An Unexpected Kauai Souvenir

My husband and I visited Kauai for a week during March/April of 2011. What a beautiful island! We traveled all over, trying to see as much as we could. There were so many highlights to our trip.  We started the week with a quick trip to the Humane Society (to give a donation and buy a shirt) and a helicopter ride with Blue Hawaiian. What a great way to see the whole Island, especially a bird’s eye view of Waimea  Canyon and the Napali Coast.

We knew after the helicopter ride that we HAD to go out to Waimea Canyon. So, the next day we headed up there.  We stopped briefly in the town of Waimea to find something to eat.  There had been a guy outside the store with some really skinny (too skinny) dog.  We thought it was funny when the dog paid no attention to the employees trying to shoo him back outside. We felt bad for him and bought some food for him. When we headed outside, the guy was still there so we talked to him while we fed the dog a little bit. Turns out the guy was hiking up in the canyon when he found the dog wandering around. The dog had some nasty cuts on his leg and clearly hadn’t had much to eat in quite awhile. Since the guy was only using the bus to get around, he didn’t really know what to do about the dog.

My husband and I decided we could take the time to head back to the Humane Society to drop the dog off. So, after a detour to take care of the dog, we headed back to the Canyon. What an amazing sight! And we had pretty good weather while we were up there, making for some good photo opportunities.

The next day we did an ATV tour with Kipu Ranch Adventures.  What a kick that was!  We had a nice small group and two great guides. It was a little drizzly so we had some nice mud puddles to ride through (my socks are still stained red).  After the tour we thought we’d take a quick trip back to the Humane Society, hoping they had found the owners of the dog we had taken there the day before. No such luck, but at least he was now being taken care of, given food to eat, and had a nice warm place to sleep.

The rest of the week was spent checking out different areas of the island, spending some time on the beaches, and going to the Humane Society every day to play with the dog. As you can probably guess by now, we were completely suckered in by his goofy, long face and he has become our favorite souvenir ever. Through a lot of help and hard work by the wonderful people at the Humane Society we were able to bring Enzo (as we named him) home with us at the end of the week. He is now happily ensconced in our home back in Washington State along with his siblings (3 other dogs and 5 cats)!  Definitely our favorite souvenir! We can’t wait to come back and visit Kauai again, but next time we won’t be coming home with a critter (probably).

Aloha,
Joe and Kerry Klein