Road to the Aisle: Last Day

Last full day, anyway.

We woke up this morning and decided to give the water next to our condo another try. We wanted to see more sea turtles, and we hoped the water would be more clear so we could see what else is there.

Well, it was a hassle to get into the water. The beach right there is rocky, and getting in, I was knocked off balance by a wave and fell into the water, cutting my knee on some coral. Wow, did that hurt. Looking at it in the water, I thought I just lightly scraped it, but once we got out, I realized I actually did quite a number on it.

This is the one photo I took before we decided it wasn't worth staying in there (plus my knee hurt).

When we were rinsing off our feet at the outdoor shower, one of the construction workers noticed my knee and asked, "Did you cut yourself on the coral?" I said I wasn't sure if it was coral or a rock, and he asked if it was the water right outside the condo. I said yes, and he said it was probably coral. He said to wash it out really good, because coral is full of bacteria and the cuts can get infected. Fantastic. We went inside, and I washed it with antibacterial soap and water.

We got ready to take a drive up to the east shore. On our way out of town, we stopped by the Big Save to get some Neosporin. Big ripoff, of course.

Our first stop was at Lydgate State Park, which we heard was pretty and had good "beginner" snorkeling. Well, they weren't kidding about beginner. It's basically a good place for kids to learn to snorkel because it is enclosed by a bunch of boulders. Fish and water can get in, but the rocks break the waves so that section of water is protected from the surf and current.

It was pretty crowded, and I was still being a bit of a wimp about my knee, so we decided to stay dry.

We sat down at a picnic table to eat lunch overlooking the ocean.
Our view from our picnic table

Once we were done with lunch, we decided to drive a little further north to Kapa'a to do some shopping. We haven't really gone into any shops in Kauai, and we still had a few people we wanted to shop for (including ourselves). We found a cool "Kauai Products Fair" location, which is basically like a flea market. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of cash on us, so we're hoping to have time to go back there tomorrow before we have to go to the airport.

Wild chickens that were in this one lady's shop... they are everywhere!

After that, we drove back south and stopped off at Wailua Falls.

From there, we started to drive back to Poipu. We wanted to have an opportunity to relax for a bit before dinner at the Beach House. On the way back into town, we stopped to return our snorkel gear. We got shave ice (coconut and pineapple flavors this time) at the little place next door to the snorkel shop.

Back at the condo, we watched a couple of sea turtles in the bay outside of the condo for a little bit. We showered to get ready for dinner, and then we actually did quite a bit of packing. When we left Maui, we left all of the packing for the morning we were leaving, and we felt too rushed. Tomorrow, we want to take it a bit easier (plus, checkout is at 10:00 a.m.), so we packed up pretty much everything except the stuff we'll need tonight and tomorrow morning.

We shared cocktails, and I wrote a message in the guestbook before we had to head out for our 6:00 p.m. reservations at the Beach House Restaurant next door.

We were seated at a really nice table right at the edge of the restaurant, overlooking the nicely landscaped lawn and, of course, the ocean. From our seats, we were able to watch a bunch (probably a couple dozen) surfers out in the water riding the early evening waves. It was pretty impressive.

Because we are (well, I am) huge dorks, we took pictures of all of our food. :) It was just too good not to document!

Fresh baked ciabatta bread

View from our table

My mango mama. I ordered a lava flow, but the waiter mistakenly brought me this. I tried it and it was really good, so I didn't mind. I ended up getting a lava flow later anyway. :)