We're Home!

Hi!

 

I believe in my last posting, we were waddling home from the Side Street Café after a truly glorious albeit HUGE meal!  Wow!  Such wonderful memories of our last day on Oahu!  

 

However, all terrific trips eventually come to an end, and we were up early on Tuesday morning to pack and head to the Honolulu airport.  It was a wrench leaving our really beautiful penthouse apartment, but we were on our way by about 8:30 am.  We never mind being early to the airport (our flight wasn’t until 12:10 pm) because we had to gas up and turn in the rental car, check the bags, etc.  Fortunately, we were able to find a gas station right outside the airport – and in the entire week, we only used a little more than half a tank of gas, so while the price was steep -- $4.69/gallon, overall, it wasn’t too bad at all!  The turn-in was very easy, and soon we had checked our bags, gone through TSA pre-check, and were heading into the terminal.  

 

As we really hadn’t had much for breakfast, R and I decided that food was in order in their restaurant.  Debby bought a turkey sandwich, which she ate with us.  I had a wonderful pulled pork sandwich with fries (the fries weren’t a patch on the truffle fries at the Royal Hawaiian, but they would be hard to beat anywhere!)  Robert, who has been craving lettuce, had a very good Cesar salad with a grilled chicken breast on top.  He enjoyed every bite!

 

From the restaurant, we moved to our gate, and it wasn’t too long to wait until boarding.  The flight was almost full, although R did have an empty seat next to him.  The really nice thing was that there was an atmospheric river heading from the Islands into California, bringing lots of rain – but it gave us a great tailwind, and while it took us almost 6 hours to get to Oahu, it took us a bit under 5 hours to get home!  So, soon we were landing, in the rain, at LAX.  The flight was a bit bumpy, but remembering back on other eastbound Hawaii flights, they were as well.  

 

Our luggage somehow came out on a different carousel than the one posted – without any announcement, after we had been waiting probably 15-20 minutes, but our three bags were there fairly quickly, and out to the curb we went.  Since our last trip through LAX, UberBlack, UberSUV or LUX can pick up at the curb, so we used Black and Omar arrived within 5 minutes despite incredibly bad traffic in the airport.  The curb lane was really crowded (jammed by cars waiting for arriving passengers), but Omar did a great job getting us picked up and then getting us out of the airport and on to the freeway.  

 

We got to my wonderful sister Kitty’s in about 50 minutes, even avoiding a SIG alert which completely stopped the freeway at one point for some reason or other, around 9:20 pm.  Definitely a long day!  Kitty treated us to chips, pretzels and salsa and wine, and we talked and laughed until 11 pm!  Wow!  Way too late for a really early start, but that’s what we figured we needed to do.

 

So … while I had aimed for a 6 am take off from Kitty’s, we three were up and ready to go by 5:15 am, so we hugged Kitty good bye and off we went – in the absolute pouring rain!  Now it’s never easy to leave in the pitch dark, but when it’s really raining, it’s tough, but Robert did an excellent job.  He got us all the way to Oceanside in very good order!  We ran into a bit of a mess in Tustin, with four accidents all within a mile, including one that looked really bad accident (overturned in the HOV lane), but as we weren’t traveling in that lane at the time, we had no problems getting through with only a 3-4 minute delay.  

 

We ran into more rain occasionally along the way south, and then some low clouds and fog as we went through the San Diego mountains, but no real traffic problems or road construction (Yay!) and soon the sun had come out, we were over the mountains and heading to El Centro and Arizona!  Crossed the Colorado about 10:30 am, and reached home about 3-ish or thereabouts.  (one hour time change…)

 

So, now – 7:24 pm – we are unpacked, everything is put away, laundry is in process, and all mail and packages have been opened and gone through.  And, I’m ready to collapse!

 

So!   Thank you, Friends and Family, for joining us on our quick trip to Oahu!  It has been fun hearing from you all!

 

Lots and lots and lots of love!

m

xxx