HELICOPTER RIDE!

So, for those who know me, know that I am terrified of flying. I'd say it's my biggest fear, right before my fear of cats. Before coming to Hawaii my dad mentioned taking a helicopter ride around the island of Kauai since much of it can't be seen by car or on foot. I wasn't too sure about the idea though. But, last minute, I decided to suck it up, cause I never knew when I'd have a chance like it again. I am really happy that I decided to take the helicopter ride. It was my first time in a helicopter (same with my dad and sister, my mom didn't go) and it really wasn't too bad at all.

This is the end of my Hawaiian Excursion. We fly back tonight on a red eye starting at 10pm East Coast time. I will be in PA Saturday night and back in Boston Monday night. Hope you enjoyed the pictures I've posted!

There she is! It was me, my dad, my sister, three other people and the pilot. We all had to be weighed before boarding so they could give us assigned seats and distribute our weight evenly.

There's the pilot! He's Warren. In both of the helicopter pictures, the blades were spinning SO FAST! haha.

On half the island it was cloudy and rainy, which was a bit of a bummer, but still really awesome. I took way more pictures than I have posted here, but it was tough cause there was a glare on the window in front of me a lot of the time. Also, being next to the window was pretty scary, I was literally pressed up against it and I could see not only in front of me, but underneath me as well.

There were so many valleys and canyons. We saw where they filmed a piece of Jurassic Park. I'm pretty sure we saw the waterfall from the beginning and where they land the helicopter at the start of the movie. My one disappointment from the trip... I didn't find the hatch from LOST.

Amazing.

This is was when we were coming up and out of Waimea Canyon (which I made a panorama of in a previous blog post) and that is the ocean in the distance. Did you know that helicopters can hover? I did not, until today.

Secluded beaches - only reachable by boat. This is a part of the Na Pali coast, unreachable by foot.

A valley within the Na Pali coast. There is a hiking trail that is 11 miles long. There was a hawaiian kid on our helicopter and he said it was a pretty rough hike. You could see if from the helicopter and it looked like a very narrow path carved right out of the side of the cliff, no railings or anything. I wanted to hike it, but no one else in my family was up for it. Haha.

More Na Pali coastline.

... and more.

Isn't it amazing?

If you have been following my blog - this is the beach we went to earlier in the week, I said it was Tunnels beach, but I was wrong according to what the pilot had told us. If you look close, you can see the lava rock jetty that I stood on to photograph to the right and were the river meets the ocean.

I'm a terrible estimator, but if I were to try and estimate, I'd say we saw close to 30 waterfalls.

We had to wear fanny pack life vests incase we crashed over the ocean.

The worst meal I ate this whole time in Hawaii. Egg sandwich with cheese, portuguese sausage, and a tomato on a hamburger bun haha. I got a hash brown on the side and it literally had ZERO flavor. It tasted like nothing. The coffee was horrible too, which is weird, seeing as though amazing coffee is grown everywhere in this state.