Sept. 25, 2016---puppy sitting:

We may not have Grandkids, yet----but we get to watch our granddogs quite often.  Usually Ken does most of it.  I walk them and hang out there during the day, then go back to our apartment. 

 I guess that's why they like to hang out by Grandpa.  I believe Micky thinks he's a baby.  Molly is more dog like.  She'll happily sit around by herself.

Sept. 23, 2016---Snorkel Bolongo bay, then off to the airport for me:

Yep, another beautiful day here on the island.  My flight wasn't until about 4pm, so we decided to go snorkeling again.  Angie was on the hunt for turtles.  Last time the only place we saw one was at Bolongo Bay, so that's where we decided to go again.  Another beautiful bay.

trying to be artsie

Don't know if the resort was open.  Looked like there was a lot of renovating being done.

Sept. 22, 2016---Cowpet Bay and Secret beach:


Another beautiful start to another great day!  I, again, went outside and watched the day begin.

Love the location of this unit.

I assume those are condos on the far hillside.  There's a boat bar on the beach there.  Also loved how calm the water was.  I hope that it clears up once they're done with construction.  I'm assuming the brown water is from the dirt washing down into the bay.  At least it didn't look brown from a distance.

Sept. 21, 2016--- Off to St. John!

I guess I was pretty excited.  I was up before sunrise and laid out on the round chair on my patio watching the sun rise.  By 8, Angie and Josh were up and we hustled to get ready and off for a day of snorkeling.

We let an employee valet park the car the night before.  I got a kick out of the sign he parked by.  Kind of hard to read it here, but it says, "Caution  Area prone to flooding.  Park at your own risk"

We made it to the ferry port by 8:45 and got on the 9am car ferry to St. John.  It was $50 round trip, cash only---same as when we were there for 9 days a few years ago.  Views from the ferry were pretty.

After the 30 minute or so ferry ride, we were on our way to the north side of the island.  Stopped at an overlook near Cruz Bay harbor.

Sept. 20, 2016---off to St. Thomas!

5 days after we got home from 4 weeks in Hawaii, I was off to catch a flight to St. Thomas.  I wasn't planning to go, but circumstances made it a perfect opportunity to  join my daughter and her husband there for 3 nights, so I happily joined them.

Originally I had booked them accommodations in a studio unit at the new Wyndham Margaritaville.  With our VIP status with Wyndham, we're eligible for free upgrades if they're available.  I kept checking and the one and only time anything else appeared it was for a 3 bedroom Presidential Reserve unit, so I immediately upgraded them.  My daughter, again, stressed that she and Josh would like me to join them, so she booked me a flight on Spirit Airlines out of ATL for about $370 rt.  Couldn't pass up a deal like that!

So dark and early, Ken drove me to the airport.  At least there isn't much Atlanta traffic at 5:30 in the morning!

I've only flown Spirit one other time---from Fll-Atl to dog sit when Angie and Josh were packing and driving their stuff up to Suwanee, but it is a surprisingly nice airline.   At least as far as the plane goes.  They do charge for everything from carry on luggage to sodas, but since I was only going for 3 nights, all I needed fit into my personal bag (beach bag) which is the only thing free you can bring.
As we were taking off from ATL---

Sept. 20-23, 2016---St. Thomas Margaritaville 3 bedroom Presidential Reserve condo:

A relatively new club of Wyndhams---Margaritavilles.  We aren't Margaritaville owners, but they let Wyndham VIPs reserve some of the excess units within something like 60 days out.  It's usually studio units, which is what I originally reserved for Angie and Josh, but I lucked into finding a 3 bedroom presidential reserve unit free upgrade a couple weeks before their trip.  With the extra bedrooms, they said I "had" to come too!  Who am I to argue with that!!????   So our first ever stay in a Margaritaville was the new one in St. Thomas.  It was gorgeous! 

The entrance to the lobby.  Love the parrots in the fountain.

Sept 14-15, 2016  time to go home:

I thought it was a long day traveling home to st. Louis from Kauai with stops in LAX and DFW along the way.  Going to Atlanta was even worse!   We had an 11am (HST) flight on Alaska Airlines to San Diego.  Then a 3 hour layover and another 6 hour flight to Miami.  Another 1 1/2 hour layover and a 1 1/2 hour flight to Atlanta. 
Not really anxious to go home, but anxious about the long day ahead, so I didn't sleep well.  Decided to get up and watch the sun rise on our last morning in Kauai.   A lot of clouds, but it was still nice.

