A tale of Kaua'i, Part 1

Day 1: even most inter-island flights have a layover in Honolulu, so we stopped there and I got to ride the escalators (yeah, I obviously haven't spent much time in the city). Then we hopped on over to Lihue, where we had lunch, saw some of the island's ubiquitous wild chickens, and headed down to our far too nice condo in Po'ipu. From there we got our towels and backtracked to Kipu falls, an awesome place. A 20 foot high waterfall empties into a deep pool thats safe for jumping into, and a rope swing on a nearby banyan makes the plunge even more fun.

Day 2: We headed up to the Waimea Canyon/Koke'e area, where we marveled at the canyon but were much more stunned by the awesome lookout over Kalalau valley. The lookout at the very end of the road offers an amazing view, where you can walk right up to the edge of the 2,000 foot valley walls. We also went to the condo pool (nobody under 16 in the hot tub, *grumblegrumble*) which had a small but fun waterslide.