Nope. We just love Hawaii.
I was so on the ball before this trip. Usually whenever I travel anywhere the packing ends up left till the last minute. Not so this time. This time I packed early in the day on Friday. But then we had to (truly--it was imperative) go out to eat with friends Friday night, and then there were so many odds and ends rolling around in my brain. (blow drier? got it. sunscreen? argghhh! I forgot!!! chocolate for the trip? must still be downstairs. what game was I going to bring? can I get clue master detective in our suitcase if I leave the box at home???) Every time I got close to getting into bed some other thought would pop in and I would have to run and find something somewhere in the house. And so despite my best efforts it was after midnight before I got to bed, and 3:45 came oh, so early.
We left home at 4:30 and drove ourselves to friend Ken's house, so that he could drop us off at the airport and bring our car back to our kids. (Thank you Ken!) We arrived at the airport right at 5:00 AM--perfect for our 6:30 flight. Or so we thought.
Within minutes of arriving at the airport we began hearing about a big snowstorm in Chicago. Soon they announced the news; our flight would be delayed. We were worried that if the delay went too long we would miss our connecting flight. Thankfully our plane finally left about 50 minutes after it's scheduled departure, giving us an hour to catch our flight in Chicago. (Note to self: do not fly through Chicago in the winter!)
We regretted our early start. We could have slept until almost 5!
When we got to Chicago there was lots of snow removal equipment outside the terminal windows. Not having seen a lot of snow removal in recent years I was interested and went to watch.
It was pretty interesting. They had one tractor that scraped the snow into big piles. And then they had these little front loader tractors that scooped the tractors up from the piles and dumped it into a really long dumpster-like container. I thought it was an interesting system.
And then I realized that the dumpster contraption was spitting out water. I thought that was a little odd. I watched more closely.
I finally realized that the dumpster container was melting the snow, and it was gushing out into some type of drain. Brilliant! And so great to watch.Sadly, by the time I figured out what exactly was going on they were almost done with the snow in that area. Then, to my great surprise, the dumpster drove off. Or the truck it was attached to did. Here's the video of the dumpster driving away and an added bonus of a big plane taxiing by. (What can I say? I'm easily entertained!)
Fortunately our flights to LA and on to Maui were uneventful. We napped, read, napped, and watched movies on our computer. Here's a picture of me in the LA airport, celebrating the fact that I had returned for a brief moment to the city of my birth.
And another picture of some odd kind of construction going on just outside the terminal. We finally figured out that the building must be a restaurant (thanks to the sign) but never did come up with any good ideas of what they were doing to it!
Finally our destination was in sight. Actually the first thing that came into sight after hours and hours over the ocean was the Big Island.
Next we saw Haleakala, the dormant volcano, which we later learned is due for an eruption. (Twenty years overdue, in fact.)
As we circled back around toward the airport the sun was beginning to set in the west.
And finally we were on the ground. Maui at last...
We arrived in Maui at 6:30pm. That's 6:30PM Maui time; 11:30pm EST. We were exhausted. We had been up for almost 20 hours at that point. We waited and waited and waited for our suitcases, and then took the shuttle to the Hertz place where we were going to pick up our Pricelined convertible.
The car rental place was crazy. I had read the week before on an internet travel board that Maui had been out of rental cars that week, but I assumed that that wouldn't make a difference for us us since we’d had our car reservation for months. Bad assumption. We stood in line for 45 minutes just to get to an agent. There were people in another area who had already been through the line and were waiting now to get their cars. Russ talked to one man who had been waiting for 3 hours for a car! Not only was there a rental car shortage on the island, but the bad weather on the mainland had delayed many of the flights leaving Maui that night, and so rental cars were returning later than expected.
When we got up to the counter the agent told us that we were the 6th group in line waiting for a convertible. We were so tired by this point—it was almost 8:30pm, or 1:30AM EST. He asked if we’d be interested in taking a minivan instead, and then bringing it back the next day to swap for a convertible. Then he added that the minivan was available right then. We agreed that we didn’t care what we drove at that point, we just wanted to get somewhere and go to bed! So we took the minivan and drove to our hotel.
We checked in, walked in, brushed our teeth, and passed out. We were in bed by 9:15pm, (2:15AM EST), 22 ½ hours after waking the day before. We were exhausted.
And another picture of some odd kind of construction going on just outside the terminal. We finally figured out that the building must be a restaurant (thanks to the sign) but never did come up with any good ideas of what they were doing to it!
Finally our destination was in sight. Actually the first thing that came into sight after hours and hours over the ocean was the Big Island.
Next we saw Haleakala, the dormant volcano, which we later learned is due for an eruption. (Twenty years overdue, in fact.)
As we circled back around toward the airport the sun was beginning to set in the west.
And finally we were on the ground. Maui at last...
We arrived in Maui at 6:30pm. That's 6:30PM Maui time; 11:30pm EST. We were exhausted. We had been up for almost 20 hours at that point. We waited and waited and waited for our suitcases, and then took the shuttle to the Hertz place where we were going to pick up our Pricelined convertible.The car rental place was crazy. I had read the week before on an internet travel board that Maui had been out of rental cars that week, but I assumed that that wouldn't make a difference for us us since we’d had our car reservation for months. Bad assumption. We stood in line for 45 minutes just to get to an agent. There were people in another area who had already been through the line and were waiting now to get their cars. Russ talked to one man who had been waiting for 3 hours for a car! Not only was there a rental car shortage on the island, but the bad weather on the mainland had delayed many of the flights leaving Maui that night, and so rental cars were returning later than expected.
When we got up to the counter the agent told us that we were the 6th group in line waiting for a convertible. We were so tired by this point—it was almost 8:30pm, or 1:30AM EST. He asked if we’d be interested in taking a minivan instead, and then bringing it back the next day to swap for a convertible. Then he added that the minivan was available right then. We agreed that we didn’t care what we drove at that point, we just wanted to get somewhere and go to bed! So we took the minivan and drove to our hotel.
We checked in, walked in, brushed our teeth, and passed out. We were in bed by 9:15pm, (2:15AM EST), 22 ½ hours after waking the day before. We were exhausted.
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