Aloha!

Wow. Here I am, on Kauai for 2 days and so much has happened since I last posted. Saying goodbye to my family was pretty hard on Thursday and Friday and this was the first time I had ever travelled completely alone. The travel day took forever--I went from Des Moines to Denver to San Francisco to Lihue and it was about 12 hours from when I left Des Moines to when I landed in Lihue. My boss met me at the airport and helped me to get my rental car. I was really grateful for that--I would have been lugging those huge bags around everywhere by myself. Plus, I've never rented a car before and the whole process can be daunting. But Yara got me in my car and on my way. I took a left at the stoplight, stopped at McDonald's, and was on my way to my new home.

It was dark when I got here on Friday night (the sun sets here around 6:20) so I drove in the dark and couldn't really see anything. There's really only one highway on the island and the sides are highly vegitated. The first time I saw the ocean, it kinda creeped me out. The moon was hitting it funny and it seemed as though it was above where I was on the road. I couldn't see the mountains on the other side. Top speed limit is 50 but it didn't seem slow at all. Anyway, I drove into Waimea and found my apartment complex well enough and as I was hauling out my suitcases, I heard the ocean. My apartment is about a block from the beach and for some reason, that first night, the dark water really scard me. I was told my apartment would be unlocked when I got there so I marched up to the 3rd floor only to find the apartment locked. I called Yara's cell (she was still in Lihue) and tried to figure out what to do when someone came out of the next apartment to see what was up. Turns out Rick also works for Pioneer, is from Texas, and had been here about 2 weeks. Anyway, he helped me to find an open apartment (which wasn't the one I was assigned to, for the record) and then I asked him to take me to the beach since it was so close. It seemed the perfect orientation to the island--watching the dark waves crash on the shore with the moon reflecting on the dark water.