The Scoop—along with all the rest of our absurd amount of crap—arrived safe and sound a couple weeks ago. In no time, it was up and running, and we were off. We drove by the beach. We drove by the Mokes. We drove by casual hula performance. We drove by tourists. All we need now…
The Scoop’s Hawaiian Debut
Scenic Lookout
We drove around Koko Head to go to Costco and look for paddleboards. Poor Isaac is a jellyfish magnet, as evidenced by yesterday’s ill-fated venture to the beautiful Bellows Air Force Rec beach. Maybe a paddleboard would give him a leg up on the water hazards. Who wants to guess whether, after an hour of…
Kawai Nui Marsh Trail
The Kawai Nui Canal runs along two sides of Coconut Grove and drains the largest wetlands in Oahu. And the entrance to the walking trail through the marsh is just a half mile from Coconut Cottage. The trail ends on the Pali Highway or whatever road it turns into as it enters Kailua, and you…
Kama’aina
“No, I shook his hand but we will hug. You kama’aina now.” The woman who witnessed and notirized our deed and mortgage signing this morning—Hawaiian by blood—folded me into a congratulatory hug. Kama’aina is Hawaiian for local. Downstairs, I got into my car, turned the corner. I live here now. That’s as far as I got…
Hawaii Kawaii!!
“It’s so America!” I thought the first time I visited Hawaii, coming from Japan. “It’s so Japan!” I think now all the time, having come from the mainland. Today I picked up a tourism magazine in Japanese from a huge stack near Lanikai Juice, where we’d stopped to retrieve the hat Isaac left there a…
Easter Sunrise
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the…
Aloha Friday
The Makapu’u Point Lighthouse Trail is one of the vistas that kept me obsessing over moving here for years and years. Tom and Bonnie—our previously mentioned patron saints of Hawaii—brought me here on our 2010 whirlwind tour of the island. The (paved) trail displays glorious views as it leisurely winds its way up the rocks. …