Aloha from Hawaii!

About 10 hours after leaving my parents’ house this morning, we are now in Hawaii! On the Big Island (Hawaii) to be exact, in a town called Waimea or Kamuela.

The apartment is beautiful and the host made us very welcome. In the photo I’m on the private deck in the back of the house, and that’s a fantastically huge hibiscus flower in the foreground. As I type this from the kitchen counter, we’ve got the screen door open for the breezes, and I can hear the birds outside, and see the misty mountains in the distance. And one of the neighbors has a talkative rooster, which reminds me happily of our place in San Pablo. 😉

Funny thing: all our travels have made me much more accustomed to spending hours on the road. The five-hour flight from San Jose to Maui didn’t seem long, and the 37-minute flight from Maui to the Big Island felt almost like an elevator ride. The 90-minute drive from the airport to our apartment went by quickly too, especially with all the lovely mountain and ocean scenery. This is a good thing!!

We are here for a month, and then we’ll move to Honolulu for a week, and then it’s off to Japan. And we just booked onward flights from there, too: a short stint in Singapore, followed by a month in New Zealand, and then a short visit with our Toronto friends before going down to Ithaca (New York) for my youngest sister’s graduation at the end of May. So that’s another four months of travel… at least. And I don’t much know what to expect from any of these places. In 2012, we did mostly cities, either in Europe or with heavy European influence. This time it’s going to be completely different (we’re currently in a ranching town, for instance!). And the climate’s going to vary quite a lot from place to place; I’ve packed long underwear as well as summer clothes. Is this going to make me more tired, or more energized? We’ll find out!

For now, though, I’m hoping for lots of quiet creative time here in the islands. Got some writing I want to do.