Free Rum Drink, Flight to Honolulu

Dinner, Flight to Honolulu

Rachelle, Honolulu Airport

Kaua’i, Interisland Flight to Lihue, Kaua’i

Juice, Interisland Flight to Lihue, Kaua’i

Waiting For Flight to Chicago, Honolulu Airport

Mountain of Email, Chicago

Back, but not all that happy to be back. The weather in Chicago is both hotter and more humid than when we left Honolulu on our redeye flight yesterday. Plus I always have a difficult time transitioning. Especially after a really long, fun vacation.

This trip to Hawaii was more family oriented than last year’s trip. Last year was all friends. This year, lots of family parties and a wedding. Also this year, we spent more time in Honolulu. Last year all my time was in Kaua’i except on the last day we caught the inter island flight early and spent about 4 hours in Honolulu. Also, this year I got a bruise on the first day of the trip and I thought I was going to end up as battered as last year, but that was the only bruise I got all vacation. I think it’s because I wasn’t doing all the adventurous hiking and swimming and snorkelling and stuff.

After the flight in to Honolulu Dallas got me a lei made of orchids and some other really fragrant white flower. I think it was pikake. On the way out his mom surprised me with an orchid lei. I never thought to get one on the way out.. it’s nice because I have it here at home now and it’s still fresh and not dried out. I’m keeping it here by the computer while I go through my 3,000 emails.

On the flight from Chicago to San Francisco we got jack squat. A cookie and a soda, no movie, nothing else to eat. But then from San Francisco to Honolulu we got in on some Pleasant Holidays deal where we were all treated like first class. Hot hand towels, a free rum drink, dinner, sherbert, mints, a movie, etc. Same on the way back except on the way back they gave me TWO bottles of rum.

After arriving in Honlulu we had drinks and waited for Dallas’ parents to arrive. Then we took the inter island flight to Lihue, Kaua’i. This year the interisland flights are more strict.. like there’s assigned seating now and you can’t just hop on the next flight if you miss your flight. They charge you to do that now. The best part of these short flights is the juice, although I think last year we had POG (passion/orange/guava) and this year we just had PO. heh.

Dallas’ sister, Caroline, was already in Lihue and picked us up in Grandma’s car at the airport. We also had an SUV rental for the week in Kaua’i. First thing we did was go to Keoki’s for dinner. We tried to go to Duke’s in Lihue, but parking was a bitch so we just went over to Koloa to Keoki’s. I had herb sauteed opakapaka (menu pdf). Really great and a good way to start out the vacation.

Next up was checking into our condo…

See also:
» Hawaii Vacation (Kodak Gallery, 15 photos)