The poolside condo. But no pool. Like I said before, the ocean is the best pool.
5:30am again. Get out by 8. The shelves are barren. I have a few apple slices. Girls eat cereal. The half gallon of milk has gone bad. Wayne and I split the last, sweet bits of strawberry guava jam on bread. No one wants 2 day old edamame. PBS is on in force. We use it to finish packing. Empty dishwasher. Wash last plates by hand. Put PJs in luggage. Brush teeth so I can put bathroom bags away.
Case the Joint. I actually find some shorts in a forgotten drawer. We almost leave a plug at the gate. Looking behind is a very useful habit my traveling Dad taught me.
Goodbye, Hale Pau Hana!
Rental car dropoff is fine.
Navigating thru the airport is complex. We get thru the line to a kiosk and Wayne realizes we forgot to got thru agricultural inspection. He futzes with checkin while I hurriedly schlep the bags to agriculture. We have to even do Sara’s carseat base. I head back. There’s a huge group approaching before me. A moment of grace in the hurry and fury. An inspector appears out if thin air before I even get in line, slaps a sticker on the base, and frees me to return to Wayne to get our baggage checked.
Security in Maui. The only Xray machine in the US that is set off by my hip replacement.
Sara cries when she realizes the puddle jumper to Honolulu is too short for a movie.
We have a blast turning the safety information card into a
reading exercise. I’m impressed that my girl keeps making leaps and bounds in that area. She would interpret the pictures for me. We talked about airplane safety. She noticed the differences in planes I normally ignore when we contined the exercise on our bigger plane to Seattle.
In Honolulu, there was a huge map of the islands on the wall. We continued academics with geography. We discussed the definition of an island. We passed a gate for Japan with a double decker plane. We talked about Japan as a country, looked it up on the map, and compared it to the Hawaiian Islands. School at the airport.
We found Gordon Biersch at Gate 29 (?). A blessing. A known. There was a table for 4 that opened up just as we arrived with a lovely corner for a stroller and lots of bags. Laura was starting to act silly with tiredness. We split a turkey melt and a grilled cheese with French fries. Ok food that hit the spot. Finally our gate got assigned and we found a home base.
The 5 hr stretch yawns out. So I write. I like to know where I’ve been.
Hawaiian quirks
Left side of plane in back quarter- all aisle seats have odd metal boxes bolded to the floor competing with my feet for a very cramped space.
Pasta is tepid. Turkey sandwich on croissant holds up well, even better than Gordons fresh turkey melt (with damp underside, but good bread.)
Doug picked us up. What a blessing! Home in my own bed at 12:30pm Seattle time.