Vacation | Midwest Mountainess

Welcome to the Kauai portion of the program. Please do not be alarmed by excess amounts of beauty, skyline, ocean, and spoiled rottenness.

See? It’s SO lush and green here it borderlines on too much. I’ve never been so close to sensory overload in my life. We were really excited to see Kauai and spent a lot of time trying to decide which part of the island to stay at. The decision was basically North shore vs. South shore and North won for many reasons, mainly because we wanted a change of scenery from just beaches. We had a hankering for some jurassic park style greenery and boy did we get it.

Well. THAT greeted us not 15 minutes after we stepped off the plane. To put this into perspective, that my friends is higher than Niagara Falls.

Alright fine. We’ll stay out of your dangerous waterfall and instead proceed North to our cushy hotel. We decided (on occasion of the delayed honeymoon) to spoil ourselves and Jon surprised me with a stay at the St. Regis Princeville. The whole drive up from the airport we told ourselves that the hotel couldn’t possibly be that nice, we’ll probably be disappointed, let’s manage our expectations and anticipate it being pretty average.

Ahhhhh what a bunch of dummy’s. AFTER we got through the winding road lined in flowers and beautiful tree’s, past the gorgeous homes, multiple fountains, and pristinely managed golf courses. After Jon told me to stop gaping out the window with my mouth open because I was embarrassing him…we were shown to our room. To say our expectations were exceeded is a bit of an understatement.

It’s basically a hotel made out of windows with absolutely breathtaking views of the Napali coast everywhere you look. It was spectacular.

Welcome Mr. and Mrs. Hendrickson, we have upgraded your room on occasion of your honeymoon, please allow me to hang your lei’s and open this complimentary bottle of champagne while you enjoy the view.

You should have seen us trying to keep our cool until he left. At which point we started dancing and squealing and jumping on the bed. And by we I most certainly mean me. Just me.

There was a flipping lei hook in the room for goodness sake.

The amount of times we said “are you kidding me” on this leg of the vacation is pretty high. I mean – look at that photo?! It looks fake! This was the view…from our room…it’s essentially a living postcard.

Nothing was overly showy. It was all in the details at the St. Regis combined with the most world class service I’ve ever seen. Really fun to experience. All that and we haven’t even stepped outside yet!We got in the pool, turned to each other and said ‘weird…it’s the most perfect water temperature of all time’.

Then turned around and said ‘weird…it’s the most beautiful pool view ever’.

Saw these guys and declared “weird…that’s the coolest boat I’ve ever seen”.

You get my point. Everything was amazing.

We took a seat under some cabana’s to gather our thoughts and be brought delicious cocktails by a very friendly waiter. You’ll notice the difference in lighting in a lot of these pictures and that’s because it goes from cloudy to bright sun to sprinkling and back all in 15 minutes.

The waiter brought us our drinks, pushed a magic St. Regis button and just as we took our first sip, after thinking we had soaked it all in…this happened:ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! I stood up and said ‘I can’t take anymore, I need to go to the room and lie down to process this’. I opened the door to our room and the bed had been turned….down….for….me. At this point I decided to pretend to be the queen of england for the remainder of the trip and not be surprised by anything. Even if they offered to chew my food for me. Let’s move on. Stunning. Not me…the view. I’m obstructing the view! How dare I tarnish such a spectacular sight.Jon enjoying his ‘crown and pog’ (his favorite). We brought along some of our own drinks because along with tipping every person that even looks at you, you also have to deal with things like this:Oh hey! $16 for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s brought to the room + tip? That’s not so bad. Wait what? You’re telling me that’s for 2 ounces in a glass? Ummmm…go to hell.

Jon told me to settle down and informed me that we’re spoiling ourselves while in Kauai. So we enjoyed our hotel, swam in the pool, drank lots of drinks and ordered the most ridiculous sushi dinner from room service. I would like to be able to adequately express how delicious this food was…but I can’t. I just can’t with the food.

After enjoying being spoiled for two days we decided to FORCE ourselves to leave the hotel and go on a hike. Thank the gods we did because it was…you guessed it…ridiculous.

