Lockdown

Similar to what most of the mainland is experiencing, we're on complete lockdown here in Kauai. No beaches. No dine-in restaurants. No tourist activities. Obviously this limits what you can do, so we're spending lots of time in our room watching TV, taking quick walks to watch the waves roll in (our condo is on a hill above the beach), and ordering take out.

Overall, Hawaii is understandably making a push to clear out all visitors. We talked with the general manager of our condo complex, and he said that his development isn't even allowing visitors to come here and quarantine in their rooms. They actively canceled all incoming reservations.

All of this hasn't stopped my ice cream consumption.

And it hasn't seemed to have had any impact on all of Kauai's famous roosters. This one attacked our windshield as we ate carryout Cuban food in our car.

But on the whole, these last few days have been very slow here. Glad to see Netflix released a new season of Ozarks.

In other news, we had a very candid discussion with Trent about sex this morning. He was glad he talked to us about it, as he previously thought that sex was "something inappropriate you do after a nice dinner." Glad we got that cleared up.

Staying at "Home"

So we've moved into a two bedroom condo in Princeville on Kauai's north shore. It's nice to have a full kitchen and plenty of work space now that Hawaii is under a "stay at home" order similar to other states. But we can still go to the grocery store, walk outside, and sit and watch whales in the surf from our balcony. Similar to the mainland though, everyone is keeping their distance.

Speaking of groceries, we keep seeing the stories from Indy about empty grocery stores. The grocery store here was fully stocked as of this afternoon. Plenty of milk, eggs, pasta, TP, etc. Crazy different from Indy.

Grace and I were able to take a quick hike this morning to a peak overlooking Hanalei Bay. Grace even adopted a pet chicken.

Our plan is still to just stay put. There are currently three cases of COVID-19 on Kauai, and it doesn't appear to be spreading. So with plenty of food, space, and views, I think we'll be good for a while.

Nā Pali Coast and Whale Watching

Today was pretty awesome. We have had virtually all of our plans canceled on this trip due to the virus. But the one that hadn't yet canceled was a high speed raft tour of the Nā Pali Coast, which was honestly the one we most looked forward to. So I called the charter company, and they said they were done touring...after today. If we could come down this morning early, they would take us out.

So we got up at 5:30am and drove to Waimea to board a high speed raft. The raft in itself was an experience. We sat down on the side of the raft, and then it took off like a shot. In Grant's mind, it made up for the terrible hike (his words) yesterday. We toured up the Nā Pali Coast, which has been the setting for a host of movies, including the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark and the dinosaur island in Jurassic Park. It was gorgeous. We didn't take many pictures, because we were holding on for dear life. But there are lots of pictures on the web.

On our way back, the boat took us out to watch for whales. That, too, was amazing. Literally a whale the size of a minivan was about 15 feet from our boat, splashing around and flipping her tail up in the air. In the end, we saw probably a half dozen whales. Here's a quick video that clearly doesn't do it justice.

All tourist activities in Kauai are closed until further notice. We're moving into a condo tomorrow, where we will try to live a relatively normal existence...just with the ability to watch whales from our balcony in a 70 degree island breeze.

Week 1 down...

This morning was work as ususal, but I (Erin) only had one official meeting, so I worked by the pool all morning. It was glorious.

After work, we headed for a hike I picked. I had read that it was exceedingly muddy no matter when you decided to go (much less after the storm of the decade), but the weather was glorious, and we needed some fresh air--so we went.

It started out with oohs and aahs, and somewhere those turned into tears and curse words (don't judge--keeping it real). Bret is going to tell you that it "wasn't that hard," but there were multiple times that my foot was so sumberged into slipply, slidey, ankle twisting mud that my shoe came off. Literally mud up to your calf kind of mud.

We made it to the first waterfall which boasted cliff jumping, but none of us partook. So we walked and slid and cried our way to the next waterfall. We could swim at the bottom, and it had a rope swing... and WE HAD IT TO OURSELVES, PEOPLE! Well, except for the bugs that ate Grace alive (despite the bug spray with deet). She looked like a contestant on Survivor, but the girl never complained (can't say the same for her mama).

The hike back out was better than the hike in. Perhaps it dried up some in the afternoon heat. Perhaps we just knew that death was probably not likely. Though at one point, Trent told me there was an upcoming dangerous part, only to follow it up with, "Don't worry. You've had a good run."

Day 6: Looking Up and social distancing

After what was called the worst storm in a decade (great timing), the clouds parted! Bret and I are both working early morning hours (think 3 a.m.), so we are usually done for the day around 12.

Today, thanks to the clear skies, we hit the road for some sunshine.

First, we headed to the Kauai Coffee Company where there is an outdoor walk that ushers you through coffee production on the island. Then, we headed to glass beach to play in the black sand and search for sea glass. Both locations were completely empty.

My only fail of the day: Grant's beach outfit. He insists he thought we were grabbing lunch, and his Run DMC outfit didn't quite fit the Mahalo vibe. I like how he's drinking coffee with one hand and taking what was a terrible picture with the other.

From there, we headed for a hike in the Makauwahi Cave Reserve. The hike landed us at a secluded stretch of beach where there was more shell searching, wave jumping and afternoon sunshine. 

