My daughter, Julie and I planned this trip when I was visiting her in San Francisco at Thanksgiving.
Julie is a student and this week is her Spring Break. What a great concept! A mother daughter tropical vacation.
I wisely planned to spend a few days in San Francisco To enjoy the city, people there, and adjust to the time difference. And I did all that! I arrived in the City on Monday night, March 5th.
It was late, so hit the sack. Tuesday the 6th Julie had classes with a break at noontime, so I joined her for lunch at a Thai place in her neighborhood that she had never tried. ME AND TASTYwas a tiny place with Thai / Asian fusion food. The red curry was yummy. I took a historic streetcar to the foot of Market street and visited the food market at the Ferry building in the afternoon and had dinner at my hotel as Julie was in class till 10pm.
Wednesday Julie needed to study. I went to Marin to meet up with a friend there during the day and it was great to get over the bridge and out of the city on a gorgeous sunny day! Dinner that evening was with Craig and Bridget an Julie at WATERBAR restaurant right along the Embarcadero. Fabulous food and views of the Bay bridge at night. WE had a really great evening.
Thursday I had lunch again with Julie between classes, and the evening was my visit to more friends in Marin. Friends near our old Kentfield home, and dinner with Valerie at THE SPINNAKER in Sausalito...... Delicious Sole Dore and great Bay views again!
Hawaii Here we come! Friday was departure day. We flew from SFO to Lihui airport on the Garden Island of Kauai. We arrive around 9 pm, so driving to the hotel, we couldn't see anything around us.
Saturday morning was a beautiful surprise! We are at the St. Regis Hotel on the beach at Hanelai Bay
on the North end of the island. Swimming pool, outdoor bar, hot tub, restaurants, lobby lounge with music every night..... and fabulous views of the sea and the mountains around the bay. It is great here.
This island is mostly rainforest, so they get lots of rain and clouds here. So far it has not poured on us.
Sunday we took our first drive around the Island.
Monday we took a 5 mile walk on a plantation loop trail. The Wai Koa Loop trail.
We walked and chatted for over 2 hours and it was super pleasant until it rained on us!
But we kept going.
When we got back to the hotel, we needed lunch by the pool.
Julie is a student and this week is her Spring Break. What a great concept! A mother daughter tropical vacation.
I wisely planned to spend a few days in San Francisco To enjoy the city, people there, and adjust to the time difference. And I did all that! I arrived in the City on Monday night, March 5th.
It was late, so hit the sack. Tuesday the 6th Julie had classes with a break at noontime, so I joined her for lunch at a Thai place in her neighborhood that she had never tried. ME AND TASTYwas a tiny place with Thai / Asian fusion food. The red curry was yummy. I took a historic streetcar to the foot of Market street and visited the food market at the Ferry building in the afternoon and had dinner at my hotel as Julie was in class till 10pm.
Wednesday Julie needed to study. I went to Marin to meet up with a friend there during the day and it was great to get over the bridge and out of the city on a gorgeous sunny day! Dinner that evening was with Craig and Bridget an Julie at WATERBAR restaurant right along the Embarcadero. Fabulous food and views of the Bay bridge at night. WE had a really great evening.
Thursday I had lunch again with Julie between classes, and the evening was my visit to more friends in Marin. Friends near our old Kentfield home, and dinner with Valerie at THE SPINNAKER in Sausalito...... Delicious Sole Dore and great Bay views again!
Hawaii Here we come! Friday was departure day. We flew from SFO to Lihui airport on the Garden Island of Kauai. We arrive around 9 pm, so driving to the hotel, we couldn't see anything around us.
Saturday morning was a beautiful surprise! We are at the St. Regis Hotel on the beach at Hanelai Bay
on the North end of the island. Swimming pool, outdoor bar, hot tub, restaurants, lobby lounge with music every night..... and fabulous views of the sea and the mountains around the bay. It is great here.
This island is mostly rainforest, so they get lots of rain and clouds here. So far it has not poured on us.
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| Hanelai Bay from the hotel |
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| First impression of the views from the hotel |
Sunday we took our first drive around the Island.
Monday we took a 5 mile walk on a plantation loop trail. The Wai Koa Loop trail.
We walked and chatted for over 2 hours and it was super pleasant until it rained on us!
But we kept going.
When we got back to the hotel, we needed lunch by the pool.
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| Our first Pina Colodas by the pool. Life is good! Tuesday and Wednesday it rained ALL DAY! We had spa time on Tuesday and hung around the hotel and Wednesday we went to the town of Kapaa to shop. I wanted a rain jacket! We stumbled around in the rain and had fun trying to stay dry ( ish) and Julie found a fun place to eat lunch there. Raw vegan food prepared to order and delicious. By Thursday it cleared up and we were so happy to see the sun we went out by the pool and got a little sunburn, but nothing serious. We had some good dinners on Kauai. Very good Restaurants at the hotel and some good local ones too. The Bistro, Piazza, and others. Friday afternoon , March 16th, we took a Golf Cart tour of the hotel golf course that overlooked the bay and the open sea. A guy from the club started us off and told us a lot about the local Birds and what we could expect to see. We rode around and had a lot of fun for almost 2 hours. There were others in the group and we followed each other around. Julie was hoping to take a 6 hour hike into the hills of the Napali Coast, ending at Hanakapi'ai Falls, but that didn't happen due to all the rain. But on Saturday, our last day, we did drive to the base of the trail and checked it out for future reference. Then we drove all around the island and went to the Waimea Canyon from the town of Waimea on the south side. We drove up the canyon road and got all the way to the viewing spot just as heavy clouds rolled in. They totally obstructed the view of the canyon and we could not see a thing from up there. but it didn't rain!! We stopped at a bar in Kalapaki Bay to celebrate St Patricks Day before heading to the Lihu'e airport to head home. We flew to San Francisco together, and Julie was home. I got a connecting flight to Boston and made it home by Sunday night. A long way from home! It will take me almost a week to adjust to the 6 hour time difference. The big highlight of this trip for me was all the time I got to spend with my lovely daughter. She is a great conversationalist and we had a lot of interesting talks, and just great bonding time! ALOHA!! |
