After having been to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, I wasn’t sure how impressed I would be with Kauai’s smaller version. Thankfully, the clouds stayed away for most of the day so we had nice views of the approach and into the canyon itself.

Our phone GPS disagreed with the posted signage about which road took us into the park, so we wound up following the road signs on the “scenic route.” For the record, the GPS was correct and the scenery was just as good (as we found out on our way out).

approaching the canyon from Koke’e Road

You can view much of the canyon from an overlook that’s very accessible. This also meant there were tons of people here. Somehow I managed to escape the crowds and Eric made it look like we had the place to ourselves. :)

Leandra enjoying the views – before mobs of other people showed up

Waimea Canyon – the supposedly beautiful Waipo’o Falls was, unfortunately, dry

We continued further up the road in an attempt to see the Na Pali coastline but were thwarted by incoming cloud cover:

However, we did get a chance to see Hawaiian geese, known as nene, hanging out near the parking lot, of course.

descending toward the ocean on Waimea Canyon Drive