When people hear the word “Hawaii”, I’ll bet that most people will think of palm trees and waterfalls and tropical fruits. A lot of people still yet haven’t experienced the feeling of being on a tropical island out in the middle of the ocean, but I have. I have childhood memories of this all of the time and I love to discuss it.  These memories are very faint but I am still able to talk about what happened and when it happened on my first trip to one of the islands of Hawaii. The name of this beautiful island is called Kauai.

I always remember how early we had to get up but the time did not stop my excitement. Instead, looking out in the night sky at 2:00 A.M. made me even more excited. We had to leave early since we have a 2 hour drive to St.Louis. We also always leave time to get through security and all of the airport things we have to do before we board the plane. The moment when you leave the ground fills my body with relaxation and I fall asleep. A couple hours later, we landed in the Los Angeles airport and I noticed my window seemed a lot warmer than when we left Missouri. Some of you know how you have to change flights at different airports, but some of you don’t experience the short amount of time you have to get across the airport. We had to run through 4 terminals in 30 minutes. I honestly can't tell you how many people I had to say sorry to because I ran over them with my suitcase. We barely made it to the gate, and we were surprised that it didn’t close before then. Yet again, I slept on that long six our flight until we were told that we were making a landing. This was scary because when you land there, it looks like you're just going to land in the ocean. Seeing the island's huge mountain terrain covered in green plants gave me goosebumps and wondered if any people hiked on those. I asked my mother “Are we going to hike”?

My mother said, “If you are up to the test”. I shook my head, yes, but she quoted that the trails were slippery and wet with a possibility you could fall off of a cliff. I knew that was not going to happen because I always try my best to stay on the trail. The day we went hiking was nice and sunny with a high around the upper 80’s. She was sure right about those slippery trails, I think I fell at least 3 to 4 times which covered me with red mud with bruises on my legs. I wondered why we were on this trail. Then this gorgeous sight came up upon me. It was a waterfall with a great big pool of water down below. The mist off of the water felt great as it grazed the top of my skin and cooled my sweat from the hiking. Sure enough, I and my sister jumped from the top of the waterfall into the water below. This is what I mean by the experiences that people rarely get to have in their entire lifetime. Sadly, we couldn’t stay there long because a storm had risen off in the distance forcing us to have to walk back down the hill. I saw something that I didn’t see on the way up, it was a great large beach in the shape of a bay.

We decided that after it got done raining, we should go out to the beach for the rest of the day. I also forgot to mention that we stayed in a mansion there. This place was huge, but sadly this was not our mansion. Our neighbor that lives here in Illinois lets us stay there for free at his mansion in Kauai. Anyways, the beach was so beautiful! I think I may have seen a few dolphins out in the distance that day but I also saw a lot of surfers. I am not big on surfing, but I really like to boogie board. Nothing excites me more at the beach than flying across the water and feeling the warm blanket of the ocean running down your legs. There is sometimes a default in this sport and that’s mother nature. Most of the time, the waves are small there and can really bore you, but every so often a huge wave comes. I take this wave thinking I’ll be okay, but the wave decided to push me under water and make the board stab into my torso. If I remember correctly, I think I quit for the rest of the day and did not boogie board until the next day. Instead of boogie boarding for the rest of the day, I decided I could make some things with the sand on the beach. My favorite thing to make on the beach is a lounge chair that lets me lay back and enjoy the scenery. This was not the only time the water gave this much attention, but kayaking did.

Kayaking was a whole new different idea and that you had to keep the boat from flipping but still travel at a mild pace. When you have to travel upstream, you paddle to one side and then the other. It just feels like your moving side to side moving about 1 MPH. We have this one river we like because it leads back to a waterfall. Like I was saying, these kayaks can flip very easily so we came prepared and brought a waterproof box and a water-sealed cooler. You always have to be ready to flip because you have to find shore quickly. All these things take strength and a lot of stamina to keep going, otherwise, you will just be paddling to nowhere. They say that some people go kayaking in the mountains but they end up getting thrown off of a waterfall because they can’t keep up with the streams pace.