Island Hopping Day 1: Hawaii

I am hitting the road . . . actually a big boat for an extended adventure of island hopping.  I am excited to get back to adventuring.  It was a good flight from DFW to Honolulu in the back of the plane . . . it was only 12,500 miles on American so can't complain too much.  The downside is since this is such a long trip I had to check a bag so that added a lot of extra time waiting.  It is going to take a lot for me to get used to being on "island time" and learn to chill.  I swear it is a real thing.  I am not a huge fan of this part of Hawaii as it is crowded and full of tourist but this is where I need to be.  I was here 13 years ago. I debated on the places I should or shouldn’t I visit again. Pearl Harbor was on that I thought about and decided to go. I looked at it as going to DC and not going to Arlington National Cemetery or a Smithsonian museum. It almost seemed wrong to not visit.  So off I went to the Pearl Harbor National Memorial.  I had already purchased tickets for several time slots/days so I could visit the USS Arizona Memorial.  As we were being briefed, Ranger Tyson gave a talk and part of it was about why we were here.  He really made me think and of course it went deeper than most with my past experience of war and death.  The story of Richard Fiske and Zenji Abe who were wartime enemies but found reconciliation and lifelong friendship fifty years after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  It really was a thought-provoking message that got me a bit teary eyed.

I had seen what I wanted to see so to the hotel to call it a day.