Family Trip to Kauai: Part VI

After exploring the Queen's Bath, we went to my dads favorite burger joint on Kauai. Bubba Burgers! Of course their food was delicious! It's pretty comparable to In-n-Out :-)

Everyone was really excited about burgers and chocolate shakes! 

One of our favorite Shave Ice places.

I thought this sign was perfect! I've mentioned before how small towns have their own hours and so does Hawaii. It's pretty chill here!

 

For our last full day on the island (Thursday, June 20) the guys went golfing and the ladies went to the beach and the pool. It was a very relaxing day.

 

To celebrate our last night together (the kids all went home on Friday but my parents are staying for another week), we went to Kalypso. They had great fish tacos, mahi mahi, and ahi! Yum! You gotta take advantage of the great fish while you are in Kauai!

The next morning (Friday, June 21) we all got up and headed to the south side of the island to catch our flights. Ryan and Missy had a delayed flight and had to end up taking a redeye flight to the Bay Area. Bummer.

Luke and I had an adventure of our own. It started out well. We both got to sit in the exit row on the flight (it's a big deal for 6'9 Luke) but the guy that sat next to me could not sit still to save his life! I don't know what his deal was but it drove me crazy! 

After we got to LAX we went to baggage claim to get my bag. A bag that looked exactly like mine came by a few times (I grabbed it initially because I thought it was mine) but my bag never did. I had the feeling that the owner of the bag made the same mistake I did and took my bag by mistake! I ran out the door and up and down the passenger-pick-up-area to try and find my bag but with no luck! I was furious! Then we got the idea to take the guys bag and call the number on his luggage tag. He answered and I explained to him that I had his bag. Luckily, he was still at the airport and we were able to switch. Crisis averted! For now...

Next, we had to go out and wait for a shuttle to pick us up and take us to our car. This took forever! We were tired and hungry and all around grouchy! Finally, the shuttle came and took us to our car. We spent 2 hours at the airport dealing with this fiasco!

So, it's 11:45 PM and we have to drive to OC to find our hotel. I had a 6:45 AM flight the next morning and Luke was planning on driving to Utah the next day so we really REALLY wanted to get to bed! Of course the 405 got shut down and we were stuck in traffic. We had to take a detour off the freeway (along with a million other angry, tired people). At about 1 AM we were in bumper-to-bumper traffic when we felt a bump! And then a big bump! And then another bump! 

Holy hell! The guy behind us hit us! He hit Luke's brand new car! Ugh! We pulled over and got out of the car. A cute old man stepped out of the car and we made sure he was okay before asking for his information. The man was a newly ordained minister and was very friendly. That helped the situation but we were still tired, hungry, and grouchy! Apparently the three hits was from him hitting the gas instead of the brakes. Man alive!

See the little holes? Those are from the bolts from the other car's license plate holder. Since he hit us multiple time it left multiple holes. I guess it could have been worse. There was no damage to his car. I'm surprised there wasn't more damage. It felt like he hit us pretty hard the second time.

After getting this situated, we had to get back into traffic and chug along until we got to the hotel. It was 2 AM and I had to be up in 3 hours.

Well, I set my alarm and fell asleep immediately. But was woken up by Luke snoring at 3 AM. I called out his name and he sat up really fast and yelled, "WHAT IS GOING ON?!" I said he was snoring and to go back to bed. Luke was still sitting up and yelled again, "OK, WAIT! WHAT IS GOING ON?!" I started laughing because I could tell that he was still sleeping. Lol! Oh well, it got him to stop snoring long enough for me to fall back asleep.

I woke up early the next morning and caught a shuttle to the airport. The lines were super long and I came very close to missing my flight. After I arrived in Minneapolis (layover) I had to run to the other side of the airport to catch my next flight to Minot. Geeze. Finally I made it back to ND! I was so tired and I still hadn't eaten anything since 11 AM the day before in Hawaii so I stopped at Starbucks... I deserved it, believe me!

Why is it that vacations have to end so badly sometimes?! 

Oh well, it's over now.

The vacation (minus the traveling) was a ton of fun! It was so nice to relax and spend time with my family. Hopefully next time we will be able to better correlate with Josh's work schedule so he can come too!

Thanks mom and dad!