Day 89: Hawaii Day SEVEN

 I really do have the best friends in the world. 

One of my oldest friends is my designated travel buddy. She works for Alaska Airlines and gets a lot of flight benefits, so she has made a habit of visiting us literally any time we travel (or move) somewhere. Calen and his buddy Cameron (her son) have the most amazing friendship, in that while they don't talk every day, they have traveled to the most amazing places together. Toddlers in New Jersey shore, Disney World at 4, the Golden Gate Bridge at 7, hiking in Alaska, and now, we are meeting on the beach in Hawaii!

I mean, who else gets to do that. 

They flew in LATE last night and fly back out EARLY tomorrow, so we only have one day with them. 

Well, in true Ashley and Allie fashion, we packed it in. 

We hit the road around 6am. Our destination: The North Shore (Hanalei, Kilauea, etc). 

The problem with being on the West Shore, is that there is no road from the West to the North (which would be shorter). The Northwest part of the island is the completely untouched Na Pali coast, which we sailed around the other day in the catamaran. So you have to drive all the way around the South and East shores to access the North. This takes about 2 hours on a good day. But since it's an island with one lane highways due to construction, it took closer to 2.5 hours. 

But man, the further north you go, the more drop dead gorgeous that drive is. 

These one lane bridges are everywhere. The signs say "common local courtesy is 5-7 cars per side". And it works!

We reached our destination, and our friends! The map says Haena beach, which has a big parking lot, bathrooms and a lifeguard. The water was this spectacular bright green turquoise that combined with the lush green mountains was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. It was raining this morning, so it shooed the people away initially, leaving us with this pristine, picturesque secluded tropical beach. 

But we didn't stop there! Allie and I left Brad and the kids up on the shore of Haena and walked the 500 yards or so up the coastline to Tunnels Beach, world renown for being one of the best snorkeling spots in all of Kauai. And man, did it pay off. Between the most amazing shore views I've ever seen, the water was shallow, warm, and FULL of fish and coral. It was like Finding Nemo down there. There were fish in the coral and swimming around us, and a Jello Blue colored drop off where lots of bigger fish hung out at. Absolutely out of this world. 

After a few hours we left Tunnels Beach and headed to Kilauea to see the beautiful Kilauea Lighthouse.

Continuing heading South, we stopped at the boys' new favorite shaved ice place (Wailua shaved ice), and then back to Wailua Falls to show Allie and my inlaws Wailua Falls that we saw the other day). And then continuing all the way to the South shore to our favorite Kiahuna Falls to let the kids play (as Tunnels/Haena beach was not really boogie boarding friendly). 

A passing rain storm made for a perfect rainbow! At the bottom of it? The boys and their friends

For dinner we went back to Chicken in a Barrel, which was super fun at night eating outside in the warmth underneath all sorts of mood lighting while the kids played Cornhole. And then we said our goodbyes, and our visit with them was over. It was a perfect busy day. 

We drove through this tree tunnel to get to dinner 

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