Hawaii - Part 1

What started out as a dream vacation turned into a race to get home when the world started shutting down due to Covid. Here are the highlights from our first few days of fun in Kauai before heading to Big Island - and then we had to go home.

We always told our kids we would never take them to Hawaii - it's too far, it's too expensive, blah, blah, blah. Then we had an opportunity to rent a reasonable house, found (relatively) inexpensive flights, and suddenly, our dream of Hawaii was happening! (Big caveat: this trip was being planned in April 2019). We counted down the days until our trip, but as early March 2020 arrived, Covid-19 was threatening to shut the trip down.

Hawaii was welcoming tourists when we left for the trip - we arrived in Kauai on March 15, 2020 and everything was running business as usual. We were in the Poipu area in the south end of Kauai (near Koloa) Restaurants and stores were open, no one in Hawaii had Covid, and we felt pretty safe. We got to explore Kauai and relax. Here were some of our favorite spots:

• Waimea Canyon State Park - called the Grand Canyon of Kauai, this is an amazing park to visit while on Kauai. We drove around the canyon and stopped for pictures along the way.

• Poipu Beach - great for swimming and snorkeling with facilities and lifeguards on duty

• Beach House Restaurant - right on the water - amazing views and great food.

• Food Trucks - we found a parking lot filled with food trucks while we were driving around the island - if you're traveling to a certain area you can check out what is open based on day of the week.

As the days progressed, Kauai slowly started shutting down or offering to-go-only service. By the time we got to the Big Island on March 20th, nothing was open - restaurants and shops were closed and all tourist activities were shut down. Our rental house was located within a beautiful resort and we had a pool, so with 4 adults and 6 kids, we spent a lot of time at the pool and beach. But just 4 days later, we found out from our airline that we had to leave the following day or they couldn't guarantee when we would get home. We packed up and headed to the airport without seeing any of the Big Island.

A few months later, the rental company offered us a house for a week in Hawaii for 2021 since we couldn't use the week in 2020. So that leads us to the Hawaii - Part 2 blog!