Journal of Random Tangents: Hello from Kauai...

We made it to Kauai, after a long day of travel. We had a five-hour layover in Los Angeles, which I didn't think would be too bad. After all, it's the Los Angeles airport -- one of the largest in the country, right? So it must be huge -- there must be all sorts of shops and restaurants and long, meandering hallways to explore. When we landed, we met up with Eric and Debbie, who'd arrived first, and decided to get some lunch at a Chili's (there's one hour down...) and then made our way to the gate, where we discovered our flight would be 45 minutes late taking off (okay, so only 15 minutes down...). So with all that time to waste, we decided to take a walk and see what was in the airport. What we discovered was that we appeared to be trapped in a tiny little terminal that consisted of two bookstores, the aforementioned Chili's, and, inexplicably, two Starbucks. (Honestly, when you can walk the entire length of the terminal in two minutes, is it really necessary to have one Starbucks situated 30 seconds beyond another? Those West Coasters must reeeeaaaaallly love their coffee...) Needless to say, it was a rather boring few hours at LAX...

But we arrived safe and sound... and I have to say the flight from Los Angeles to Kauai was one of the best flights I've ever been on -- practically zero turbulence, and a perfectly smooth landing. Although it was a little strange when the pilot asked the flight attendants to prepare for landing, and I looked out my window into absolutely nothingness. All I could see was stars... the runway didn't appear until about two seconds before we landed. Hey, at least it DID appear... (I guess the lights of Kauai were only visible on the LEFT side of the plane, and I was on the right...)

So we mostly hung out at the hotel today, which is a huge, sprawling resort. I was reading reviews on Trip Advisor before we arrived, and some people actually complained about this hotel because "it's so far to walk to your room." I have to say that after the dinner I just ate, I am extremely grateful that I had to walk a little bit to get back to my room. :) We went out to the beach this afternoon, which was nice -- the ocean is a bit crazy here, and the waves can get a little aggressive, but the water is really warm once you get used to it. I waded in for a little while and tried to stay on my feet as the waves hit me, and I was doing okay until an extra-crazy wave came along and knocked me right over. Not two seconds earlier I'd been saying that I wasn't sure I wanted to dip my head under the water because I was afraid of losing a contact lens -- and then I was underwater anyway, with salt water in both my eyes. What was really funny was getting back to the room later on and taking the swimsuit off, only to discover I had sand in places that I didn't even know I had places...

This hotel is known for its pools -- there are tons of places to swim (where you can be safe from rogue waves) and they have a waterslide that everyone discovered this afternoon. Eric and Eric were taking turns sliding down the slide and seeing who could yell the loudest continuously on the way down. I didn't try the slide myself today, but everyone was giving me a hard time about that, so maybe I'll try it some other time... maybe... (but I'm not yelling on the way down...)

Here are some pictures from today:

Parrot in the lobby of the hotel...