Active Vacation

The surfers!!!

My family used to joke that my sister was the exercise bully. I think I have successfully usurped that role. The reason my sister was called the exercise bully? Well any time we went to visit her she would take us on insane hikes up mountains, or unexpected long bike rides. She also successfully recruited a number of us siblings to triathlons. Now in those days my sister would also joke about her home being the vacation exercise spa, or something of the sort. I have to admit I have slowly adopted that mentality for vacationing over the years.

It is no secret that I recently spent a week on Kauai Island in Hawaii. I was so fortunate to go on this vacation because my brother got married. It was the perfect reason to purchase a plane ticket and disappear for the week. As I mentioned before I enjoy being as active as possible so am always seeking the activities that will allow me to experience the beauty of a new place while also allowing me to feel good about myself. In Hawaii I did just that!

The Beautiful Couple!!!

I arrived in Hawaii ready to go! I was super excited about hiking the Napali Coast and got a big crowd to agree to the hike. Well, a lot of people backed out but my cousins Ann and Drew and my nephew Brady took the challenge. We drove up the coast on Wednesday and began a very complicated hike. We hiked about six miles that included a ton of climbing and descending. The coastline was beautiful!!! We were amazed at the barefoot surfers who were running the trail with their boards to get to the beach that was two miles into the hike! After several hours of hiking and running out of water we were totally spent! We took our time getting home by jumping into the ocean, stopping at road side stands and doing a little shopping. That was only the beginning!

A few of us hikers. 

The coastal view from the hike. 

Another awesome view with my nephew!

The next morning I woke up and prepared myself for surfing lessons. Five of us, including my little nephew, hopped in the car and headed over to the beach not fully understanding what we got into. If you haven't surfed before, you should know that it is hours of doing push-ups and for beginners, flopping off the board into the water. Doing the push ups on the board, while on the beach, is fairly simple. Try doing that over and over with waves making the board unstable! Not only that, you have to manage your surfboard... Oh and climbing on the board and being knocked around by the waves. It took me many days to recover from the surfing experience but an experience I can call very memorable. I certainly was NOT a natural at surfing but my nephew sure was!

Falling off the board. 

My nephew was a natural!

And I did get up a few times. 

After surfing I went on a bike ride with my cousins. It was a simple bike ride on the coastal trail, well kind of... The bikes were fairly simple! They were cruiser bicycles with no gears and only had back pedal brakes. It has been years since I have used such a bike and so I found myself stopping Flinstone style because I no longer understand how to back pedal break and get my feet on the ground at the same time.

The following days were filled with wedding activities, tubing, shopping, snorkeling, swimming and more shopping. Oh, and eating lots of cookies. I think it is fair to say my digestive system got as much of a workout as my body on this vacation. Would I change anything? Absolutely not! What a great way to celebrate a great couple...

Next time you are on vacation, try a new activity! It might just be one of the highlights of your trip!!!