On our way to the take off spot for the hike I forced Jon to pull over because I missed the hotel too much and I thought I was going to have a panic attack. “WHO’S GOING TO OPEN ALL THE DOORS FOR ME? WHAT IF I NEED SOME ICE? WHERE WILL I HANG MY LEI? WHO WILL FAN ME WITH A FERN?!?!” Jon slapped me in the face and luckily we found a glimpse so I could get my fix.

Bye hotel….see you soon my love….

Then I opened my eyes and looked around and remembered we’re in absolute paradise.

From here we drove to the trailhead for our hike. I’m going to TRY and let the pictures speak for themselves.

It’s amazing to me that more people don’t meet their deaths on these beautiful hikes simply from looking around. The terrain was rocky and wet, not to mention one wrong step and you’re tumbling down hundreds of feet into the rocky ocean. There is so much to see that you have to stop every time you want to look around or else you’ll definitely trip and be dead. Here lies the destination of our hike:

Sweaty and muddy as hell. It was intense.

After our hike we rushed back to the hotel to get changed for our ‘every book says you should, you can not miss it, you must do this while in kauai or you’re a moron‘ helicopter tour. This is when things started to unravel.

We arrive at the helipad only to find that our helicopter tour was cancelled due to predicted rain that afternoon. We knew this was a possibility. The center of the island is the rainiest place on earth. Literally. That’s a fact. Google it. So we weren’t exactly surprised and made plans to reschedule. Well it did rain that afternoon. The thing is, it never stopped. It did not flipping stop for the rest of the trip. We made due the first 24 hours. We actually sat outside in the hot tub with an umbrella determined not to let this ruin our trip.

Turns out the helicopter tour could not be rescheduled. “That’s ok” I said, “we’ll go on the boat tour instead!” Nope. Cancelled. “That’s ok” I said, “hopefully Jon will still get to golf at the brand new world renowned princeville golf course”. Nope. Cancelled. Very sad husband.

It was tough to take. In my mind that just means we have to go back! : )

To numb our pain…we ate. We ate THE MOST incredible brunch that exists on the planet. I’m convinced. It was a whopping $60 a person (not including drinks) and after seeing the spread we did not bat an eye at the price. It maybe should have been more. I took a few photo’s but didn’t want to be super embarrassing. Turns out I was anyways because I didn’t stop eating for like 6 hours. These in no way fully explain what the hell was happening at that brunch, but I’ll throw em up anyway.

Meet Aloha Mary. She was delicious.Let’s asses. Waldorf Salad, duck gnocchi, fresh ahi with avocado, fried rice, incredible fruit, honey glazed halibut, crispy bacon, and parmesan and prosciutto wrapped asparagus. Shut. Up. My mouth is watering again. These items are approximately 1/100th of what was there. No lie. It was impossible to try everything, but try I did.

Not only was everything world class, fresh, and indescribably delicious…but it was all beautiful as well. Brunch will never be the same again. Nay. Food in general might not ever be the same again.

Don’t make me talk about the desert table. I just don’t have it in me.

Meanwhile, THIS was happening while we were enjoying our delicious brunch on a covered patio. It may not look in on the computer, but those waves are ENORMOUS. The storm had arrived. Let me try to get this through to you. These were monsoon conditions the likes of which the island hadn’t seen in 30 years. On our vacation. : (

It was raining two to three inches per hour for over 48 hours. People were stranded. Stranded at the St. Regis but STILL. We barely made it to the airport and if our flight would have left several hours later we might still be in Kauai. Don’t believe me?

Those are pickups. And not the worst of it. It was an adventure, but we were glad to finally take off after 48 indoors.

At first it felt like two days of our vacation/honeymoon were a waste. That’s just not the case. Looking back over all the photos and experiences has truly shown me how lucky we were to be able to do ANY of it. It’s been really fun to share our trip and (for those that haven’t) I hope you all get a chance to experience Hawaii someday. It’s so beautiful and everything the books tell you it is. I just wouldn’t recommend visiting Kauai during peak rainy season, unless you hate the outdoors and sunshine.

