Mammoth doesn't go to Hawaii

Monday 8/8/2022

This is not a tale of Travels with Mammoth Motorhome--in fact, poor Mammoth doesn't figure into it at all. We left it all behind.

We're in the airport waiting for the plane. Not crowded at all when we arrived--at 8:30 or so--but now it's getting awfully busy.  The flight boards at 11:05 and leaves at 11:50.

This trip was long anticipated, but at many times during the last week I was ready to call it all off. Leaving the house with malfunctioning air conditioning, for one, the dogs in boarding hell, for another. And the cats and the kids and the noise...oh, wait. Leaving the noise is a bonus.

LATER

Very long day. The plane trips were relatively painless, with a fearful few moments when we arrived in Honolulu with no idea where our gate was and no boarding passes to get on the plane. Ed finally ducked in a "Hawaiian's club" where some nice person looked up the gate and printed the passes. Very kind of them, and especially useful because our flight number had changed from what was issued with the tickets.  I don't know how they figured that out.

Didn't go here, but should have -->

We shouldn't have been so worried--the airport isn't all that large--but none of the ticket counters seemed manned. Maybe if we'd walked all the way to the security entrance we would have seen the kiosks and been able to self-serve.

But our car reservation was a pain. I'd originally expected to pick it up at about 5:30 so I'd reserved it for 5. With the flight change, we didn't get there in time. Picking up our luggage was remarkably fast, but by the time we got to the car rental it was after 6 and Avis, Budget, and some other rental companies had combined their "after hours" service into one, very overloaded, service counter. There were only two people working there for a line of 25 customers. Many of whom appeared not to have a reservation.

By the time we waited in line--interminably--got our car and got on the road, we started looking for fast food places to get dinner in. Passing up a Burger Kind near the airport, we headed to Princeville. Princeville, where our condo was, and fast food...well...there aren't any. There were two Subways, both of which closed at 8:00 or earlier. It was 8:30 and the whole town had pretty much rolled up its sidewalks and gone to bed.

There was absolutely NO food to be had.  It was either (a) drive back to the airport, about 30 minutes away, for McDonalds or Burger King, or (b) stop at the Foodland Grocery and see what they had left in their deli case.  We chose (b). They actually had a good bit of food there. The fried chicken looked old and the poke, sushi and fresh salads in the counter looked scary, but they had a good assortment of pre-packaged sandwiches to choose from. I had a vegan salad bowl with grain and some chunks of brown stuff; Ed had a roast beef sub. And chips. Sprite for Ed; water for me. And that made a meal.

When we finally got done eating and headed for bed, it was after 2am to our bodies' notion of time, but only 9 or 10pm in Hawaii time. No matter--my body was ready for bed.

There was no air conditioning and so neither of us slept well.

The condo, however, was gorgeous. Will rave about it tomorrow.