Well, OK, not so young…but hey…can’t blame a gal from trying! So, anyway, we are off again. Semi-early morning – cab arrives at 7:15 and we are at the airport by 8:15. Checked in and sitting at (gasp) Starbucks having our last morning coffee. (Yeah, Starbucks, I know, but it’s the only freaking place in the airport with coffee – kid you not – Burger King’s machine was broken – I think Starbucks paid them off so they could monopolize the business!).
Flights go off without a hitch. Savannah flight on time, and we come into the mid-field terminal at Dulles which means no running for the next flight! It was actually 6 gates down in the same terminal. We were so lucky! We’ve got a little time to burn, and since it’s about lunch time, we grab a salad and sandwich at the Gordon Biersch restaurant. It’s pricey, but not as pricey as on the plane. Talk about a joke! We are going to be on that plane for 10 1/2 hours and they don’t serve any complimentary food—not a pretzel or a nut! Ha! We have snacks with us (peanut butter, apple, protein bars, nuts) so with our lunch here in the airport we should be fine…..$10 salads that come out of a plastic container from who knows where, made who knows how long ago at 35,000 feet just isn’t appealing to us!
The flight to Honolulu goes smoothly – long – but smooth. Cruddy movies, so no help there. I finish an entire book (Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn – highly recommend it btw), do some crossword puzzles and only snooze a little bit. Ed reads, does his own crossword puzzles and watches the crappy movies.
They do a really cute thing on the plane though – we can enter to win prizes by guessing when we will hit the exact mid-point of our flying time. Pretty fun – they are giving away 2 Lonely Planet Hawaii books. We miss it by 8 and 10 minutes, but it’s still a fun little exercise. Gives us something to do for about 8 or 10 minutes actually! LOL.
We land about 1/2 hour early, grab our bags and head to the rental car. We’re on the road by 7:30 – pretty darn good! Of course that’s 7:30 HST – which means it’s really 12:30AM EST, but we’re not lagging yet. I misread the instructions the rental agent gives us to get to Kailua, and we head East instead of West on the H1 – but that’s the way the GPS is sending us anyway, and I know where we’re going, through the Pali Mountains across the center of the island. I’m not concerned.
It’s dark, though, so no scenery really. We find the Pali Highway without a problem (they use the term highway very liberally here – it’s a 4 lane road, mostly without a median, and the speed limit is 35, sometimes 45, MPH – not so much highway like we are used to!), wind our way through the mountains and get spit out into the center of Kailua – our home for the next 4 days.
We hit the Safeway for provisions – beer and wine of course! But also fried chicken for dinner (since we’ve only snacked for the last 10 hours), and some bananas. We’re set for now! We now have to find the Ohana where we are staying. Turns out it is mere minutes from the little village/downtown area, we are there before we know it.
Even though we’ve seen the pictures online – this place still blows us away when we open the door! Well, even before the door – the entry way is a marble type flagstone with a huge fountain vase gurgling away right outside. Beautiful even in the pitch dark!
Inside is the same – gleaming hardwood floors, retro/industrial/chic fans and lights, equipped kitchen with granite and stainless, bathroom all in tile – just fantastic!
Plus, there’s a great little welcome snack basket! Can’t beat this!
We pop open our beverages, snack on our chicken, then gratefully drop into the comfy bed and sleep off the last almost 24 hours of travel!
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