Kauai - Day 9 - Sunday, December 8, 2013

Aloha and Welcome to our vacation.

Woke up to cloudy skies, but this time they didn't clear up.  Today we had plans to go to Kilohana Plantation to ride the train and do brunch with our friends Blaine and Lisa.  We had an 11:00am brunch reservation, so we wanted to do the 10:00am train ride first.  So, instead of having breakfast, we got ready and headed into Lihue.  On the drive in, we hit a huge downpour of rain, and it was still raining when we got to Kilohana.

We met up with Blaine and Lisa at the train station - where we bought our tickets and boarded the train.  By this time, the rain had stopped, and the weather was quite nice.  Teagan was quite excited to be riding the train.  The train ride lasted about 40 minutes and took us through the Kilohana property - past a lot of fruit orchards and a variety of other trees and plants.  There was a commentary the whole time, and it was pretty interesting.  About halfway through the trip, the train stopped to let people off to feed some pigs, goats and chickens that they have on the property.  They even provided bread for us to feed the animals.  Then it was back on the train, and back to the station.

After the train ride, we headed over to Gaylord's restaurant for our 11:00am brunch reservation.  They were able to seat us right away.  We had a nice table overlooking the courtyard and garden.  The brunch was a buffet, but also included was the option to order one of the following a la carte meals:  steak and eggs, ahi tuna eggs Benedict or the omelette of the day.  Randy and I ordered the ahi Benedict, and then went to the buffet to load up on some food.

There was quite an impressive selection of buffet items - about a dozen different hot items such as beef short ribs, bacon, scrambled eggs, French toast and hash browns, along with cold items like salad, cheeses, smoked salmon and desserts.  The beef short ribs were especially tasty.  We had just finished off our plate when our entrees arrived.  The ahi Benedict was SO good.  I could've easily had three of them!  (but then I would've been in great pain)  The rest of the buffet food was very delicious, and I definitely had to go and get some dessert.  About halfway through our meal, it started pouring again, but we were under cover, so didn't get wet.

After we were done eating, Randy held Odin while Lisa finished eating.  There were some rumblings in Odin's nether regions, and Randy ended up getting some overflow spillage on his shirt (I'm sure there is some Hawaiian proverb that might say that being crapped on is good luck).  Luckily we were done our meal, and so quickly paid our cheque and left.

At Kilohana Plantation there is the Koloa Rum Company - and they do rum tastings.  We were planning to do a rum tasting, but the next one wasn't for almost another hour - plus Randy had some baby poop on his shirt (ick).  So, we decided to just head back to the resort to change into different clothes instead.

Even though it was still raining off and on, we optimistically packed a beach bag and decided to head north to Kilauea and Hanalei.  It rained most of the way, but the sun did come out when we stopped to check out some shops in Kilauea.  We continued on to Hanalei and wandered around a bit.  Around 4:00pm, we decided to head back to Poipu. 

On the way back, we hit some more rain.  We stopped to get some more fruit juice at the Big Save in Koloa.  We saw some decent-looking sushi, so decided to pick that up for supper.  It actually ended up being pretty darn good for grocery store sushi! 

We gave Randy's parents a call, and they came over for some drinks and to check out our new unit.  After they left, I spent time putting together a little video of the Lights on Rice parade and worked on the journal.  The new video can be found under the Videos link in the menu.