Kaua'i portion

Fri 2 Mar

Sat 3 Mar

Sun 4 Mar

0650: I'm sitting on the lanai (porch) watching the dawn break over a cloudy Waikiki. I can see blue sky through the few holes in the cloud layer, down here it's a bit misty. The birds are making quite a chatter, with a few landing on the railing to check whether I've been a sloppy human and inadvertently left a meal. The occasional passenger jet flies far overhead, coming from one of the other islands.

0800: The clock radio rouses the rest of the clan. Isaac devours the last Cabanna Banana that we have with us. What timing. (We did have to buy ten diapers last night, since the number we brought for a five hour plane flight last Friday (plus a few more to give away to others) is about to run out.) Our bags were packed last night, so all we have left to do before we breakfast is to put our toiletries into our carry-on bags and leave a tip for the housekeepers.

Downstairs I ask the bell captain to hail a cab for us. A limo arrives. The driver seems a bit dissapointed that we're travelling only partly across town, so I tell him we'll engage his services after breakfast, for our trip to the airport. Isaac loves being inside a limo, having (for some reason) been noticing and pointing out the amazingly large number and kinds of limos in Waikiki.

Isaac doesn't want to get out of the limo! Even my telling him that we'll be back in right after eating does nothing to mollify him. But we make it into Duke's for the morning breakfast buffet. This time we're seated at a table against the railing, so we have a view of the pool and the beach and ocean beyond.

When we turn around we see the end of the buffet line. Unlike Saturday's crowd, Sunday's attendence is much less (at least at 0900. I don't remember if it picked up). Isaac, however, was a bit of a tool, and I felt a bit rushed by his outpouring of energy.

We leave at 1000, an hour earlier than we'd told our limo driver to return. (Neither Rose nor I had any energy to do last-minute gift buying.) I had the bell captain of the hotel in which Duke's is located give the Pacific Cab Company a call, and they were able to have the limo pick us up a few moments later. I assumed he'd take another fare to the airport before coming back for us, but apparently not.

Back at HNL we took the Wiki-Wiki Shuttle to the mainland terminal. For some reason Isaac still had a lot of wild, must-take-a-nap energy. Strange, as he's had the sleep he needs. We'll, almost at the gate.

We waited in the departure gate area along with a big crowd. (We didn't have to check in becase we'd been assigned seats and given boarding passes on Friday.) Then the plane arrived. We pre-boarded (yea!) and found our seats: an aisle and a window. I took the window, with Isaac on my lap.

At the last moment Isaac - really tired at this point - demanded to fall asleep on Mama, and so I had the window seat to myself while Rose had the aisle seat with Isaac's feet sometimes stretching into the walking area. We didn't dare move him for fear of waking him. He slept for three of the five hours of flying time, giving us a break. I think I slept for two hours.

We arrived back in San Francisco late Sunday evening. Bubbie and Pooh picked us up, and after a few hours at their house we made it back to our house at 2330. Tomorrow I start my new job at Bianca. Never a dull moment.

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