Vacations for me crop up spontaneously, especially when gabbing with Laurie online. A couple weeks ago my manager mentioned I should take some time off, but I was flustered with no where to go, and no one to go with.
Laurie exclaims she’s going to Hawaii to meet her college roommate and I ask if it’s ok to tag along, thus beginning another epic adventure to Kauai.
Having been to Hawaii twice, both times to Oahu, I was excited to get to see new sights. At the tail end of our conversation she briefly mentions that there will be some hiking.
As the two weeks go by before our trip, Laurie briefly hints at these questions in passing conversations:
- Do you have a camelpak?
- Do you have real hiking shoes?
- How about a water repellant jacket?
Starting to get worried at her line of questioning, as I don’t have items like these, I decide to head over to my local Sports Basement and gear up. I end up picking up this beauty but in gray:
It holds 100oz. While reading some hiking blogs, they estimate that I will need about 16oz of water per hour we hike. This should give me 6.25 hours to hike with.
As for shoes, I turned to online weather forecasts to realize partially what Laurie had been hinting at. It would be raining throughout the week, and if we were going to go hiking there was a high likelihood that might rain.
I imagine wet socks and shoes and slogging through a hike that was 8 miles of misery. Then the idea came to me, I needed hiking shoes that were made for water! Why yes of course I can buy rainbows and unicorns in the form of a fast drying, mesh, water shoe!
Tried on a couple ugly pairs like these:
Why do functional shoes have to be so ugly?!?!?
Before settling on a cobalt blue dreamy hotness that was this:
For the final question on Laurie’s list, she was able to let me borrow her boyfriend’s waterproof jacket, it was something like Marmot Women’s Precip Jacket
With all the necessities covered I also packed (for a 4 day adventure):
- Two bathing suits – Always good to switch it up every other day
- Zip lock bags – For the electronic equipment to last through the rain
- Toiletries
- 6 pairs of underwear
- Anker iPhone USB battery pack – This gives my iPhone 5s about 4 charges sometimes more without having to recharge it.
- 5 tank tops
- 3 pairs of shorts
- 1 pair of jeans for the flight
- 1 cardigan for the flight, or chilly nights
- 1 dress, in case a dress up event
- Jewelry
- Swim coverup
- DVF sunglasses
- Laptop
- iPad mini
- Towel
- Fossil Erin Satchel, as pictured above, similar here.
- DSLR, charger, extra batteries, memory card
Ok Kauai, here’s hoping I’ve packed enough to be ready for you!
