Somewhere Else

Monday was a training holiday, one of those delightful days that the Army gives as a holiday for no real discernible reason. It's one of the upsides to Army life -- the occasional weekday holiday that makes a long weekend. It doesn't entirely make up for deployments. (I'm really bad at math, but even I can figure that out!) But still, it's a nice treat!

We hadn't quite decided what we'd do with the day when we were sitting at the breakfast table together and Kathleen announced, "I want to go somewhere else!" We were happy to oblige.

We took advantage of the beautiful, sunny day to head to the North Shore and look for sea turtles (honu, in Hawaiian). Our first stop was a stretch of beach up by Dillingham Airfield. Jim had been on the beach over the weekend for a wedding, and had seen lots of turtles hanging out on the sand. Unfortunately for us, it appears that the turtles had been wedding guests; they were nowhere to be found Monday morning. Although we didn't see any turtles, we did get to see a small plane taking off from the airstrip. Kathleen was mesmerized.

From there we headed over to the more popular (and at least in terms of turtle sightings, probably more reliable) Laniakea Beach, which most people just call turtle beach. (But it's not Turtle Bay. That's entirely different.) Kathleen perched on Jim's shoulders again, looking out for the elusive turtles.

As we expected, we had more luck at turtle beach. We saw several turtles swimming near the beach. Kathleen was even close to one in the water at one point! I tried to get some photos of the creatures for you (they're so cute!), but between their quick swimming and my slow photography, I just didn't manage. Mostly the turtles just wind up looking like rocks under water. Sorry.

After hanging with the turtles, we decided to head back to Haleiwa for some shave ice at Matsumoto's. Tasty! Unbelievably, Jim hadn't manage to have shave ice before... (I guess that's what happens when you're deployed as much as he has been.) Better late than never, I suppose!

Full of shave ice, we ended our adventure and made it home in time for naps for everyone. You have to love a training holiday!