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When Mike and I married in 1993, we decided that we would take a “big vacation,” one that involved air travel to a faraway place, every five years. The first trip was to Arizona in 1998. The second trip was to California in 2003. In 2008, we went to Alaska.

The plan got derailed a bit when we started vacationing with friends. We enjoyed a vacation in 2013, it just wasn’t specifically considered a 20th anniversary trip. We were both okay with that. The unspoken point of the plan has always been to make sure we travel and make time for us. That was particularly important in 1993 when we married. Between us, we had three young children. Our marriage was more than the joining of two people, it was the blending of two families, which came with its own unique set of challenges.

I have always been the one doing most of the planning. It’s always been up to me to do the research, find accommodations, and come up with the overall plan for each trip. Our the trips have gotten more and more interesting as the years have passed. Not only have our likes and dislikes evolved, there are far more tools available and a wider variety of choices in terms of accommodations. In 1993 when we got married, a trip to Cancun with Apple Vacations seemed really exotic. It wasn’t. It was fun, but Cancun caters to tourists and has a very American feel. Some people like that. We don’t.

Typical “touristy” vacations are not our thing. We don’t like crowds. We hate waiting in long lines. Neither of us like noise either, something that’s really hard to escape when visiting popular vacation hot spots. We tend to avoid cities, too, which is probably because of our aversion to crowds, waiting/lines, and noise!

As our 25th anniversary approached, I actually dreaded the whole Hawaii plan. To me, nothing says “touristy” like a trip to Hawaii. I mean, it’s one of those things many, many people say they want to do. Not just Americans, either, people from all around the world aspire to visit the remote island paradise. It is a busy, year-round destination, so I knew that avoiding crowds would be a real challenge. So much of a challenge, that I really was not all that interested in going. I mean, I wanted to go, a trip is a trip, I was just dreading the touristy part. But it was the last US state Hubby had to visit before he could say he’d been in every state and it was also the last state he had to explore on two wheels before he could say he’d ridden a motorcycle in every US state. So we HAD to go.

All the research I did revealed that early April and the month of September are the least-popular times to visit Hawaii. If we were going to go in April 2018, I would have had to start the real planning, buying plane tickets,  booking rental cars and accommodations, in January and February. Since we’d learned just before Christmas that our dog, K, was terminally ill and we had NO idea how long she would be with us, I was reluctant to make plans to travel in April. I knew that I would not want to leave her if she was still hanging on in April, so we put the plans on hold.

We could have gone in September 2018, but doing so would have meant doing the aforementioned “real” planning in June or July. My layoff in early June nixed that. So that’s why we ended up celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary near the end of our 26th year as a married couple.

There are not many direct flights to Hawaii. Lucky for us, United has direct flights from Dulles, our home airport. Direct flights are typically less of a hassle, but the duration was a bit concerning. Ten and a half hours on one airplane, in one cramped seat, is a very long time. So, when United reached out via e-mail a few weeks before our departure, offering discounted upgrades to first class, I decided to splurge. It was a big celebration, after all. And we don’t usually spend money frivolously.

I’m glad we did, too. It wasn’t the standard first class seat, it was actually an upgraded business class section that United has been adding to some of its long-haul flights. Not only is there a wider seat and more legroom, the seat reclines to a fully flat position, like a little bed.

It was so worth the extra expense. We arrived in Hawaii more-relaxed than I’ve ever felt even after a two- or three-hour flight. The premium seats were largely responsible, coupled with the fact that families don’t usually sit in the premier cabin, so we didn’t have to listen to anyone else’s children. A HUGE plus.

Once we landed on Oahu, all we had to do was retrieve our luggage, pick up our rental car, and drive to the North Shore, as far away from the large city of Honolulu as we could get while staying on that island.

It was midday, local time, when we arrived (Hawaii is six hours behind our home state of Virginia), so I decided to direct Hubby to take a route around the island instead of driving across the island. I thought it would be more-scenic. Looking at the map, it looks like the road follows the coast. The road DOES follow the coast, but there are houses all along the beach, many of which are fenced-off for privacy. It wasn’t scenic in the sense that we got to enjoy uninterrupted views of the water, but we did get to experience a bit of Oahu off the beaten path.

After about an hour, we reached our rental unit. It wasn’t a fancy place, just a one-bedroom apartment on the first floor of someone’s house. But it had everything we needed and it was just an easy five-minute stroll to the beach.

I seem to have misplaced the pics I captured in and around the yard of our apartment, which is a shame. The yard was really nice. It was full of interesting vegetation. There were lizards, too. But the nearby beach was the best part.

The North Shore gets hit with really big waves during the winter months. In fact, this little beach isn’t far from the infamous Banzai Pipeline with its 20+ foot waves.

The color of the water was mesmerizing.

I really could just sit, watching and listening to the waves all day long.

Not far west of where we were staying was a beach where sea turtles like to hang out. Some of the pics I captured at that beach are with the misplaced apartment images. We did see a couple of turtles, but, because the beach was right beside the road, it was thronged with people. Seeing the turtle was cool, but it didn’t feel very “wild” seeing it surrounded by a large circle of gawking people. So we just walked a ways down the beach, found a shady spot for our chairs, and sat for an hour or two.

Temps were in about the mid- to upper 70s, and there was a lovely breeze. One thing that surprised me about Hawaii was the absence of seagulls. It was unusual, but very nice, to sit on the beach listening to the sound of waves mingled with the voices of songbirds instead of the loud, grating squawk of seagulls.

The beach was visually stunning. There were quite a few rocks and many places where the sand had been compacted into giant, pockmarked boulders. I’m not sure if that’s coral, or if it’s sand that was baked into a solid, massive sheet at some point by a volcano.

Sitting on the beach in Hawaii under the shade trees is much nicer than baking on the beaches like we are used to doing on the East Coast of the US.

I’m hoping we can locate the misplaced folder of images captured with my camera during the first couple of days in Hawaii. If not, we will just have to go back and do it all over again. 🙂