us, as well as our friends Mark and Patty. This house is situated adjacent to the path the water took in 2006 when the dam burst and a few house were taken out and unfortunately lives were lost - a sad and horrible event. We were there for the one year anniversary and 6 large bouquets of flowers were gathered from the gardens around our house and placed along the highway as a memoriam. Also growing in the yard were trees weighed down with tangerines, oranges, grapefruits, avocados - all amazing. I put one of the grapefruits on the counter, sliced into it and the juice literally burst out of it, sending a river of the sweet stuff over the edge of the counter, making a puddle on the floor....oh darn, do we have to eat that? We made juice from the tangerines and oranges and I can say I've never had anything close to it and probably never will. It was so rich you could only handle the smallest glass or you'd go into orbit. I drool when I remember it. There was a lovely green house on the property filled with blooming orchids. Our week there was lovely. There was quite a bit of rain and the waterfalls were gushing down the sides of the green mountains. I wouldn't want it any other way. We hiked on two different days. The highlight was our trek along the Napali coast on the Kalalau trail and up to the 300 foot Hanakapiai falls. It was a crazy hike with many crossings of a swift creek, climbing on all fours over and around huge boulders and mud galore, but worth every bit of work to be the first people to arrive that morning. The hike back down was rather funny with all sorts of ill prepared hikers covered in mud and misery whose only questions were related to how much further it might be. Perhaps a mini skirt and flip flops weren't the right choice that day : ) One of our favorite sites on the north shore was the Limahuli Botanical Gardens. It is a stunning terraced garden featuring plants brought by the Polynesians as well as plants native to the island, all surrounded by jagged, green mountain peaks where the ancient men used to climb to the tops and throw flaming spears in hopes they would land in the Pacific Ocean. That I would love to see. Those are a few of the things I liked best about Kauai. I hope to go back, as there are some amazing backpacking and kayaking opportunities. I've created an album from the trip, you can go to the Picasa link to see them. You'll see that we visited the island of Hawaii the second week. I'll get to that later.