Day 1 – We have arrived

Our flight departed early Sunday morning, so we headed up to the airport the night before and stayed over at the airport hotel.  We were hoping to make this trip with only three bags, but alas, our hiking gear took up to much room, so we had to go with four.  Just for the record, my clothes are fitting in the smaller bag behind the Marmot bag.  I learned after our first trip to Kauai, you don’t need much and what I find I am missing, I just go buy it.

We board the 6:15 a.m. flight to Atlanta on time, thank you Delta and we were off.  In the spirit of returning to Oahu, I had my lovely nail artist, Leo try to replicate the OluKai symbol

Once we arrived in Atlanta, we grabbed a quick breakfast, charged up our electronics and boarded the next flight.  Only a mere nine hour and some odd minute flight to Oahu.  I was hoping to sleep, but I was binge watching Melissa McCarthy movies.  So sleep eluded me and come to find out Mike too.

We were sitting on the right side of the plane and had great views on our approach.

We landed we went to the luggage area, only to discover our friends, Paul and Colleen, who live here, were waiting for us and gave us leis.  One of my life goals has been to be greeted at the airport with someone waiting to lay a lei around my neck.  Check,  that is done.  Truly our friends are the best and believe in sharing the aloha spirit.  They helped us with the luggage and drove us over the car rental place.  We can’t wait to see them next weekend and we started making hiking plans for a few hikes during our time here.

Picked up the car with ease this time.  Mike received an insane deal on the car for a month, wait for it….$368 included taxes and insurance.  That is usually the per week rate, even the workers at Alamo said they don’t get that kind of employee rate.  Score one for Mike for being vigilant about checking prices weekly, throughout the year.

We are renting a home in Mokuleia for the month, so off we zoomed to the North Shore.  The homeowner wasn’t finished cleaning the house, the previous renters, with six children had left the house in disarray.  We arrived, dropped our bags, and headed out to find food for tomorrow’s breakfast and dinner.

First stop, a little market that is newly opened, Waialua Fresh.  They support the local farmers and craft people.  This will be our main grocery store while on Oahu.  At this point our brain was starting to not function.  We picked up lilikoi, a mango and homemade yogurt for breakfast.  Next stop was a mainstream market, for coffee (until we get real Oahu beans), wine and beer.  Finally we needed dinner  food.  That was a no brainer, VJ’s North Shore Dogs and Burgers.  They use local ingredients, which includes meat and fish.  How ono.  I had a classic BLT, on taro bun with avocado and Mike had a burger, cooked to perfection (sorry no food pictures, told you brain is dying).

We returned to the house, as the cleaners were finishing.  Stephanie, the owner went over the legal matters, showed us around and wished us aloha.  At this point it was a little past seven, the sun was sinking and so were we.  I grabbed a beer, we went to the steps that lead down to the beach and watched the sinking sun.

After the ritual watching of the sun sinking, we headed in, did a brief unpacking and fell asleep.  We had been up for 21 hours, I needed sleep. I didn’t reach my goal of making it to 8 p.m. but that is ok, the main goal was achieved, arrival on Oahu.