Wake Island (USA)

Checked out of the CBH at 0420 and left NAF Atsugi soon afterwards. The schedulers back home had set us up at the Grand Plaza Hotel (at Tumon Bay) in Guam for the night but everyone decided they'd rather go back to Hawaii for our last RON (I had to file a claim because of the missed reservation).  In addition, our hope was that we could get to Wake Island before the sun went down. Everything went as planned and, after a good flight from Japan, we had another good stop on the little sand-bar island. Today I had time to walk around near the waterfront along the tarmac - there were still some World War II remains visible... We departed just before the sun went down and, after crossing the International Date Line, repeated August 15.  We arrived in Honolulu around 0700L (felt VERY tired) and checked into the Outrigger Reef.  I took a nap for several hours. Later, an old friend from our squadron, Tom B, picked us up at the hotel and drove us around the island. He showed us his new home - located on a hill overlooking Waikiki - and we congratulated him on his good fortune. Met up with the crew again for dinner at Duke's - it's always a nice venue.  Flying back to CONUS tomorrow...