Greetings from the Westin Princeville Resort on the North Shore of Kauai, about 300 miles from Mauna Loa! We left the house at 5am Pacific, took off at 7, and landed in Maui at 10:30 Hawaiian (12:30pm Pacific).
As soon as we turned on our phones, we saw a text from Jeff: “Don’t let the volcano keep you down”. That was the first we knew about Mauna Loa’s eruption. It didn’t affect our travels today, but the rain did – our flight from Maui to Kauai was delayed an hour on top of a three-hour layover. We arrived at Lihue Airport at 3 and waited for our luggage until the carousel stopped. I walked over to the Hawaiian Airlines baggage office – it was there, and had been for a couple of hours; they’d put it on an earlier flight.
Traffic was very bad in Lihue and Kaapa; at least the rains waited until we were on clear roads. We reached the resort a little after 5pm and decided to eat at the restaurant here – they only have outdoor seating, so we got to enjoy seeing a nene.
Diane had tuna and I had mahi-mahi; it was good, but pricey. We went to the supermarket to stock up for the next few days – it was pricey, too (and the produce wasn’t terribly enticing).
We have almost nothing planned for our time here; the concierge had some suggestions, but we weren’t ready to make any decisions.