Aloha!

and good morning!
G here, reporting from our hotel room in Lana'i.

After awakening at 4:10 a.m. yesterday, a two hour flight to Chicago, a nine hour flight (can you hear my knees groan?) to Honolulu and a 25 minute spin in a blender, courtesy of Cuisinart Air, we landed safely on Lana'i. Our luggage, however, did not. Had we not been so tired, we might have been more concerned, but we were greeted by good friends and promptly distracted by tropical drinks and a delicious dinner. By the time we made it back to our room our luggage had arrived. sigh.

We slept in until 4:00 a.m. local time (pretty impressive, right?), which is 10:00 a.m. east coast time. Although we landed in the fog and rain yesterday, today is starting out sunny and lovely. Our room is considered a "partial ocean view", which means that we can hear the ocean from it. To be fair, if we go out onto our porch, we can see the sea off to the right. Otherwise we look out onto a tropical garden and the far edge of the pool.

The land is lush and sumptuous - palm trees, flowers, pretty things I cannot name and a cacophony of birds - - my god, the birds! They sing! They trill! They chirp! and when we adjust to local time and actually want to sleep past 4:00 a.m. I will want to kill them all. Until then, they are delightful.

The more 'exotic' legs of our journey begin on the 13th when we leave for Bali, however until then we will be enjoying Jerry's Barristers conference and some time off to savor paradise. We are staying at the Four Seasons, where we were married 5 years ago, and we plan to go up to the cliff where we had our ceremony and celebrate with a split of Champagne. Yes, even if it rains.