9/10/04

Another "not to be missed" item on our list was a visit to the Waimea Canyon, A.K.A. the Grand Canyon of Hawaii. After a traditional Hawaiian breakfast (good stuff) it was a nice relaxing day of driving to the western side of Kauai and not doing much hiking besides walking to the lookouts. The canyon was definitely huge and cool looking with all the different rock layers, side canyons, and waterfalls off in the distance. And the far end of the canyon is where the NaPali coast ends on the western side. This was really cool looking and worth spending some non-thinking time hanging out. From a few different overlooks the privately owned island of Ni'ihau could be seen in the distance. Driving back towards the town of Waimea we knew there were two stops we wanted to make....Waimea Brewery and JoJo's Shave ice! Just as our luck had been going, the brewery had something broken and none of their own beers could be served. But they had plenty of other to choose from that went along great with our pork nachos. The stop at JoJo's was due to all the rave about "shave ice", and apparently JoJo's has the best in Hawaii. Shave ice seemed an awful lot like a snow cone to me, but then again I'm no expert. Anyway, it was tasty and a nice stop. After Waimea it was back to the hotel for the nightly MaiTai's for happy hour!