Okay, I whined a lot about going to the beach all @#$@#%@ day yesterday...but today was really the day that deserved that whining.

I was already kind of annoyed that day because Mom and I wanted to go see some other stuff on the island, but we wouldn't get to use the car if we wanted to do so. Neither one of us wanted to spend our last day on the island on a tour that ran all day long. We did find one tour of the Fern Grotto that was only an hour and a half long...but you had to drive to it, and we wouldn't get the car. If we wanted a tour that would pick us up, it had to be a $60 all-day tour of Waimea Canyon that threw the Fern Grotto in at the end. And my aunt and uncle were all "That's just for honeymooners and old people." So we didn't go see anything else that day but the beach.

And today's beach was...just crappy. (It's either called Barking Sands or Polihale, depending on whether or not you ask my relatives or essentialkauai.com.) They were all excited about going somewhere deserted. Let me just say that if there's a deserted beach...there's a reason why nobody goes there.

* Not only was it another 2-hour long drive to get to it, the last 45 minutes of the ride was a 5 mile drive over VERY BUMPY TERRAIN. (The sand was completely knocked off of my feet on the way back just from that 5 miles of bumpiness, it was that bad.) I was very surprised that nobody peed their pants or got carsick.

* The beach was huge, with a long, hot trek to the water from your car (or the toilet, or anything).

* There was NO SHADE WHATSOEVER.

* It was very, very hot.

* The ocean was pretty rough here, so doing much in the way of swimming or anything not involving a board was kind of out.

* The sand was so hot that I couldn't lie down on the sand. Or even sit on it with a towel and mat in between after a short while. I had a pair of trusty sandals on that had lasted for years, but the sand here actually started to wreck them.

It was two hours of Very Unpleasant before even they got fed up and wanted to leave.

I realize this is still better than any NorCal beach close to me, but it was still spending six hours of my last day in Kauai that I would have preferred to have spent doing ANYTHING ELSE but standing around on a crappy beach or getting jolted about.

To be fair, the end of the day was nicer. My aunt wanted to hit a store that had Nihau shells in it, so we got to hit one store. And Mom managed to mail out 3 boxes worth of crap (bye-bye, mugs!) at the post office and was allowed to use the car for it, so on the way back we did some more shopping.

We also finally got to go to the beach by us, where they had rental equipment and I did a little boogie boarding. I liked it- surprise, surprise there.

From the trip journal:

Right now I am on a porch looking out at a giant tree with its leaves waving in the breeze, listening to someone playing a ukulele. In less than 24 hours I will be freezing in SF. God, that sucks. I could cry.

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