I am always sad on the last day before I leave the Hawaiian Islands. Fortunately, this time around, I get to bring Dan home and see Mike and Casey, who is patiently waiting for our return so I am not nearly as heavy hearted as I usually am to depart paradise.
I was, however, determined to squeeze as much out of this day as I could so after my workout and some packing, I grabbed my suit and one last Kai Latte (their namesake drink with macadamia nut milk) then sought out the perfect spot on the beach in Waikiki with Dan. I stayed on that beach until the last possible moment I thought I could without missing our late checkout. (By the way, our little condo I found on AirBnB was adorable… a 1BR/1BA with a penthouse view of the ocean, city and mountains in the famed Waikiki Banyan Condominium Tower.)
I again enjoyed relaxing, reading, sudoku, and cloud watching on the beach, knowing that in 24 hours I would be back home in Dallas, with my loved ones but definitely not near a beach!
After our last hurrah on the beach we checked out at 3 pm and made our way to a vintage shop called Bailey’s, known for it’s insane collection of new and vintage Hawaiian shirts. I really wanted to find a fun shirt for Mike to thank him for holding down the fort while I splashed and played in the Pacific. This place was incredible!! They had over 15000 shirts in their smallish store, some new, some vintage. It was so fun to peruse these shirts. I found one new shirt (made in Hawaii, of course) and a vintage one for Mike while somehow managing to snag a woman’s vintage Hawaiian shirt from the 70s for me! Dan saw many he liked but could not settle on one in his size but I think he enjoyed perusing none-the-less.
Shirts in hand, we still had 2 hours to kill before heading to the airport so we decided to bookend my trip with one last poke meal at Off The Hook in Manoa. I am not sure I will eat another poke meal in Dallas again until I get back to Hawaii. It was so so good that I can’t imagine any poke place in landlocked Dallas is going to be half as good as this was. Even better was the view from Tantalus, a beautiful look out over the city, with mountains and ocean in the background. We could even see the house Dan spent 11 weeks at with his fun UCLA friends. It was such a wonderful way to end this awesome trip with my son. I am so glad he was able to have such an amazing adventure this quarter and even more grateful he was willing to share the last week of it with me.
I carried this heart rock around the entire week but left it on Tantalus for someone else to find. Don’t want the Hawaiian gods to send me bad juju for taking their coral! 
Bonus: Getting to come home to this…
UkuleleMom 