Kauai, Part 1: Accommodation Progression

We apologize for the lack of posts this past weekend. We were on Kauai. It was beautiful. The weather was perfect. We had a great time. And we have stories to tell. I have to tell you by way of disclaimer that this was the most poorly planned vacation we have been on. We bought tickets to Kauai in September when you could get inter-island flights for $20 each way, and then we didn't really think about it much after that. We did have the foresight to reserve a rental car, and we did look into accommodations, but by the time we landed in Lihue, we weren't certain if we would have a place to stay the night. And that is where our first adventure begins. Oh, except that when we got to the rental car lot, they were out of economy cars so they had to give us a free upgrade to a midsize. Darn. I hate it when that happens.

The next order of business was finding a place to stay. We were finally able to get through to the hostel I had been calling all day and they did indeed have a private room available for the next three days. When we got there, though, we kind of wished they didn't. I hope they were in the middle of renovations, but part of me thinks it was just run down. The windows didn't have screens. The curtains were held up by clothes pins. The ceilings and many of the walls weren't finished. Some of the long-term tenants seemed to be on drugs. It was kind of scary. Here are some shots of our room and the hostel:












We just didn't think it was worth $60 a night. So the next morning we called around some more and found a place for that night. It was a studio apartment with a kitchen, totally private, really nice, and only $50. As you can see, it was a bit of step up from Friday night's room:













But that left Sunday night open. We went to church in the morning on the south side of the island where we were staying, but left after they wouldn't serve us the sacrament because we were a few minutes late (I guess they are trying to get people to come on time . . . but I think it is kind of a steep price to pay) and drove up to the North Shore, where we found another church. There wasn't another sacrament meeting we could catch, but there was, however, a nice man from Utah who asked us as soon as he saw us if we were looking for a place to stay. I think he was joking, but the funny thing is that he was right. He owned a condo on Hanalei Bay Resort and had some extra rooms, so if we couldn't find anything else, we could give him a call. We looked around that afternoon and made some calls, but in the end, the resort condo was our only option. It was a really nice condo, with an incredible view of Hanalei Bay and it didn't cost us a thing:


















Funny how each night our accommodations got nicer and cheaper, eh? I'm certainly not complaining.


Edit: Here is the view we woke up to on our last morning in Kauai: