Kauai - Day 7 - Friday, December 6, 2013

Aloha and Welcome to our vacation.

I woke up at 5:30am and couldn't get back to sleep.  So, got up and worked on the journal.  Randy didn't feel like going for a run, so we had breakfast and visited with Blaine and Lisa for a bit.  Randy put together his time-lapse pictures from yesterday into little videos.  You can check them out on the Videos section of the travel journal.

We then decided we would all go to Poipu Beach and play in the sand and waves with Teagan.  Randy and I headed to the beach and found a spot in the shade for the kids.  We put down our beach blankets and proceeded to wait for Blaine & Lisa to arrive.  We waited.  And waited some more.  Finally they arrived.  It turns out that they had driven to the wrong beach (the one in front of the Sheraton), and ended up walking along the beach all the way to Poipu Beach. With a toddler and an infant.  Yikes!

We took Teagan into the protected area of the beach that was only about 2 feet deep.  It was too shallow for Teagan to float with his little float vest - so he had to walk around.  He must have stepped on a rock or something, because all of a sudden he didn't want to walk in the water anymore.  So, we ended up carrying him out of the water and just playing with him on the beach with his beach toys.  Randy would make castles with the pail, and Teagan would smash them down. 

After a while, we started to get hungry, so we headed back to our condo to have some lunch.  On the way, we stopped at a restaurant to get two scoops of rice to have with our ahi poke.  We used the rice to make poke bowls, and also had our leftover food from yesterday's lunch.  Then we showered off the sand and salt, and decided to take a nap.

Tonight was the Lights on Rice parade in Lihue.  They turn on the Christmas Lights in front of the county building, and then they have a parade down Rice Street.    As they close down some of the streets starting at 5:30pm, we headed into Lihue around 4:30pm.  We parked at our friends Pat and Mike's place - as they live only a couple of blocks from the parade route.  Then we were going to meet Blaine and Lisa and Randy's parents at a nearby restaurant called Kauai Pasta.

Yesterday, Randy had called to see if he could make a reservation.  He was told that they don't take reservations, but if we called 15 minutes before arriving, they would hold a table for us (if one was available).  So, when we got to Pat and Mike's, Randy phoned to check if we could get a table.  This time, he was told that they don't take any reservations, and they wouldn't hold a table for us for 10 minutes.  Sigh.  So, we walked over there to see if they had availability.   Not impressed with the lack of reservations for large groups.  Oddly enough they felt they should automatically add the 18% gratuity because we were a large group, but not allow us to make a reservation. So not cool with this.

When we got there, there was a table available that would fit all of us.  However, there was a lot of confusion, because they asked us about 3 times how many people we had, and if we needed a high chair or not.  Finally we were seated.  We had some pasta for supper, and finished before the parade started.

We walked over to the parade route, and checked out the craft fair that was being sponsored by the Kauai Museum.  As we were checking out the various crafts, the Christmas lights were turned on, and the parade started.  The parade lasted for an hour, and was a lot of fun to watch.  All the floats are lit up, and it was actually quite impressive.  After it was over, we spent some time checking out the lights in front of the county building and taking some pictures.  The lobby of the building also had been elaborately decorated - but there was a line-up to get in to see it.  So, we decided we would come back another time to see it.

Then we walked back to Pat and Mike's place.  The roads were still quite backed up with traffic leaving he downtown area, so we sat and visited with them for a while - then headed out once the roads were clear.  Then it was back to the room to check out all the pictures we took and work on the journal.