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Kauai Vacation – September 23, 2001

Day 3 – Sunday

Once again, we awoke while it was still dark. We got up at 6:00am. When I heard roosters crowing, I looked toward the eastern horizon to see if it was worth going to the beach to watch the sunrise. The clouds were quite thick, so we passed on the opportunity. Chris’s back was feeling a little better, but it was still pretty stiff, and it hurt when she moved. She was looking forward to the massage she had scheduled for 9:00 that morning.

On Saturday morning, we had found a Honolulu newspaper outside our door. When I checked on Sunday, there was no paper. I went off to find one, starting in the Islander lobby. It was a good place to start, because the receptionist had a stack of Honolulu Advertisers on the counter. The paper is complimentary every day but Sunday. The Sunday paper costs $2. I bought one and headed back to the room.

We ate our breakfast on the balcony again, enjoying the sound of the waves and the pleasant warbling of nearby birds. Afterward, I typed up the previous day’s journal while Chris prepared for her massage and read the paper. The masseur, named Isaac, arrived right on time and set up his table in our room. For the next hour, he worked on Chris’s lower back, arms, legs, shoulders, hands, and feet. Chris was in a state of complete bliss, except for the occasional moments when Isaac pressed a little too hard on a particularly sore spot. Mostly, she was blissful.

When the massage was over, Chris sat up in much less pain. Isaac told her to drink lots of water and have some extra salt on her food. We thanked him, paid him, gave him a nice tip, and asked if he had any recommendations for what we should see or do. He suggested kayaking or a snorkel tour out of Poipu.

The sky was still overcast, and we decided it would be a good day to give Chris’s back another rest. We drove again to Lydgate park. While I swam around looking at lots of fish, Chris sat on the shore with her sketchbook and practiced her gesture drawing. In a studio, gesture drawing is done with the model holding a pose for less than a minute. The artist tries to capture the pose very quickly, without lifting the pencil (or other drawing instrument) from the paper.

Chris’s unwitting models were less cooperative, changing poses constantly, especially the children playing at the water’s edge. She was able to choose more suitable subjects from among the parents and teenagers sitting or laying on the sand. In addition to drawing, Chris spent part of her time taking candid photos of the Lydgate visitors. She planned to use those photos as resources for future design projects.

By 11:45, I had swum enough. We packed up and headed back to the Islander to eat our lunch. Chris had leftover Mexican Pizza and salad in our refrigerator from the night before, but I didn’t have anything at the room to eat. We drove to a Subway restaurant in Kapa’a. I was still in my wet swim trunks, so Chris waited in the long line and bought my sandwich for me. Once again, we ate on the balcony of our room. The sky was still overcast.

We thought about driving to the north end of the island, but Chris didn’t want to sit in the car that long. I considered renting a motorcycle and taking a ride on my own. I called the rental shop recommended by our guidebook and spoke to the very-friendly proprietor. His rates are good ($60 for three hours) and include helmet, jacket, and half-gloves. He would even give me a $10 discount if I rented that day. However, it looked more and more like it would rain, and I didn’t want to chance it. I put off the motorcycle ride for another day.

We decided the best thing for a cloudy day in paradise was to relax on the lounge chairs by the hotel pool. We refreshed our SPF 30 sunscreen and headed down. We had the place nearly to ourselves. We took our pick of the lounges and stretched out in the warm breeze. I dozed and Chris fell sound asleep for over an hour. Then I started reading and Chris took a walk to shake off the cobwebs. While she was up, she ran into one of my employees, Dave Larsen, and his wife, Barbara. They joined us at the pool and we chatted away the afternoon. As we talked, more of the Quicken group came to the pool, and we ended up with about with about a dozen of us there. At 3:45, I decided it was cocktail time and got a beer for myself and a margarita for Chris (Isaac told her she needed salt…) at the poolside bar.

We stayed by the pool until 5:00. Dave, Barbara, Chris, and I decided to eat together at the seafood restaurant where Chris and I had enjoyed our lunch on Day 1. We arranged to meet in the lobby at 6:30, after Chris and I cleaned ourselves up. We were glad we had selected that restaurant. There was only one other party there throughout our meal, and the food was very good. Dave and Chris both ordered marlin, Barbara had ono, and I decided on mahi-mahi. “Ono” is Hawaiian slang for “the best”, and Barbara said she could understand why; her fish was terrific.

I was finally adjusting to island time, so I didn’t feel as sleepy at dinner. We returned to the Islander around 8:45 and bid goodnight to the Larsens. Chris decided she wanted to take a short walk to enjoy the breeze and settle her dinner. We headed up the beach across the field we had walked through after dinner on Day 1. We were drawn to the beach, where we sat and listened to the surf that we could barely see, with the moon casting almost no light from the still-overcast sky. We hoped the clouds would move out the next day.

We walked back to the Islander, watched a little TV, then went to sleep at 10:00. We were definitely starting to relax!


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