Month: February 2013

Tuesday we had entire day to ourselves. We had a leisurely breakfast, enjoyed swimming in the pools, then we went on our first excursion, which was a 4×4 van ride and rainforest hike. Our guide, Paul, was quite a character, but also very knowledgeable about the fauna in the rainforest. The van ride was bumpier than I expected, but wasn’t too bad. We hiked for about an hour or so up to Mount Waialeale, about 5,000 feet. There is actually a pretty big crater there from where the volcano erupted many years ago. There are no active volcanoes on Kauai now. The crater has filled into a swamp – the world’s highest swamp. It is also the wettest place in the world, with an average rainfall of 450-500 inches. That’s about 1.5 inches per day! It rained a little bit while we were there, but not really heavily, which was nice.

Wednesday morning there was another employee meeting, which included a brief talk by Paul Ricci and also David Plouffe, which was very interesting. Then we went on our second excursion, which was snorkeling on the beach at Wailau. It was some pretty nice snorkeling, though after honeymooning in the Galapagos, everything else sort of pales in comparison. Wednesday evening there was a luau at the old plantation.

Last week we were very fortunate to be on a trip to Kauai, Hawaii. Rob got a reward trip from Nuance. We were also lucky in that Fran and Harold volunteered to fly out to Denver to watch Meg and Spencer while we were gone. It sounds like they had a great time while we were off having a great time of our own. We left about 8 a.m. on Sunday, and after a brief change of planes in Phoenix, landed in Lihue, Kauai around 3:30 p.m. There was a shuttle to our hotel, the Grand Hyatt, and we had a little time for a nap before the first evening reception.

Monday morning Rob had a team-building event at 7:30 a.m., which consisted of building surf boards out of cardboard, which was a lot of fun. Clare went to the spa for a bodywrap while I was doing that. Then there was a group lunch. We had the afternoon to ourselves to explore, and then we had dinner just the two of us. Then there was a night club reception after that.

Tuesday we had the entire day to ourselves. We had a leisurely breakfast, then explored the beautiful pools. After a quick lunch we went on our first excursion, which was a 4×4 van ride to Mt. Waialeale and a hike.