Afterwards, we headed back to our hotel beach. The kids played with the debris from the storm, cracking open coconuts (or trying) and "spear fishing" as Trent calls it. We, again, were almost completely alone.

We ate dinner outside near the pool where I taught Trent how to play BlackJack which I am calling math. Step off--real homeschoolers. This is how I am rolling. 

Tomorrow is still another work day, but with the rain at bay, we're hopeful for another great afternoon. 

Rain, rain, and more rain - Day 5

No pictures today, just more rain. And more rain. And more rain. Hawaii is now restricting restaurants to take-out, so we grabbed food and ate by the pool under cover. Additionally, our ATV tour and luau for next week have both been canceled, which was expected. While not the trip that any of us expected, we're still enjoying being able to look out the window and see the pool, mountains, etc. Hopefully the torrential rains stop today, and we can actually get out and go for walks. These kids are starting to destroy this hotel room. Additionally, Erin and I have both worked full time this week. We've been getting up at 4am, which has been rough. We're both officially on time-off next week, so we plan to at least sleep in. Like everyone else, we're just trying to make the best of the situation.

Rain, work and school: Hawaii, day 4

The  torrential rain kept up for most of the morning, but that was okay, because we had work and school to attend to this morning. Bret overturned the conference room at 2 am to make way for several conference calls, and the kids, while not up that early, attended to the first day of e-learning. As you can see from Trent's beer comment below, we are killing at homeschooling. 

After a few errands and a quick afternoon swim, we hit Poipu beach to watch the waves, grab some dinner and head back to the hotel. While we still have work and school to attend to for the next few days, we're hopeful that the downpours are done for now, and we steal some afternoon adventures.

Kauai Days 2 and 3 - Waimea Canyon, the Napali coast, and rain

For our second full day in Kauai, we took the opportunity to drive out to Waimea Canyon. We hadn't planned on doing this so soon in the trip, but the weather was great, and jet lag afforded us the early wakeup call needed to catch the sunrise. The setting was beautiful, and it was neat getting to watch part of our church services from the canyon.





We drove all the way to the end of the road to do a little hiking over the Napali coast. It was also beautiful, but I'm sure it's even more spectacular when viewed from the Pacific. We're hoping to still get to take that trip over the next couple of weeks. We ended the day with pizza and traditional Hawaiian shave ice. Grant was pleased.

Today was a total washout. Storms forced us to spend all day in our hotel. This wasn't a big problem, as Erin and I are still working all this week anyway. So Erin got up at 4am to work, and I'm getting up at 2am this evening to do product demos online. We still got to take a walk tonight and breathe some fresh air. With all the bad news in the world, I can't tell you how much better I felt after turning off my phone and just taking a walk.

Kaua'i vs. Virus

So I'm very aware that the world is a very strange place for everyone right now, and the Hawkins family is no exception. We started 2020 planning a 10 day trip to China to take Grace to the village where she was born. And then the virus hit.

At the time, we thought our China trip just got an unlucky break, and we'd simply reschedule it for later in the year. We also thought we'd just pick a new place to go for spring break, and it wouldn't be a problem. So we had a little family pow-wow, and to make up for China, it was decided that we'd visit Hawaii.

Since I (Bret) travel so much for work, our vacations are closely tied to places we can stay on my hotel points. With that in mind, we landed on a place on Kaua'i and planned a week long trip for the end of March. And then the virus REALLY hit.

On Thursday, it felt like the world came unglued. March Madness was canceled. School got canceled. All of my work meetings were, for the most part, canceled. At dinner Thursday night, Erin and I had a "what if?" kind of half joking conversation about coming to Hawaii early and just waiting out the virus here. "Wouldn't it be awesome to be quarantined...IN HAWAII?!?"

We also started hearing rumblings of possible domestic travel bans in the future, and Erin and I were in agreement that we were going to Hawaii, one way or the other. We both were REALLY needing a vacation. And with that, we started looking at our calendars, and a plan began to form. I had enough hotel points to cover three weeks of hotels in Hawaii, and Delta was willing to change our flights at no cost. So on Thursday night when Brownsburg decided to close schools on Friday, I called Delta and changed our flights to Friday morning. A complete rebooking of our trip occurred. We had to book into three new hotels over the course of the trip because no one place had enough availability (and we didn't necessarily have the points) to stay in one spot the whole time. But we got it done.

We packed, slept (briefly) and boarded flights on Friday morning at 10am. By 8pm Hawaii time, we were in Kaua'i.

Beat tired, we headed to hotel #1. "Umm... Mr. Hawkins, your reservation doesn't start until tomorrow." Somehow in my haste, I had the first reservation off by a night. Luckily another property nearby had availability, and we crashed.

This morning, the boys and I got haircuts, as this was SUPPOSED to be something we did before going on vacation. Erin and Grace watched the sunrise.
  
The view at pool number one for the day ended up being pretty great.

But then we got over to our REAL hotel for the next 9 days. The view here is spectacular, and we got upgraded to a room overlooking the pool.

Pretty sure we'll be OK for the next couple of weeks. Did I hear it was snowing in Indiana?

Stay safe and healthy, friends. More pictures and adventures to come...