Honeymoon: Day 8 – More driving (change of plans) & Tide-pools

Wednesday was another one of our wide-open days in Hawaii, and while we tried to make the most of it, we basically ended up doing a lot of driving.

We started of by eating breakfast at Joe’s on the Green.  We ate outside, and while we enjoyed the view we noticed that there was smoke coming off in the distance.  The best guess by everyone there was a house fire.  We were hoping everything was ok, but all we could do was say a prayer and look at the smoke in the distance:

IMG_1343

We set off towards the North Shore of Kauai. Bethany went through our guidebook to find some prime destinations for our exploration.  First up was a boogie boarding beach.  We drove the beautiful drive along the coast, only to find that the beach had signs that said “no swimming” all over it.  We saw people surfing along the coast, and a few boogie-boarders, but we didn’t want to be one of those Darwin award recipients – the ones you read about missing after swimming in the “No Swimming” beach, so we drove on.

The book described this beautiful lava-formed pool called “Queen’s Bath”.  We set out looking for it and found it by driving through a neighborhood.  The book mentioned that a small parking lot was created to accommodate the number of visitors, but it didn’t mention just how small this lot was.   There were only about 10 spots, all of which were full (and a few were even double-parked).  We tried to find alternative parking, but with no success we were forced to head back.  When then drove and found a snorkeling beach and got in our beach time for the day.

Hungry for a late lunch, we tried the coveted Ono Burger which we’ve heard so much.  Bethany ordered a Swiss Burger, while I ordered a Teriyaki, Pineapple & Swiss burger.  Both were really good, but still paled in comparison to Five Guys back at home.  We ate our burgers along the original boogie-board beach, then made our way back to Lihue.

We spent some time at Starbucks to upload pictures to Flickr, then made our way back to get ready for our dinner reservation at Tide Pools, a restaurant at the Hyatt next door.  The restaurant was very good, but we were one of the few unfortunates that weren’t seated by the water.  We enjoyed our dinner nonetheless, and made our way back to our room where we once again turned in early.

Next Up: Sunrise, Sunset.