Kauai: The Last Day

Our last day in Kauai came around all too soon! The "last days" of vacation have a way of doing that, though, don't they? We started our morning with banana macadamia nut pancakes and headed to Kalapaki Beach.

The waves were sort of flat when we got there, so we took a few pictures to pass the time.

At the first sign of improvement, we grabbed our boards and headed out into the water. Surf's up!

After our little surf session, we headed back to the hotel to pack up. The pools looked so enticing from our balcony that we decided to do a late check-out so we could play in them one last time.

We made sure to get a picture of the slice of heaven that was our swimming pool so we could dream about it on hot summer afternoons like today.

Once we finally checked out, we headed to the farmer's market we'd had our eyes on all week. We bought a pretty wooden vase, some fresh fruit, and the classic Hawaiian shaved ice with macadamia nut ice cream on the bottom. Yum!

Then we headed South through the tunnel of trees to see Spouting Horn. The geyser shot out of the rocky shoreline and created pretty rainbows with the ocean as the backdrop. And even better? There was the cutest sea turtle swimming around it, poking his cute head out above the waves. Yeah, Spouting Horn beats Old Faithful hands down.

Then it was off to Shipwrecks Beach, where we discovered that Matt was about done with picture taking (as evidenced by his "please say this is the last one" smile below). So I did the "I Love You" dance to pep him up a bit and resorted to taking pictures of flowers instead. Turns out they are much more willing subjects.

And then, before we knew it, the sun was setting and it was time to head to the airport.

We grabbed some Little Caesars on the way (because we're cheap like that), dropped off our rental car, and took off on the red-eye to LAX.

Six hours later, the lights of Los Angeles were in view and it was a comforting sight. No matter where you go in the world, nothing beats coming home.