Kauai, HI: November 2019 - Nine Days

I have never been particularly attached to Thanksgiving. The food, I could take or leave — it is the one holiday where the meal is somehow both the entire point and reliably underwhelming. The obligation to be somewhere specific for it, even less so. Thanksgiving week is one of the easiest vacations to engineer in a corporate calendar: take one or two PTO days on either side of the holiday and you have nine days off. Nine days. Most people spend them at someone else's table eating food they didn't ask for. I started spending them somewhere else.

I found cheap flights to Kauai and wanted to go but didn't know how to make the lodging work. I was living on one income, trying to be fiscally responsible, doing the math on everything. I mentioned the flights to a fitness friend who had moved to the island. The universe, which had been doing this all year, delivered again. Her landlord was going to be out of town. She shared my story with them. They said we could stay at their place in Kalaheo. Free lodging, a friend next door, my favorite island. I booked the flight.

This time it was just us. No mom, no coworker. Five and a half hours, probably another tooth coming in because he always seemed to pop one on a plane, and he was over a year old now with the wiggles to prove it.

We used the same strategy as every Southwest flight: carried the car seat to the gate and asked about empty seats. There was one. Window seat for the car seat, me in the middle. I came prepared. A friend had made cheerio necklaces for my son and had found and gifted us an apple threading toy. I brought Squigz, Melissa and Doug sticker books, and busy books. Screens were never an option before three, I was firm on that, and I was on point for the entire flight and fine with it. It was an investment. He watched the runway until we took off, then watched the clouds, then got to work on the cheerios.

I had checked a large suitcase, the Guava Family Lotus crib, and the backpack carrier. I carried on a beach bag, the car seat, and a backpack full of snacks and everything listed above. I managed it. Somehow you always do.

We landed, got the car, and immediately started the chicken chase. If you have been to Kauai with a small child you know exactly what I mean. The chickens are everywhere and they are the best entertainment on the island and they are completely free.

I had three friends on the island at the time. We did a Costco run early on and stocked the house with eggs, clementines, bananas, and enough staples to cook most of our meals and save real money. He ate an entire box of Costco croissants over the course of the week, which I considered a win for everyone.

We spent the days moving between friends and beaches, my son naked and sunscreened at basically every one. Salt Pond, Baby Beach, Hanalei, Anini. We tried to get to Secret Beach and turned back when the trail got too slippery with him in the Ergo. Every time we had a drive to another part of the island he slept, which is the thing about Kauai with a one-year-old that nobody tells you: the drives are built-in naps and the island is small enough that you can get everywhere without either of you losing your mind.

I got Kauai Juice and poke and fish tacos and he ate whatever was on my plate. We mostly used the Ergo except for Waimea Canyon, where I switched to the backpack carrier for real hiking and he rode up high watching the clouds move through the cliffs while we chased chickens at the park below. We stopped at Opaeka'a Falls for the picture you have to take there. At Anini he chased chickens and collected sticks and waded in the shallows, naked, completely in his element, the way he always was near water.

At Salt Pond we went in together and he grabbed my rose quartz crystal necklace and yanked. I had been wearing it since the day he was born, nearly every day since. It went into the water. My friend and I snorkeled around for almost an hour looking for it. The ocean kept it. I am probably not the only mother who has lost something in the water that meant more than it should. Leave the jewelry on shore. When I got home I checked my budget and replaced it.

Thanksgiving dinner was at Duke's, which is always delicious, and then we went to a local Thanksgiving where someone had dressed a tortoise as a turkey. He was entertained by this for an unreasonable amount of time. Everyone was so kind to him all week. The spirit of aloha runs genuinely deep on that island. It is not performance. It is just how people are there.

Every morning we woke up to sunrise and birds from the deck in Kalaheo. Every afternoon we napped. Some evenings after he went down I went next door to my friend's and had a couple of hours to just be a person, sitting with someone who knew me, not thinking about what came next.

Baby Beach became the recurring spot of the trip. Shallow protected pools, a shade tree, calm water. He loved the ocean all week but he also seemed to understand it instinctively. When the waves were big he didn't wade in. He just watched. A one-year-old reading the water. I noticed it every time.

Kauai is not for everyone. It is not for loud trendy restaurant people or scene people. The food is good and the island is quiet and the outdoors are everywhere and that is the whole point. For people who live outside, it is the right island. We have been back many times since. We will keep going back.

Nine days. One or two PTO days. No one asked me anything at work. Nothing fell apart. We came home with salt in our hair and an empty spot around my neck where the crystal used to be, and I didn't mind. The ocean can have it.

Notes: Thanksgiving week is nine days for one to two PTO days depending on your company calendar. Do this math every year. Kauai cheap flights exist, watch for them. Free lodging through community: tell people where you want to go, you never know. Car seat to the gate, ask about empty seats every time. No screens before three is doable on a five-hour flight if you come prepared: cheerio necklaces, Squigz, Melissa and Doug sticker books, busy books, threading toys. Guava Family Lotus crib checks easily. Do a Costco run on arrival and cook in the house, it saves real money. Ergo for beaches, backpack carrier for real hiking. Kauai chickens are free entertainment. Baby Beach for small kids. Duke's once a trip, mandatory. Leave the jewelry on shore.