 Sure going to miss this view.

 The sun did rise, and quickly hid again.

Sept. 13, 2016  not your normal last day!

It started out good!  The sun was shining and the water was a beautiful blue.  Ken said all the beaches were listed as black again, so I didn't pursue snorkeling ---- too much.  I think Ken is ready to go home and sit in front of the tv all day again.  I suggested going to Na aina kai since we have reciprocal membership, but he didn't want to do that either.

At least I was able to enjoy the views from our lanai again.  

At 11 I went down to the office to check in for our flights tomorrow and to print out our boarding passes.   Ken picked me up from there and we took off to Kapaa in search of breakfast.  He decided he didn't like the cereal we bought this last time.  I love driving by all the palm trees.  I can't believe we're back to living in a place without them!

Sept. 12, 2016  Around kauai looking for a place to snorkel!

One of the many benefits of this room is seeing the sunrise right from our livingroom----not that I actually did!  But Ken is up all hours of the day and night, so he took a few pictures of sunrise this morning.  Credit to Ken for getting a great picture!

According to the internet, the south beaches were suppose to be snorkelable again today.  So by 10:30 we were heading south.
Something holy about this road side site!

Sept. 11, 2016  Poipu snorkeling:

I guess I made up for a not too exciting day yesterday and took a ton of pictures today!

First was from our lanai again.  

Love watching the surf roll.  Love the constant roar of the ocean, too. 

Sept.10-16  Back to the East side, no snorkeling today:

Not that we didn't try!  John, from the meet and greet mentioned a beach near Hanalei Colony Resort that had really healthy coral.  So we went to find it.   The road we ended up on was another Polihale type with a ton of pot holes.  Finally we came upon a short trail near the YMCA  (Turns out we were at the wrong spot.  I should have listened to his directions better!  Apparently we were on the West side of the neighborhood and needed to be on the East side of the neighborhood to Kepuhi Beach.  Next trip take the first right past the concrete bridge (past HCR; Oneone which turns into Alealea). Take a right on Alamoo until it makes a hard left and there is the beach access.)

It did look like under the right conditions it might be good, but it was really rough today and I wasn't even sure we found the right place.  

Sept. 9, 2016  tunnels one more time and a tripadvisor meet and greet at Happy Talk:

I must be feeling really at home now!  Didn't get up until after 11 am today!  Didn't waste too much time getting ready to head out, though.  Had a breakfast of bagels then we were off to Tunnels.  But first we stopped at the overlook right here by Princeville where I went to take sunset pictures yesterday.  Since we're normally coming here from the East side, we don't usually see this overlook while it's still so clear.

Love the hood ornament on this Woody.

Sept. 8, 2016  snorkel Kee again.

Our time on the north shore is winding down.  So we wanted to try and get to Tunnels, and/or Kee again.  Tunnels was full as expected, but we lucked into someone leaving Kee right when we pulled up.  So we took that as a sign that this is where we should be.

Seems most snorkelers hang out far to the right of the beach.  But this is where more of the fish and coral are. 

 another pretty calm day.

Sept. 7, 2016  snorkel Kee and sunset at Tunnels:

It was nice leaving a condo without having much to pack.  The advantage of a mini vacation within a vacation---we left almost everything at The Cliffs which was only about 3 miles away.   We were out of the Shearwater by the 10 am departure time.  Back at the Cliffs we just hung out for a bit.  We found out yesterday that we got midweek cleaning here.  When we came to get our swimsuits, our condo was clean and bed made.

We decided to try to get to Kee to snorkel today.  It's been a few years since we snorkeled there.  Parking is a pain!  Plus in the winter there aren't as many good days---supposedly!  This trip there hasn't been too many good days yet, either!  At least we're not South where there's a surf advisory now from a storm in New Zealand.

Got a bit of a late start towards Kee.  Decided to have some left over spaghetti from the other night for lunch before leaving.  I wanted to stay until sunset once we got out that way.
I noticed this sign as we were driving through Hanalei.  Aren't all shaved ice organic?!

 I've always been curious about Lumahai Beach, but were always scared off by the Lumadie references in the winter.  So Ken sat in the car and let me walk down there today so I could see it and take some pictures.  The trail wasn't bad---a bit steep, but not that long. 

Sept. 6, 2016  Snorkeling Tunnels!!!!

