On vacation in Kauai Hawaii, my daughter and I had a kayak reservation for that morning. We had breakfast, drove to pickup the kayak, and went to the launch site.

I happened to turn on the rental car radio and heard the commotion of something terrible had just happened in New York and Washington D.C.

We parked and I rushed to the guy at the kayak kiosk telling him “Turn on the radio! Something terrible is happening! Turn on the radio!”

I remember the people in line ahead of us with their kayak just looked at me sadly and walked to the river. The young man at the kiosk kept repeating calmly “It happened yesterday! It’s over! It was yesterday!” The radio broadcasts were repeats from the day before.

I’m still unable to wrap my brain around that time zone differential, how something so world-changing and catastrophic could happen with absolutely no word or alert from a single person we had encountered in the previous 24 hours???

The odd thing about Kauai is the isolation is so absolute. Businesses closed, residents went to their homes, and there was NO ONE to talk with. We found a church memorial service the following day, but other than that, no one talked about it or reacted. Our hotel was totally blase about it, and literally shrugged it off.

With all flights and boats cancelled, I called the airlines for the next 18 hours to get rescheduled on the first available flights for home, 4 days later.