Occasionally Adventurous: Day Twenty - More on the east coast of Kauai

Today we were both awake to see the sunrise, which was beautiful. No pictures - I was too lazy to actually get out of bed. We have a good view right out the bedroom window, even with the matchstick blind closed. Which tells you how effective the blinds are. We had breakfast on the lanai, made more coffee, watched the chickens and other birds. We drove south as far as Kapa'a and parked at Lihi Beach Park. We walked north along the coastline on the Ke Ala Hele Makalae ("the path that goes by the coast"). It's ten feet wide, paved, and follows the coastline for about four miles. We walked two miles up, to Kealia Beach, and back again. It was our first sunny day here on Kauai, and it was a beautiful walk. We got back to the car around noon and headed south to the Coconut Marketplace. There wasn't much going on. The marketplace is a shopping center between the main highway and a series of condo development. Many of the storefronts are empty, and others were closed on Sunday. We spent a few minutes talking with a woman who books excursions and also schedules timeshare presentations. She didn't pressure us at all, and recommended the Olympic Cafe for lunch. We went back north into downtown Kapa'a, found the grill, and had a good Mexican lunch in an open air second floor restaurant. We sat at a table next to the window overlooking Main Street, and could see the ocean out the other side of the room.

On the way back to our condo, we stopped at the grocery store for mai tai mix and dinner supplies. We spent the late afternoon on the lanai researching dinner cruises, and then booking one for tomorrow. The only ways to see much of the Na Pali coastline (northwest coast) are either by air or by boat. The dinner cruise takes about four hours, includes the sunset (hopefully), and is much more reasonable than a 50 minute helicopter tour.

After dinner we went to Lappert's Hawaii for ice cream, finishing out a mellow day.