We had nothing scheduled for today, so we slept in and had a leisurely breakfast in our room. It was wonderful.

After that, we took a walk through Princeville. We hadn’t even left the resort when I spotted this lovely Red Ginger (I was very pleased that the iPhone decided to open up the lens all the way so the background is nicely blurred).

Our walk took us along the Makai Golf Course, which offered some nice views.

We also walked through a neighborhood; I enjoyed the flowers and the variety of architecture.

We returned the same way we went – still walking along the golf course. The birds were out.

Finally, we got back to the road leading directly to the Westin.

We drove over to Princeville Center for lunch at Tiki Iniki; I had the ginger-beer-battered Ono fish and chips; Diane had the Ahi burger. Both were a little on the bland side, but edible; we chose not to indulge in the true house speciality, tiki drinks, so we didn’t get the full experience.

I made steak on the grill for dinner; I’ve done better (and had better beef to work with), but we survived. After dinner, we went out on our balcony to watch the sunset.

It was even more interesting from ground level.

We’re booked for activities every day for the rest of our time on Kauai, so I’m glad we had a chance to relax today!

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.