Hawaii, Disneyland, Grand Canyon, Arches National Park and Iowa

This blog was intended as a time capsule for our family, especially Scarlett, Nora and Hazel. I am already enjoying reflecting on many of the posts and here is our final one where we capture January and February 2022.

We left Australia on January 25, 2022. 1 year and 364 days after we were originally booked to fly to Asia to continue our global experience.

January 2022: Normanville, Naracoorte, a one way road trip to Sydney!

With South Australia opening its borders on November 23, 2021 the covid-free 20 months we had been fortunate to experience was ending. We also needed to get “negative” covid tests for all five of us to be able to leave together. So, we accelerated our packing and departed the townhouse in Normanville we had been in and went to my parents home in Naracoorte, South Australia. We were able to isolate more easily and had less impact on my Dad and our neighbors.

The 18 days there went really quickly, we slowed down and the girls were great at playing in the yard. Thankfully the Aussie summer was good and lots of outside playtime was possible plus I got plenty of chores done. The online grocery and petrol was great, and local businesses and friends were awesome at back veranda drop-offs for other supplies.

We then rented a car and did a weeklong road trip to Sydney. We picked isolated houses on AirBnB and the owners were awesome at supporting our efforts to get negative covid tests at Sydney airport so we could all leave together. We enjoyed 4-days in Dederang, Victoria and 3-days in Buckajo, New South Wales. Each place was a really quiet rural setting and we just ventured out for some hikes and found empty school playgrounds a source of a lot of playtime.

On our final day in Australia we got on the road at 5am and drove the ~5 hours from Buckajo to Sydney International Airport. At around lunchtime we arrived at Sydney Airport and did the covid-19 tests and then drove to a nearby playground, ate lunch, and waited for the results. We had plenty of scenarios rolling around the “what if” but thankfully we all tested negative and were set to fly out on the flight at ~9pm. So we had a long day but we were together and heading to Hawaii.

O’Ahu, Hawaii

We had a really quiet and special month in Ko Olina on the island of O’Ahu in Hawaii. We rented a house for a month and spent the time enjoying a lot of quiet time.

The World Surf League (separate post) was incredible and was the morning activity on a number of mornings. Other mornings we did some school work with Scarlett and Nora and then headed to the pool and/or nearby beach in the afternoon.

Activities that we enjoyed were:

• Kualoa Ranch – which was where the Jurassic Park movie was filmed

• Visiting friends from Seattle in Kailua

• Honolulu Zoo and ice cream on Waikiki Beach

• Ziplining at Coral Crater Adventure Park (Nora and me)

• Wet ‘n’ Wild Hawaii

• American Idol 20th anniversary filming at Disney’s Aulani Resort

• Ko Olina lagoons 1, 2, 3 & 4

• Lots of pizza, ice cream, hot chocolates, coffee, dinners at the Ko Olina shops including Island Vintage Coffee, Starbucks, Monkeypod, Mekiko, and more

The month felt like a return to our global adventure. The days slowed down, but went by superfast as they always seem to do.

We started getting ready for relocating to Des Moines, Iowa. Whitney’s hometown. A friend of 25+ years has purchased cars in California and we had asked him to see if he could find one for us in the months leading up to our arrival on mainland USA. It got to the last 10 days before we arrived that he was successful, an awesome outcome. It meant that I did a redeye into San Francisco on our last night in Hawaii. Landed at 6am Saturday, picked up the car near SFO, and drove down the interstate to Los Angeles to pick up Whitney and the girls when they landed at 8pm from Honolulu.

We spent 2 days at Disneyland which was a lot of fun.

Then we went on our road trip.

Day 1 & 2 – we left Disneyland in the early afternoon and drove to Grand Canyon Village about 20 mins south of the entrance to Grand Canyon village on the south rim. I still have memories of watching the sunrise at the Grand Canyon in May 2005 when my Mum and I did a road trip after I graduated with my MBA from Emory University. So, I was very keen to have everyone enjoy it too. Perhaps a little too excited. I had calculated the sunrise time of 4:57am via Siri on the drive. I had failed to appreciate that when I did that we had not crossed into Mountain Time. So I had us all up at 4am, out the door of our hotel room (fully packed up for the day of driving after seeing sunrise) and in the parking lot on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon at ~4:30am. Then it dawned on me as we sat there in a desolate parking lot that perhaps my timing was a little off.

Day 2 & 3 – We did a long drive to Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. Arriving in time for the late afternoon sun and the beginning of sunset. What a magical place.

From there it was a road trip in the full sense of it… two long days of driving from Moab, Utah to Des Moines, Iowa.

So here we are. Starting to set up in our new hometown, where Whitney was born and grew up.