Kauai, Hawaii 2017 – Part 5

In case you missed it, here are the previous links for our 2017 trip to Kauai, Hawaii:

On Day 9 we spent the morning gift-shopping at stores within walking distance of our hotel.  Then had a late lunch at our hotel restaurant, which was pretty deserted:

We entertained ourselves watching the pigeons scouring the empty tables for crumbs:

       

       

Then I sat on a lounge chair at the hotel beach while hubby swam [you can see his right foot in the 2nd pic, he periodically joined me on an adjacent chair between swims]:

        

Very relaxing day!

Our flight left on Day 10 at 5pm, but we had to check out of the hotel at noon, so we ended up just going straight to the airport and reading for 5 hours.  We didn’t want to leave everything in the car, and hubby didn’t want to ask the hotel to watch our suitcases behind the counter.  Next time we’ll plan better so our flight leaves earlier.  On going-home-day we just kind of want to get the show on the road.  Hubby is a much more meticulous packer than I am, so while he packed I went on a 2 hour photo shoot around the hotel.  I saw flowers:

        

        

        

        

I saw Yoga Kitty [look at those green eyes!]:

       

I saw lizards:

        

        

        

       

I saw birds:

       

I saw hibiscus TREES [we’re so used to little shrubs that grow in flower pots around here that it was amazing to see towering hibiscus trees in Kauai!].  Even the pruned ones were impressive due to their thick trunks:

       

I followed a path and found a deserted beach around the corner from our hotel that we’d never seen:

       

I followed a different path and came upon the back of our hotel, where our room was.  That’s our balcony on the far left – we had a corner room 🙂 [hubby was inside packing]:

       

And these are some random shots that didn’t seem to fit into any of the other Kauai posts:

Another view of our hotel beach-side restaurant:

The views from our balcony:

       

       

Here’s a pic of me taking a pic:

I hate beer but I seem to love malt liquor, heh… I managed to drink 2 6-packs of Mike’s Hard Cranberry Passion-Fruit Lemonade during our stay on Kauai!  Nothing better on a hot day than a cool, refreshing, alcoholic soda-pop 🙂 :

Hubby saw this GINORMOUS snail one morning when he was heading out to get coffee & tea for us:

       

I wish I’d seen it!  Although after getting home we started hearing about “rat lungworm disease” on CNN & other news outlets.  Apparently there’s been 6 cases on Maui & 3 on the Big Island over the past 3 months.  Snails & slugs are carriers and they catch it from eating rat feces.  Yum.  Thankfully hubby didn’t touch the snail… According to the CDC “Rat lungworm disease, a parasite officially known as Angiostrongylus cantonensis, affects the brain and the spinal cord”.  But it can also get into your eyeball!  From CNN:  “Most cases result from consuming, either accidentally or on purpose, raw or under-cooked snails and slugs that are infected with the parasite. For example, poorly washed lettuce or other raw produce may contain an unnoticed snail or slug”.  *shudder*

And that ends my posts about Kauai!  Our only regret was not being able to do the tubing trip through the old sugarcane irrigation ditches & lava tubes:

       

It looks like SO MUCH FUN!  We called the company when we got to Kauai to book a trip and the woman basically laughed and said you have to book like 3 weeks in advance to even hope of getting a spot.  Awesome.  Be nice if their website said that!!!  Next time.

Next year we’re planning to go back to the Big Island and I’m praying that the lava is still flowing into the ocean like it has been on & off since February!  Huge bucket list item = seeing lava up close and personal.