The trip itself went fairly smoothly. Though having to fly with an infant again certainly makes things more challenging. We went straight to Kauai and met up with my parents and brother's family. By the time we got to the hotel, it was getting late so we just had dinner and got some rest.

For our first day, we headed towards the western side of the island. Our first stop was the town of Hanapepe, said to be the inspiration for the setting of Lilo and Stitch. It's got a few shops and restaurants and a swinging bridge. Nice little place, but not all that much to see.

Then it was off to our main destination, Waimea Canyon. The canyon has a number of viewpoints and hikes scattered along the road. We ended up going along one that went down into the canyon, though we stopped at a viewpoint about halfway down. It's supposed to end at the bottom of a waterfall, but with several young kids, there's a limit to how much hiking we to wanted to do. Anyway, we visited a couple more viewpoints, one of which marked the start of a nice looking cliff side trail.

After that, we head out of the canyon for lunch and then back to the hotel. Normally, we might have stayed out later, but we were staying at Koloa Landing, which was voted as having "America's Best Pool" so we wanted to give the kids plenty of time to enjoy it. Just for the record though, while it's a nice pool, it is far from "American's Best." Off the top of my head, I can think of at least several hotels with bigger, fancier pools, and I'm sure there are plenty I've never seen. Still had a good time though.

After that, we went to Spouting Horn, a blow hole created by the waves passing through holes in the rocks. That's really all there is to see there, but it's a worth a short visit.

Next, we stopped by a nearby beach (Kiahuna, I think). We hadn't really packed for a beach day, but the weather was nice (temporarily) so we decided to let the kids play in the sand for a bit. While the beach itself was nice enough, the cool part was that there was both monk seals and sea turtles resting on the sand.

Finally it was back to the hotel for, you guessed it, more pool time.

While it was short, I enjoyed out time on Kauai. To me it feels kind of like a quieter and slower paced version of Maui. Though I generally prefer the more developed islands, if you want to avoid crowds and do a bunch of hiking, while ensuring all the main points of interest are within a fairly short driving distance, it's not a bad choice for a Hawaiian vacation.

Nearly every island has a zipline course or two. In the past, I did one on Kauai (back before I wrote travelogues) and on a Oahu (which I did write about). But my mom really wanted to take Zack and Isaac (my nephew) to one. At a lot of zipline courses, one or both of them wouldn't quite reach the minimum age and/or height requirements but Northshore Zipline (conveniently located near by brother's place) is less restrictive than most, so my mom and I took the boys for a round.

After the usual introductory stuff, you start a course that consists of seven ziplines, a hanging bridge, and a tall ladder. The guides were great, and the area is rather scenic, though the course itself covers a smaller area and includes fewer elements than the ones I did on other islands. The ziplines were fun though, and they encouraged you to try out all sorts of tricks and such (hard to tell from the video, but I did some upsidedown spins and such along the way). Both of the kids did well and had fun, as did my mom and I. While Northshore Zipline isn't the best zipline course I've done, it's still pretty great.

First off, South Maui Garden down in Kehei gets a shout out as a really nice collection of food trucks in pleasant setting. Highly recommended if you're looking for a place to eat in that area, and much less busy than the major restaurants.

Second, I feel I should touch on the fires that ravaged the island earlier in the year. While a combination of dry conditions and extremely high winds were the main culprit, there were also a number of mistakes made by various members of the local government, the Hawaiian Electric Company, and some higher-ups in the fire department that allowed the fires to spread much more than they should have and made it harder to put them out and evacuate residents. While there were several fires in different spots around the island, the worst by far was on the west side where the town of Lahaina was pretty much entirely destroyed, along with more than 100 deaths. There's plenty of blame to go around, but I won't get into that here. Long story short, it was extremely devastating on many levels. Fortunately, my family and friends on the island weren't in any of the areas that burned, but it was still pretty sad and shocking on a personal level, as I've visited Lahaina a number of times. It will be years before the town is rebuilt and much of what burned was irreplaceable. Tourism to the island has also dropped quite a bit in the aftermath, which is unfortunate. While Lahaina was a major tourist destination, there's plenty of other great places to visit on the island that weren't affected by the fires. And, while there are a vocal minority among island residents that are using the fire to push an anti-tourist agenda, far more rely on tourism for their livelihoods. So, if you are thinking of visit Maui I would urge you to do so. It's still a fantastic destination and the island could use your support.