Monday was our last day on Kauai. We started the day with a beach walk at Hanalei Bay followed by a cup of coffee. The morning was just perfect. While we sat, enjoying our coffee, two women started playing their ukuleles behind us, before their yoga class began. It couldn’t have been staged any better.
On the way back to the house, I found my eyes started leaking. It was to early for the tears to come, I didn’t think it would happen until we flew out.
At the house we made our last papaya boats. I will miss the tropical fruit so much. I know I have blueberries, peach, apple season going on here in New England, but fresh tropical fruit can’t compare.
After savoring the boats, it was time to do the last clean up, give away a few things to friends that we didn’t want to pack home and fill the car up with the last bits of recycling and our bags.
As we passed Hanalei Bay one last time, my eyes filled with water and spilled over. I can’t believe on our first trip here, 7 years ago, we never walked the bay. On our 2nd trip here we went maybe two times, but this trip it stole our hearts. Maybe because we could see our retirement mornings here, yoga class for me, a swim for mike followed by a walk and coffee together.
The flights were relatively uneventful, except for my uncontrolled tears. Really I tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t comply.
We landed in Honolulu, didn’t have a long layover and then hopped on the next one. We did have to sit for an hour because of a mechanical issue, but hey I didn’t care, we did this trip first class!
The delay meant when we landed in DC, we had just enough time to walk to the gate to catch our final flight home. We watched the aloha disappear in the air as soon as we hit DC, people didn’t have the same vibe and fought like heck to keep ours going.
So we are home in New England, we’ve been awake for 30 hours with maybe 3 hours of sleep, things are a bit blurry, so excuse any huge grammatical errors.
This trip started as a 100 birthday celebration for us (both of us turned 50 within the last year), however it really turned into a retirement rehearsal trip. We loved the pace of our days, the excitement of finding new places to explore and eat at, revisiting old favorites, nightly sunsets with friends and just being surrounded by aloha made this a truly memorable trip.
Thanks to everyone who read and my apologies for not returning to Kauai until 2019.
Wishing all of you Aloha.
CTHikergal Travels 
I’m so thankful for your trip report. Reading it was a highlight every morning. Thanks for sharing!
Awww thank you so much for reading and taking the time to comment. I will miss Kauai with all my being, but I know we will retire before retirement.
Finished reading this evening. I’m tickled to see similarities between us, so much so I had to stop and read passages to my husband. i have pictures of me and the sweetest monk seal volunteer near the bike path in Kapaa. I would love to retire in Kauai, but I would have to bring my grandchildren with me. 😊
Thank you for reading. I am missing it so much! Let’s hope both of our retirement dreams come true.