Aloooooooo-HA! That mixture of greeting and squeal of joy comes from finally, finally, reaching Hawaii! After what seems like months and months of travel and living out of suitcases and being so many places that no one really knows where we are {hence this summer’s nickname, the Saling World Tour 2013}, we’re finally here!
Let me better define “here” for you, as a lot of folks still get confused as to where we are.
Most of you probably have a general idea where Hawaii is. Hawaii is an island chain thousands of miles from anywhere, out all on its own in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There are a bunch of little islands out there, but most of the time, we talk about the big seven: Hawaii/The Big Island, Maui, Lanai, Molokai, Oauh, Kauai, and Kahoolawe.
We’re on Oahu, currently in that little red dot called Honolulu. Aside from being the state capitol, Honolulu is also the seat of the government of the City and County of Honolulu – i.e. the island of Oahu. Counties are pretty easy to keep track of around here, because you’ve pretty much just got one per island. Honolulu’s general area has a population of just under a million people, and there’s generally a huge tourist population there at all times of the year as well. It doesn’t matter what other towns are around, if you hear me talking about going into town, it’s Honolulu.
We won’t be living in Honolulu, though – we’re just adding on another day of vacation to get adjusted {i.e. sleep} and then we’ll be heading up to our townhouse in the middle of the island. Unlike the folks who come here to vacation, Waikiki – and Honolulu, for that matter – are the last places we want to be. When we want the beach, we head out west to Ko Olina resort or up to Hale’iwa on Oahu’s famous North Shore {if you hear talk about Pipeline and the epic winter waves, that’s where those hit}. That’s what I think of as Hawaii living, although if you want the real deal, you need to visit the outer islands. If folks aren’t catching their water in rain barrels or living on solar power and generators, it’s not real Hawaii.
Still, in a lot of ways, this is home for us. Scott and I both spent a good deal of time in Hawaii, and we’re really excited to be coming back! This is our chance to do all the things on our Hawaii bucket list that we missed the last time and to really absorb the wonderful Hawaii climate and culture. And to sell the townhouse. Oh yes, let’s never forget that a major reason we’re here is to renovate and sell the townhouse. Thanks to these goals, you’ll find a couple of new tabs under the LIVING ALOHA tab up there on top – you’ll see our Hawaii Bucket List there with all the things we want to accomplish while we’re living in the islands, and you’ll see the Designing Aloha page that will collect all of the trials of a mostly-DIY house renovation and sale. LIVING ALOHA itself collects together posts like these – life and times in the Aloha state.
Now that we’re finally here, I hope you enjoy our Hawaii adventure. And as always, if you have any questions about the Aloha state, adventures and travels, military life in general, or anything at all, please feel free to drop me a line!
