The Journey to Kauai

Day one continued:
Decided to take the Kitsap Airporter, even though its reputation for geriatric drivers had made me swear off them several years ago. It was actually pretty efficient and definitely cheaper than driving and parking. SeaTac was quiet and prepaying for baggage and printing out a boarding pass speeds up the process. Our flight on AlaskaAir 853 was nearly full. In fact, I only saw one empty seat, the one between us! We felt like we'd won the lottery on this flight! We bought our meal on board – a beef and sticky rice dish which was actually pretty good. A snack pack of crackers, cheese, salami and a paste made of sunflower seeds (Mary liked that), and wine and free mai tais made for a pretty enjoyable flight. The flight to Lihue is long – with our 45 MPH headwind it took more than 6 hours.
Later...
Ok so here we are at the Lihue airport. It is unrecognizable from our 1987 visit recollection. It’s also 9PM and we’ve got baggage claim, car rental and a 45minute drive ahead of us. Our luggage shows up last after an incredibly slow procession of bags on the carousel spaced 20 feet apart. The standup ride to the rental car office is followed by another wait. We rewarded with a PT Cruiser – they seem to be ubiquitous as car rentals. The drive was all two lane road and mostly unmarked after we got to Princeville.
From our night time perspective it seemed really spread out and very country club like. We found our condo after a few turnaround-and-go-backs. 11:06pm when we got our stuff inside – that’s 1:06AM PST! Went to bed to the sound of crashing surf 30 minutes later.