COVID-19 left us all holed-up at home. I spent the last year working way more hours than usual, taking care of lots of people with the illness. While I never dreamed that I would end up as a plague doctor, I am grateful that I had a job throughout it all. LIke most everyone in healthcare at this point, I’m just tired and need a break.

Well, now it has finally slowed down at home and Paul and I are fully vaccinated, so we are heading off. We had various things booked and subsequently cancelled, in hopes that the world would return to something more like normal by now. We even changed some travel plans to one area of the US as too many places were still closed. We finally decided on Hawaii. I was here once in elementary school, but this is Paul’s first trip. The islands restrict travel due to COVID, so we had to take PCR tests prior to coming (from a Hawaii-approved lab…there aren’t any at all in Oklahoma that would guarantee the required 72 hour turnaround when we checked) and we have to take another each time we move to another island. One of the islands is also requiring us to have an app on our phone to track us for contact tracing. There also is the possibility of having to do health check ins every day (for 10 days). If we don’t do this, we have to quarantine for 10 days…as in not leaving our condo at all. BUT…we get to finally travel again off of the continental US.

We are starting our trip with a short stay on Oahu on Waikiki Beach. You’ll see where we go from here later.