Drove over to Kailua on the east side of Oahu — about forty-five minutes through the Pali tunnels and then suddenly you're somewhere completely different. Wetter, greener, the cliffs come right up out of the road. Drove with the windows down for the second half just because you should.

The town itself isn't much, honestly. It's mostly comfortable people in expensive cars doing comfortable errands — a little snug, a little curated. We poked into a coffee shop and a surf store and that was about all it had to offer that I needed.

But the beach. The beach is the whole reason you come. Two miles of powder-soft sand, turquoise water that's almost too pretty to be real, and these little flat-topped islands sitting just off the shore that make every photo look composed by someone with taste. Even the parking lot is shaded.

Swam for a bit — water was a perfect temperature, soft chop, no rocks. Walked the whole length of the crescent and then some, sat on a towel and read for a while, dozed off and woke up sunburned in exactly one spot on my left shoulder. Worth the drive. Will come back.