Finally---we were able to snorkel tunnels.  Although it reminded me more of a relatively calm winter Tunnels day with the fairly strong current running through it and choppy water.  We got a good workout going against the current then floating back.  But it is such a beautiful place!

But first, our view from the Shearwater Unit 313.  I was worried it wouldn't have a view being on the end of a slanted building well into the golf course.  But it does have a pretty nice view from our lanai.

 Our building.

Sept. 5, 2016   Happy Labor Day!!!

Woke up to another beautiful sunny day.  Unfortunately the beaches websites were still saying the only beaches swimmable were South.  So much for my plans to stay north to hit the good beaches!!!  We weren't going to drive south, so we decided to go back to Anini.
Back to our favorite spot on the beach.

looking left

Sept. 4, 2016   Snorkel Anini and check sunset at St. Regis:

As hot as it was in the daytime, it did cool off nicely in the evening.  We still had 2 floor fans and a ceiling fan running in our bedroom, but slept well.  So well, that we didn't get up until almost 10.  Not use to having such dark curtains!

When I did look outside, I was very happy!  It was sunny with blue skies and the ocean was a beautiful blue, too.  This is the view from our room today---

After a gourmet breakfast of Lucky Charms, we took off to Anini Beach.  According to the websites, there was still some high surf on the North shore from Hurricane Lester.  But Anini is pretty well protected.  Although by the time we got there, the clouds were coming to the North side again.  Looked like rain, too.  But we snorkeled anyway.

Sept. 3, 2016  moving to The Cliffs on the North side:

Today we moved to The Cliffs on the North side.  One of the main reasons for this trip, is to be here for the calm north side beaches this time of year.  I guess that's good in theory, but not when you have hurricanes barreling down on you!  Anyway, we could have stayed in one of the Wyndham resorts in Princeville, but we had a week to use with Trading Places, so when the Cliffs came available in a lofted unit (3rd floor---no little feet running around above us!), I took it.  Turns out I could have gotten any of the Wyndham resorts for 50% off and free upgrades on a couple of them, but the exchange was done.  RCI says The Cliffs is a Gold Crown resort, so that was encouraging.

So we were up relatively early---for us---and packing our stuff out to the car.  At least it's a lot less stressful travelling from one part of the island to another then to fly to another island!  We had to be out of Kauai Beach Villas by 10, but knew we might not get into The Cliffs until 4, so didn't plan on any snorkeling---luggage in the car and no beach towels pretty well insured that---not to mention Hurricane Lester.

On our way, we  stopped at Kealia beach to check out the high surf. 

 Not many surfers out there and the ones that were stayed near the lifeguard stand.

Sept. 2, 2016  Snorkel at Lydgate, then checked out the South side:

Again the beaches website that Ken likes to use---http://www.hawaiibeachsafety.com/kauai---listed all the beaches as Extreme Hazards with high surf.  We decided to go see what the man made pond at Lydgate park looked like. 

 It actually looked quite good.  So we jumped in to see what was there now.

Sept. 1, 2016  Wiamea Canyon and West county---

So we checked the beach reports and found they are all closed!  My plans for coming here in the summer to snorkel the north shore has some flaws!  Not a good time for water sports when you have 2 hurricanes barreling down on you!  Madeline went south, but bands of her winds and clouds spread all the way here.  Now Lester is expected to affect Kauai on about Sunday.    Hoping that'll be it and the waters will be back to snorkelable in a few days.

When we checked in yesterday, we were told to come down to the island orientation and they had free malasadas.  Ken wasn't interested, but I liked the idea of malasadas, so about 8:30 I walked on down to where they were suppose to be.  I say suppose to because noone was there---and no malasadas!  So I walked back to our unit and took a few pictures along the way.
One of the walkways within the Kauai Beach Villas.

 Looking across the lagoon to one of the condo buildings from the Aqua Kauai Beach Resort hotel side of the complex.

Aug. 31, 2016  off to Kauai:

You would think flying from Maui to Kauai would be an easy day.  But it still makes for a long day.   Our flight wasn't until 2:30, so we had a little time to enjoy Maui a little more.  We haven't been going out to breakfast, but decided to have a cinnamon roll  from the Cinnamon Roll Place in Kihei this morning.  It was as good as it was when we were there in 2015.  They also had great egg sandwiches, but we stuck with the roll this time.

I'm sure it would have been even better with one of the flavored  cream cheese  extra toppings, but it was very good plain, too.