ALOHA! - part 2

As promised here are more photos from my trip to the Garden Isle.  I found Kauai to be the way I imagined the Garden of Eden to be.  (I also feel that way about so many places in the Northwest.  We live in such a beautiful place.)  When I've described the experience to my kids, I've told them it's like the Oregon Coast except it's tropical instead of temperate.  I would say that's true.  Kauai has beautiful rugged coastal regions, beautiful forests that are tropical filled with ferns, and tall canopy trees, palm trees (including coconut palms), vines, and flowers.  (The Oregon coast is a forested with ferns, Douglas fir, other deciduous trees, rhododendrons, etc.) Traveling the coast roads reminded me of the beautiful scenes you see along the coast lines in Oregon and Washington.

Here are some more photos:

 An old sugar cane processing plant near Lihue. (You can see part of the cruise ship docked in the lower left of the photo.)

A banyan grove. I always wondered what banyan trees looked like.  The only one I had ever seen was the sculpture on BYU campus.

Plumeria (top photo) and hibiscus.  We had hibiscus planted in our yard in So Cal.  I love the sweet fragrance of the plumeria.  Plumeria make beautiful leis.

The top photo is near the lighthouse on the north shore of the island.  The bottom photo is also the north shore looking toward Princeville and Hanalei.  (Don't you think it looks like the Oregon Coast?)

This is looking toward Poipu on the south shore of Kauai.  So lovely! (Again, kind of like the Oregon Coast.)

This is a photo of me snorkeling on a reef at Ke'e beach.  I'm the third from the left.  I LOVED snorkeling.  I felt like I was part of the aquarium. I want to snorkel some more.  I'm trying to figure out if I can here in Puget Sound.

I LOVE palm trees.  These are coconut palms that just grow in groves along the ocean. I remember when we lived in SoCal that I loved having palm trees in our yard. There is something romantic and graceful and elegant about palm trees.