Since this was our last day, we changed our routine a bit to allow time for packing and a last trip to the hotel’s beach (as Emerson wanted to build a sand castle). This made for a fairly relaxed morning and we weren’t especially in a rush knowing our flight wasn’t departing until a little after 9:30 that night.
We checked out of the hotel around 11:30 and headed out to see some of the sights in central Kauai that I’d reserved for this day. This included visits to a couple of fairly impressive waterfalls, namely Wailua and Opaekaa Falls.
Opaekaa Falls
From there, we headed down to Lydgate Beach Park. It has an impressive beachfront and protected swim area, but we were visiting to allow Emerson to play at the Kamalani Playground. And, while the playground is impressive, the Kamalani’s “Play Bridge” a bit further down the trail was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Needless to say, Emerson was very impressed:
Emerson loved this!
After the park, we visited the modest in size yet impressive in quality Kauai Museum. The collection provides an overview of native Hawaiian life, the state’s royal history, the island’s natural history, and a sense of the multi-ethnic backgrounds that make up Hawaii’s population today.
Kauai Museum
Following our visit to the museum, we returned to our hotel to have dinner at again Duke’s (which is hard to beat in terms of quality and ambiance) and gelato at an excellent little place that we’d discovered called Papalani Gelato. This made for a short drive to the airport to return the rental car and get checked in. Our flight left on time and everyone slept fairly well en route to Los Angeles.
I’m writing this final blog post at LAC during our 4 hour layover before heading to Tampa. Unless something interesting happens on the way home, I’ll probably make this my final post of the trip.
It was really good to return to Hawaii after all of these years and even better to share it with the girls, who really seemed to enjoy it. It’s much as I remembered it… though my memory was clearly more impressionistic than vividly detailed in some respects. We could have easily and happily spent another week, and I’m fairly confident that we’ll return in the future, if possible.
Aloha and mahalo, Hawaii!