On Valentine’s Day we went exploring west of Princeville towards Hanalei and the Na Pali coast. The scenery on that part of the island was even more beautiful than the rest of Kauai has been..and the rest of Kauai has been absolutely beautiful!!! As the oldest of the Hawaiian Islands, Kauai has the nickname of "The Garden Island", and as I mentioned before it is quite Garden of Eden-ish. It really is an incredibly gorgeous island.
When we went as far as the road itself went, and then there was no other option but to hike. We started out on the Kalalau Trail, which is an 11 mile trail that runs along the Na Pali coastline.
You can hike up to 2 miles on the trail without a permit, but past the two mile mark you need a permit to continue on. We actually didn’t even make it the full 2 miles in. We only went about 3/4 of a mile as I was starting to get a bit panicky about the return trip! The trail is up, up, up; rocky, wet, and somewhat slippery! I was really worried I would be too scared on the way down this rocky, wet, slippery trail to get back down! Now that it's all said and done, I will admit that going down was not as bad as I imagined, so in the end we probably could have gone farther. However, by the time we got down from as far as we went Craig said he was feeling lightheaded (probably from not having much for breakfast), so in the end it was probably best we came down when we did before Craig fainted and tumbled off the cliff into the ocean or something horrible like that!
The hike’s views really were amazing though, and I am definitely glad we went. It’s probably wishful thinking, as Kauai overall has a high rainfall average, but I would love to be able to do the hike when it’s dry, that would definitely help alleviate my fear of slip-sliding off the muddy, slippery trail.
Our second activity for Valentine’s Day was to go to a luau and Polynesian dance show. The luau was the Smith Family Garden luau. We got a short tour through the gardens by a train, and then we had a few minutes to look around, but we didn’t really look around much since it was raining. At the luau we were seated next to a Grandmother, Mom and little girl named Ada who became my best buddy within the first few minutes (look in the pictures for the little girl in the pink dress on the right side of the picture at the imu
ceremony!) We also sat across from Paul and Sue from Indiana who were celebrating their 28th Wedding Anniversary. The luau was wonderful, a buffet luau with so much delicious food: numerous salads, breads, meats (kalua pig, sweet and sour mahi mahi, adobo chicken, and teriyaki beef), mashed potatoes and poi, fruit, lomi lomi, and coconut cake and rice pudding for dessert.
Afterwards there was a Polynesian dance performance, mixed with the history of Kauai. It was fun to see the different dances from the various peoples of the Island. All in all it was a fun and delicious evening!
Thursday itself was pretty relaxing overall, with nothing too terribly thrilling like a big hike or helicopter ride, haha! We swam in the pool, wandered through a few shops, got a shaved ice, and had dinner at an open air restaurant. It was a great day, as I am finding all these days in Hawaii to be!
When we went as far as the road itself went, and then there was no other option but to hike. We started out on the Kalalau Trail, which is an 11 mile trail that runs along the Na Pali coastline. 
The hike’s views really were amazing though, and I am definitely glad we went. It’s probably wishful thinking, as Kauai overall has a high rainfall average, but I would love to be able to do the hike when it’s dry, that would definitely help alleviate my fear of slip-sliding off the muddy, slippery trail.
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