This FINALLY concludes the Hawaii recaps. Thanks for reading and for all of you that have already said such nice things about the photo’s – to me, to Jon, on Facebook or wherever – thank you so very, very much.

Since it’s my first week of Midwest Mountainess postings, I decided to do my duty as an American and absolutely torture and wear out my readers using the word ‘firsts’. Hence…Firsts x2. It’s as creative as I could be at 12:30a.m. after several glasses of wine, a martini, and no carbs for 7 days. I’m essentially brain dead. Not to mention TOTALLY high on like a million (…20) hits on Facebook.

So I realize this is going to come as a COMPLETE surprise, but after my Christmas recap post I’m going to do a New Years recap post! I’ll give you a moment to contain your excitement.

Ahem.

So the firsts thing again. It wasn’t mine, but it WAS my husbands first trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is the part where I make you all jealous because he’s so thoughtful and spontaneous and giving and don’t you just hate both of us. But before you get to all that jealousy, let me first tell you…I despise New Years Eve.

EVERY SINGLE YEAR it’s the huge conversation that starts shortly after Thanksgiving. I had four completely different groups of people asking me “what are we doing this year”, “let’s actually plan ahead this time”, “I don’t care what we do as long as there are sparkles” blah blah blah. It’s lame. Let’s allllll buy new outfits and alllllll spend WAY more at restaurants that only jack the prices up because it’s December 31st and we’re all suckers. The reality for a majority of people I know goes something like this:

It’s New Years Eve and they STILL cant decide what to do at which point they throw their hands up and get a LAST minute dinner reservation at the 34th restaurant they call. They fight the crowds, eat an average and overpriced meal, and eventually end up at a club. This is fun for about 6 seconds because inevitably somebody pukes on their cute sparkly heels they bought at Target that morning in a half size too big because it’s all that was left. Luckily said puker misses the sparkly dress they already have buyers remorse over and are hoping to return tomorrow. Following this is epic/freezing cold battle for a cab to take home after the boy that was flirting with them all night disappears as did most of their friends. They wake up to a pounding hangover, a painful realization of how much money they spent and call everyone they know for a ride downtown to get their car which is waiting with a bright yellow parking ticket under the windshield wiper.

Gross.

So my husband being the romantic genius that he is calls me at work 2 nights before New Years Eve after we’ve already committed ourselves to a party (sorry Elly) and says he’s booked a non-refundable hotel room for 2 nights in Santa Fe. So me being the secretly thrilled but dutifully reprimanding wife tells him he’s nuts, scolds him for forcing us to to bail on my friends party that we had committed to and packs her bag in 2.5 seconds.

We had an amazingly relaxed and low key weekend in a bustling and artistic city.

Jon the steadfast Minnesota trained winter driving expert.

So you’ll notice in the above photo that there’s snow. We have seen snow ONCE in 2011/2012 winter. Understand we live in a MOUNTAIN city and although the snow melts immediately after it falls, we still usually get snow. Well we’ve been so spoiled with weather lately that Jon and I blindly set out on our 6 hour road trip envisioning sunny skies, smooth roads, sweet tunes and snacks. What we did NOT anticipate were wet slushy mountain backroads, zero visibility, and who could live without…IDIOT DRIVERS.

This photo is from my cozy makeshift bed in the backseat of the Aviator of the absolute BS happening outside. Luckily it only lasted the (tense) car ride to Sante Fe and the rest of the weekend was sunny and gorgeous. I have proof.

The thing about Santa Fe is that it’s dripping in colors, patterns and architecture which for a girl with a brand new camera is absolute heaven! I had a great time breaking my camera in, and Jon didn’t seem too traumatized by traveling with the ultimate tourist all weekend.

We had one ‘not so great’ dinner (NYE…go figure) but other than that the food in Santa Fe is wonderful! New Years Day we went to a very busy/popular local breakfast spot and brunched to our hearts content.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the entire city, went to the MUST SEE Georgia O’Keefe museum (my second time), got a couple of history lessons and of course watched some football over the most amazing margs and guac of all time.