One month from today…We’re off to Australia…Is this a lonely life?

The Wai’oli hui’ai Church in Hanalei which the congregation built in 1841.

Need I say to our readers that we’re ready to go, in that we’ve been counting the days? Don’t get me wrong, we love Kauai; its people, its beauty, and its charm. It’s just time to go. 

The church was made of lime and plaster which was made from coral dug at low tide.

Living in Hawaii these past almost eight months worried us. We were concerned that we’d lose many of our readers who’d tire of the constant Hawaii news, scenery, and our occasional ramblings about food.

Services are still held at this church today. The mission bell was acquired in 1843 and placed in the belfry behind the Mission Hall which is the oldest surviving church building on the island of Kauai.

However, we’ve literally gained thousands of readers in these past many months, many from across the seas and many from here in the islands, passed on from one to another from families to friends. We couldn’t be more grateful.

This morning when I look at our stats I squealed with delight to see our readership as higher than its typically been on travel days. It seems our readers are curious as to our safe arrival at the next location and perhaps curious as to how we’ve handled any travel day challenges along the way.

The church was adorned with several stained glass windows.

In a funny way, on travel days, I feel as if you’re all traveling along with us making me anxious to getting settled and online to let everyone know we arrived safely. 

At airports, we’re always looking for wifi so we can write a few words to post. At times, we’ve paid outrageous hourly fees to ensure we let everyone know how it’s going and where we are at the moment. 

The Mission School was also built in 1843 allowing children and adults to read the bible which the missionaries translated into Hawaiian. Abner and Lucy Wilcox arrived in 1846 to spend over 20 years as educational missionaries and pioneered vocational training as well.

Our friend Richard, a retired attorney from St. Louis, Missouri, USA, often nags us to turn this site into a highly profitable business, even offering to help us do it. We appreciate his kind intentions. But, making the effort to turn our posts into a highly profitable business would make it a “job.”

And, although this is a business based on having advertisers generating a small income and certain relevant expenses, right now, this feels only like a labor of love.

We assumed this lovely couple had just been married in the church.

There isn’t one morning that I get my coffee, plunk down onto the sofa or chair, never as comfortable as in our old lives, that my heart doesn’t race with enthusiasm. Most often, unless we’ve recently had a specific experience to share, I have no idea what to write.

Magically, as if beyond my control, a topic flies to my fingers more so than to my brain and those fingers fly across the keyboard with a mind of their own.

View along the road in Hanalei.

The topics, albeit less exciting at times, are presented with a pure passion and desire to entertain, amuse or merely whittle away time for even one reader out there who may also have a cup of coffee or tea on hand and sits down to see what’s happening.

Then, when I see that hundreds if not thousands of people are reading today, my heart flips in my chest with joy, not as braggadocio over our unique life but as joy in knowing we are not alone. 

Miniature flowers blooming on the church grounds.

This life we live could be lonely without all of you. Sure, we have one another who fills each other’s cup every single day with a potion that continually renews our love and interest in one another. 

And, we have the friends we’ve made along the way but not quite yet the friends we had in our old lives who we could say, “Hey, want to go to the farmer’s market with me this afternoon?” Or, “I made some soup and want to drop off a jar at your house on my way to the health club.” 

Surf shop in Hanalei.

It’s different now. But, we have YOU. Having YOU takes away any possible feeling of isolation or loneliness.  Having YOU motivates us to explore, to take photos, to get outside the safe cocoon we create for ourselves everywhere we go.

So, dear readers, hang with us for one more month in Hawaii and then hang onto your chairs because one month from today a new level of excitement will begin as we leave Kauai, head to Honolulu for one night to sail away on the 24th for 18 days and nights across the ocean to the South Pacific. 

The Ching Young Village, a quaint shopping mall in Hanalei.

We’ll live in the South Pacific for almost 22 months, moving at least as often as every 89 days (or as little as one month) discovering new lands, new adventures, new wildlife, and new scenery. 

There will be scary-looking insects, Funnel Web spiders, dangerous snakes, and inclement weather. There will be kangaroos, koala bears, and crocs, some of which we’ll love to the point of ad nauseam and others which we’ll cautiously fear. 

The Ching Young Store is a café and general store.

Once again, we’ll be using the app on our phones to figure out the metric system, figuring out how to use the outlets and appliances, learning the local lingo and dialect, and overall, trying to “fit in.”

All of this and more, we’ll share with YOU. 

Happy Thursday. Today is 5% off for old-timers at Foodland. Think we’ll stop by.

                                             Photo from one year ago today, April 23, 2014:

Although we never so much as tasted any of the scrumptious looking pastries in Marrakech, looking at them was almost as much fun. Our time was winding down and we were looking forward to our next stop, Madeira, Portugal located off the coast of Morocco. For details please click here.