Back in the day a large plantation owner on Kauai bought a whole ton of trees for his plantation. Turns out he bought way too many so he donated the rest to Kauai. They planted them along the end of the road from Poipu to Lihue and now the trees form a "Tunnel of Trees" along the road. The branches used to be intertwined but the hurricane in the 90's destroyed a lot of the branches/leaves. There wasn't really anywhere to pull over in the tunnel of trees so I had to take this shot while sitting in the front of a moving car.

On the road up to Waimea Canyon we saw this neat little waterfall with some awesome red soil and decided to pull over. I took this long exposure waterfall shot after hiking down to the little falls.

While stopped to take the picture of the neat little waterfalls (see previous photo) we got our first glimpse of the view of Kauai. I thought it would be neat to capture Lillian taking her own photo of this, just so you can see how huge this area is.

The road to Waimea Canyon was a little curvy and twisty and we saw this neat view of the road that I had to snap a photo of.

Hailed as the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific", Waimea Canyon was formed over many many many years of water erosion on Lava Rock. We stopped at the Waimea Canyon Lookout and I took this 12 shot panorama.

Hailed as the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific", Waimea Canyon was formed over many many many years of water erosion on Lava Rock. We stopped at the Waimea Canyon Lookout and I took this 14 shot panorama. This was taken at the little viewing area that you can see in the bottom right of the previous panorama. The photo covers about 180°.

The 3 of us in front of Waimea Canyon, the Grand Canyon of the West.

Near the parking lot at the Waimea Canyon lookout a bunch of native hawaiians were putting on some kind of show. We decided not to stay and find out what it was, but I did takke a photo of them .

Another view of Waimea Canyon, seen from a different lookout. You can see where the river used to run way down below.

In the 1990's a giant hurrican hit Kauai and one of the results was that numerous chickens escaped from their pens. The entire island is filled with Wild Chickens roaming all around. At the parking lot at one of the lookouts we found many of them trying to attack us for food!

In the 1990's a giant hurrican hit Kauai and one of the results was that numerous chickens escaped from their pens. The entire island is filled with Wild Chickens roaming all around. At the parking lot at one of the lookouts we found many of them trying to attack us for food!

At the very end of the Wiamea Canyon road is the Pu'u o Kila Lookout. It supposively has some of the most amazing views in the Pacific. Unfortunately we took our time getting up to the top of Waimea Canyon and the clouds/fog had rolled in. We hung out for about 20 minutes and for 30 seconds the clouds cleared enough for me to snap this photo. We hiked around up here for another couple hours but the clouds never broke. I suppose we were lucky I was even able to grab this photo!

While waiting for the clouds to par at the Pu'u o Kila Lookout a couple people came back talking abouta mile hike that had some amazing views of the valley. They also mentioned that there were no clouds over there. One guy had mud *covering* his legs so we decided to switch out of flip-flops and into our hiking boots. It turned out to be a good decision. This shot was taken on the trail as we got to another little tunnel of trees. I thought the trees made a neat view and the fog/clouds in the top made this even cooler. I'm posting 3 versions of this scene, one from each side (once as we walked into the trail, and 2 photos from the way back).

There was a reason why one of the guys who came back from this trail had his legs *covered* with mud - here's why! The trail had gotten very mushy from all the rain/fog/water in the area.

There were lots of neat trees along the trail and Lillian decided to take a break while we found a nice seat.

After crossing this puddle my foot slipped and smacked into the puddle, splashing mud all over Lillian, who was patiently waiting behind me.

When we finally got to the end of the trail it turned out that the fog/clouds had closed in here as well. After that brief glimpse of the valley we didn't see it ever again. A nice lady had pointed out that there was a pretty flower at the very end of the trail and we found it after bushwaking a little bit.

I never knew what a fern looked like before it bloomed until we went on this hike. The twirled up ferns will unfirl and then turn into normal jungle plants shortly!

Another fern as it is about to unfirl into a real plant -- caught as water droplets fell of it.

My favorite view of the neat tunnel of trees on our hike in Pihue Trail, near the Pu'u o Kila Lookout. This one an HDR version.

My favorite view of the neat tunnel of trees on our hike in Pihue Trail, near the Pu'u o Kila Lookout. The original, non-HDR version. I actually really like both versions of the photo. I tried to keep the HDR fairly realistic looking, but I like how this version really shows the fog that snuck in at the top of the trees.

Even though the Pihue Trail was only 2 miles round trip we were very hot and sweaty from all the humidity. We came down from Waimea Canyon and stopped at the famous Jo-Jo's Shave Ice. We each got different flavors, with delicious vanilla ice-cream at the bottom. This size was a "small" and it was extremely delicious!

Even though the Pihue Trail was only 2 miles round trip we were very hot and sweaty from all the humidity. We came down from Waimea Canyon and stopped at the famous Jo-Jo's Shave Ice. We each got different flavors, with delicious vanilla ice-cream at the bottom. This size was a "small" and it was extremely delicious! Here's the 3 of us enjoying our delicious shave ice!

A couple of our guidebooks had talked about some neat sand dunes and a nice beach at the very west end of the island. Even though the books warned that you needed 4x4 (we did have an SUV w/AWD for this reason) we decided to give it a try. Turns out the road was super simple and any normal car could have gotten there. When we got to Polihale Beach we had almost half a mile of beach all to ourselves! We decided to setup the tripod and take some photos of us jumping, just for a little fun.