Home Sweet (but not such great views) Home

Yep, we're home. Back to a sweltering 99 degrees here in DC. Seriously the weather person has it so easy in Hawaii. "76 degrees and breezy for the next ten years."

I'm going to complain just a moment and say how much I hate red-eye flights. No matter how much sleep you think you can get on those flights, it just never happens. Once we arrived home, exhausted and hungry for real food, we settled into laundry, read through two weeks of mail and tried to water as many plants that were dying in the heat. Kudos goes out to Erik our house sitter, who kept the dogs, the birds and 99% of the plants in great shape. The poor kid spent almost an hour each night watering.

The last two days of Hawaii were spent doing near nothing. We relaxed, napped and ate; a perfect ending to a great trip. On Monday, we checked out our condo and bought a day pass at the Sheraton, which was the best idea we could have ever done. The seven hour pass included a hotel room, pool & beach access for the day and Internet access. (No more lurking outside people's homes.)

Not many more pics from the trip, so I'll highlight a few of the things we loved in case you're planning a trip to Kauai.

Coastline Cottages - (our condo) Great views and ammenities, but not the nicest people to deal with. We were woken up at 7 am twice by workers. Calls and emails ellicited a "well, we're working on the place" type of response. Plenty of other fine rentals to choose from besides them, but the condo route is definately the way to go.

Captain Andy's - Catamaran tour of the Na Pali coast. Awesome crew and experience. We saw a ton of wildlife and had a blast with everyone aboard (expect the woman who vomited; she wasn't that friendly.)

Princeville Ranch Adventures - You may not have a man who comes on the zip line tour who looks like Mr. Clean, but these folks know how to have fun. Well worth your time and money, and just a unique experience.

Keoki's Paradise - Our favorite place to eat. Inexpensive (especially on the bar side) and the best fish & chips on the Island.

Joe's on the Green - Our favorite breakfast (though they do lunch too) place. Located on the edge of some golf course (I don't golf so whatever), this place had a great wait staff and an awesome breakfast.

The Beach House Restaurant - The high-end restaurant and well worth the price. I had the most amazing wasabi crusted (encrusted?) snapper and the views can't be beat anywhere.

Casa di Amici Restaurant - Nasty. We went there for dinner unexpectedly and figured we'd wait a bit for a table. They acted as if we had caused them an inconvenience by coming to their restaurant. "You do know we take reservations," the host said. "Dude, most restaurants take reservations. We already told you we'd wait if we need to." (Dickhead.) We ordered our dinner at 8:30 and the food took almost an hour to arrive. One dish wasn't even done and the pasta wa so spicy, we couldn't even eat it. Almost as expensive as the beach house and no where near the service or quality.

So back to reality and hot weather. With luck, we'll make out to Hawaii again someday.