Christmas 2016

Post Kauai, it was back to Seattle for Christmas, family and of course, O.

Onions has officially become "family assembler." I can think of, off the top of my head, the new IKEA bed, this electric motorbike and a play structure but there might have been a few others.

The motor car might be a year too soon.....

Onions second Seahawks game.  A loss to Arizona, ugh.

Being deep into the Crossfit club, I went to class five times in the week I was in Seattle.

Lots of time with O.  A walk along the Burke-Gilman to check out the house.

Wallace Falls up on Highway 2.

On our way back from Wallace Falls, we stopped by to see Dean.

On our way to the airport, Mongolian Hot Pot......

....with Vickie and Marl!

Kauai #5: Kalalau Trail

The last day of our trip, with the Kalalau Trail open, we finally got a chance to hike the trail itself.

Through the power of Facebook, it turns out that a friend of mine and his family were on the island as well and we arranged to meet up to hike!

I have other rainbow photos, but...redundancy, however I post this rainbow as I thought it was particularly cool.

The hike is famous and therefore massively popular.  Here was a rare moment in which there were no other people around.  The trail felt like a highway.

This photo was taken at a dry part but the trail was extremely muddy.  I saw so many people who were unprepared with the wrong types of shoes.  Think Chinese ladies in their flats trying to dodge the mud and complaining....not peaceful.

At the end of the first two miles of the trail (the entire trail is 11 miles) one must cross a stream.  I, of course, not being that careful, ended up just stepping in the water.

The trail allows for great view of the Na Pali coast.  From beach there is a spur trail up to a waterfall, but we chose to go back.

We stopped in Hanalei for some shaved ice!  Root beer for Onions.  Pineapple (which tasted like banana) for me.

To end our trip, we headed back to the wings place.  Here Onions is drinking his once every six months Long Island Ice Tea.  He too has "Asian Glow" so when he fell asleep in the car, I ended our trip with a run to the laundromat.  Then it was a red eye back to the mainland.  Good bye, Kauai!

Kauai #4: Kalihiwai Beach

Just over halfway into, now that we knew that morning rain didn't mean that we should cancel our plans, we headed up to hike the famed Kalalau Trail.....and it was closed.  So we found a picture in our guidebook that looked great and went there.  This detour took us to Kalihiwai Beach, which turned out to be our favorite day of the trip.  We hike along the shore to see lava pools like above.

Here was an awesome water spout, which I found mesmerizing.  I could watch it for hours.

We hiked to the end......

...look at that wave.....

....time to move....

....here it comes....

BOOM!

At that point, we decided to scramble back to the beach itself and spend a quiet afternoon.

Onions and I liked it because a small river flows into the ocean, but behind the beach, the river slowed and formed a lagoon in which to swim.

And there was a rope swing!

Onions has better form and look at those back muscles!

We ended this day by planning on going to a movie......but ended up finding a sports bar where Onions discovered the concept of 10 cent happy hour chicken wings.