Another miserable day at work. Mr. mouse, rightfully, asked me when I am going to quit. Maybe I should... I have a potential interview later this month. I don't want to make any changes between now and then, since they know me as employed.
Travel Administrivia
We brought three travel guide books with us on the trip from the bunch that were available at Borders. Normally, the default two are Lonely Planet and, when available, Eyewitness. This time we opted for three, two new and one back up.
If I only had room in my bag for one book, I'd bring the Ultimate Kauai Guidebook. Everyone had it. It covered all of the beaches and hikes thoroughly and the most info on places to eat. One word of warning, it seems to overestimate the difficulty of the hikes and underestimate the level of surf, so you need to compensate for the writer's skewed scale. It's written by a local which lends street cred to all the info about where to go and what to see. (ISBN: 0971727910)
Moon Kauai was a good counter-balance to Kauai Revealed. It's more mainstream, but still covers all of the relevant details. It helps triangulate - after all, if a place is on the best of list for both books it's almost a sure fire hit. Also, we always travel with at least two guidebooks. That way, we can both read up at the same time. We both have books to use when writing post cards. It weighs a little more to pack two, but, it's worth it. (ISBN: 1566919568)
Thirdly, Eyewitness Hawaii. Sadly, we hardly opened the book while we were on the trip. It's good eye candy and great for trip planning since it builds up the anticipation, but, once we were there, we relied almost exclusively on the other two books. This one just kind of found a home for itself in the bottom of our backpack.
Shampoo and conditioner and other contraband items... I am a big fan of carry on luggage. No, not for the usual reasons... We take a lot of short weekend trips. If you spend an hour in each direction waiting for your bags, you've lost an appreciable part of your trip time. We fly stand-by. This decreases the chances your bags will end up on the same flight you're on. If you have to make a second trip back to the airport, you've really lost time.
So, what to do about the new travel restrictions? Not shower for the length of the trip? I did some research on the internet to see if anyone sold solid shampoos and/or conditioners. And, voila, they do. Trixie turned me on to a company called Lush. And, they have shampoo and conditioner bars. I went to the store to sort through all of the flavors and picked up three shampoos and one conditioner. Hybrid shampoo smells like black licorice, new smells like cinnamon, and irresistible bliss doesn't have much of a scent at all. Also picked up Jungle hair conditioner which has a heavy coconut scent, not my favorite, but thought it's the only scent they currently carry.
The shampoo worked like a charm. Keep it out of the direct line of shower so it doesn't melt down on you. It leaves my hair a little on the dry side so I wouldn't recommend it for daily use unless you love the squeaky clean feeling. Also, once it's dry, you don't smell the licorice smell at all. The conditioner works well too. My only gripe is it doesn't come in cute round shape with a handy travel tin. So, it's less convenient to pack. And, the scent lingers more. I'm hoping they come up with more scents once demand rises, but for now, I'll continue to use it to avoid checking luggage. All in all they get the essential job done.Toothpaste? Most hotels and friends have it on hand and don't mind sharing. Plus, it's more of a commodity item so I'm not as picky. And the other essentials? 4 oz of contact lens solution allowed on board. And, we stopped at the local Wal-Mart to pick up sunscreen, after sun lotion, purell and beach mats. We always pick up the mats as soon as we land. They're about $1 to $1.50 each, and keeps the towels off the sand so you can use the towels to dry off without getting covered in sand. Totally worth the investment.
Happy Hump Day.
Cheers!
mouse
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