Our travels started at 7:45 am this morning and ended at 4:30 pm this afternoon. In the process we drove completely around the island of Oahu … at least as roads would allow. Click on the map for a larger view.

The western tip that juts out into the Pacific Ocean doesn’t have a navigable road (the guide books say a high-profile four-wheel drive vehicle is required). There isn’t much over in that area as it is.

The first stop was at the dentist office in Kailua, a 50 minute drive south from our house in Laie. I had an issue with a bridge in my mouth (it’s across the front teeth). It felt like it was coming loose once again. The dentist discovered that a piece of cement was out of place, removed that and buffed up the edges, and I was good to go. Major tender mercies here: (1) it didn’t cost anything, (2) no root canal required, and (3) I was finished in fifteen minutes. There was a Safeway store near the dentist office, so I met up with Nina there where we did the major part of grocery shopping that should be good for the next three weeks or so.

Then it was off to Target which was about twenty minutes away from the dentist’s office. We actually didn’t go into the store! What we needed to buy were things needing to be kept cold, so that was going to be our last stop. Before that we needed to pick up a muumuu for Nina and a matching shirt for me for us to wear when we volunteer at the Polynesian Cultural Center. There were a few stores in the area that might carry what we needed … but to no avail. A very helpful clerk in Macy’s suggested that we try Hilo Hatties or Manuhaealii. Hilo Hattie was familiar to us; those stores are all over the Hawaiian Islands as well as on the west coast of the mainland. Google gave us the address, so that’s where we went. The store was about 35 minutes away from Target.

We successfully found something that will work. It isn’t very exciting … but the muumuu and shirt are definitely functional and will hold up for the next two years. Since we still needed to pick up some cold and frozen items, we then went to a nearby Walmart.

That was the strangest Walmart I’ve ever been in. It was a two-story Walmart with a people escalator and a companion shopping cart escalator. The shopping cart escalator was slightly slower than the people escalator so there was time to start the shopping cart up (or down), get onto the people escalator, and arrive before the shopping cart. It was quite ingenious! The other strangeness was the parking. The parking garage was above the Walmart. Fortunately we found a parking place close to the elevator.

But even then, we still needed a couple of other items, plus we needed to fill the car with gasoline. Costco has the best price for gasoline; it would also have the last of the frozen items we needed. So, we made the half-hour drive to Mililani. But the time we finished at Costco it was 2 pm in the afternoon. Nearby was a “Ramen Ya” shop. I haven’t had real ramen since Japan, so that was our lunch stop. I’ll eat there again. Gasoline at Costco was $2.789 per gallon for 87 octane gasoline. Here on the north shore it’s $2.999 per gallon for 87 octane gasoline.

Then we drove up the highway through Haleiawa, past Sunset Beach (the surf had attracted a lot of surfers), past Turtle Bay, and back to Laie. That was another hour of travel.

The scenery on Oahu is beautiful and quite varied from huge, steep mountains to lush valleys, densely populated high-rise cities to massive pineapple and coffee plantations, and broad expanses to beautiful beaches. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the scenery and variety. It’s clear why people love living here and many others fervently wish they could figure out how to make a living here. That last part is very difficult. There aren’t a lot of well-paying jobs and the cost of living is high. According to the US Dept. of Commerce, it costs $130 to buy on Oahu what I can buy for $100 in Pocatello, Idaho.

And, to top it all of, our youngest son Jared got his results back today from his cardiologist. All continues to be well and stable and he’s to go back in a year. That last heart surgery at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake back in 1993 (or thereabouts) is still holding strong. Wahoo!!

Nina also wrote about our travels today. Her version is at https://seashellsandseaglass.wordpress.com/.

Life is just plain ducky! (that is, flash flood warnings are out for our area due to strong storms forecast to come ashore in the next hour or so).