so much has happened since we started our journey, we have been to so many places,and seen so much.
Hawaii (the big island) was great the house on the plantation was really great, the views from the balcony over looking the rows of coffee plants right down to the sea.
Julia and I enjoyed being shown around by Robin who knew where all the best places to see were as he spent his youth there.
The next stop was LA where we met up with Mike, what a nice guy; Mike met us for breakfast and drove us around all day, it was very cold and windy and were very grateful to Mike, we ended the day with a lovely dinner.
The next day we caught a cab to Long Beach where we got on board Carnival Cruises for our trip down to Mexico.
Monday 2 April 2012
Thursday 22 March 2012
Day at Sea
This was lovely. The ship moved only mildly in the seaway: the slow, gentle swells moved under our beam crossways but the movement was barely enough to make you realise you were on a ship. Had a lovely lunch in the Mardi-Gras dining room, and realised we could have done this every day, instead of settling for the greasy-spoon fare served on the Lido deck and the Brasserie.
It was cloudy and a bit cool out (okay, cold). Wondered a bit about temperatures in Vegas and Tahoe and Napa. I was concerned it was going to be really cold! Oh well, might as well stock up on warm clothing since our winter is coming "down-Undah": jumpers and stuff. Realised later that clothing retail stores in the northern hemisphere were focusing on summer stuff. Oops.
I was typing on my netbook in our stateroom - down on our Riviera Deck, it's more like a 'cabin' - but I was fairly cold down there for some reason, so I went up to the Brasserie to have a cup of Earl Grey. You could feel the side-to-side motion significantly more up on the Lido deck, which was ten "floors" up: the Riviera is Deck Four, pretty near the water-level. Sitting on the starboard side of the vessel, heading (I assumed) in the general direction of north, one would think one could see something of land. All that was visible was water. And it was colder up here than in the room - someone kept opening the door to the outside - so I finally gave up and went below.
Dinner was nice. Eating is what you do on a cruise.
It was cloudy and a bit cool out (okay, cold). Wondered a bit about temperatures in Vegas and Tahoe and Napa. I was concerned it was going to be really cold! Oh well, might as well stock up on warm clothing since our winter is coming "down-Undah": jumpers and stuff. Realised later that clothing retail stores in the northern hemisphere were focusing on summer stuff. Oops.
I was typing on my netbook in our stateroom - down on our Riviera Deck, it's more like a 'cabin' - but I was fairly cold down there for some reason, so I went up to the Brasserie to have a cup of Earl Grey. You could feel the side-to-side motion significantly more up on the Lido deck, which was ten "floors" up: the Riviera is Deck Four, pretty near the water-level. Sitting on the starboard side of the vessel, heading (I assumed) in the general direction of north, one would think one could see something of land. All that was visible was water. And it was colder up here than in the room - someone kept opening the door to the outside - so I finally gave up and went below.
Dinner was nice. Eating is what you do on a cruise.
Wednesday 21 March 2012
Encinada
Julia and Nanny elected to go ashore at Encinada. I didn't: I stayed aboard and caught up on some digital photography tutorials I'd been meaning to study, and had a salad for afternoon tea. Holidays - to me - means: somehow manage to do as little as possible, in as quiet an environment as possible, for as long as possible. I'm nine of world's ten most boring people.
What about Encinada? Julia and Nan will have to tell you about it, but from the maps (on my new tablet, one of the few things that work, sort-of) it's the next major settlement south of Tijuana. From what I remember of Tijuana and what I could see of Encinada, it looked considerably up-market to that border-town.
The ship was mostly empty much of the day, so there were no queues anywhere. Even the Lido deck was not too noisy. I think that's one of the things I found a bit off-putting after a while: the night-club entertainment atmosphere on steroids. I reckon a lot of the people present at some of these gigs were mostly deaf, since I was the only one wincing at the decibel-level. It was like the Elephant and the Wheelbarrow day in and day out. Even at dinner in the Mardi-Gras dining room - an otherwise nice, gentle dining experience - the atmosphere was brutally crashed by the maitres-d breaking out his best Hollywood-night-club voice at the top of his lungs... and the place erupted in exuberant song and dance. Yes, dance: the head-waiters shared their other talents with us. A good time was had by all.
The air still had a bit of a cool bite to it, particularly with a breeze, even as far south as we were. The captain made a point of saying - in a silky, Fernando Lamas accent - that this was the nicest weather he'd seen in some time, which instantly added five degrees to the warmth from the sun's rays.
We sailed at 21:30... and sailed all night.
What about Encinada? Julia and Nan will have to tell you about it, but from the maps (on my new tablet, one of the few things that work, sort-of) it's the next major settlement south of Tijuana. From what I remember of Tijuana and what I could see of Encinada, it looked considerably up-market to that border-town.
The ship was mostly empty much of the day, so there were no queues anywhere. Even the Lido deck was not too noisy. I think that's one of the things I found a bit off-putting after a while: the night-club entertainment atmosphere on steroids. I reckon a lot of the people present at some of these gigs were mostly deaf, since I was the only one wincing at the decibel-level. It was like the Elephant and the Wheelbarrow day in and day out. Even at dinner in the Mardi-Gras dining room - an otherwise nice, gentle dining experience - the atmosphere was brutally crashed by the maitres-d breaking out his best Hollywood-night-club voice at the top of his lungs... and the place erupted in exuberant song and dance. Yes, dance: the head-waiters shared their other talents with us. A good time was had by all.
The air still had a bit of a cool bite to it, particularly with a breeze, even as far south as we were. The captain made a point of saying - in a silky, Fernando Lamas accent - that this was the nicest weather he'd seen in some time, which instantly added five degrees to the warmth from the sun's rays.
We sailed at 21:30... and sailed all night.
Tuesday 20 March 2012
We be Cruisin' - Day Two
We arrived at Catalina Island whilst Julia and I were still asleep. Nanny had already gone out (unbeknownst to us, she on a higher-level deck in a different cabin) for a cup of tea. Most of the more enterprising, activity-seeking passengers had already made their way to the island via small, yellow ferry-boats by the time Julia and I left our cabin: Julia to get a very thorough, restorative massage that worked wonders for her neck and me to get breakfast.
It astounds me how people can say all you do on a cruise is eat. I had micro-thin bacon, sausage, scrambled-egg and this creative use of mince and chopped-up snags for breakfast. Atkins would have been proud. Tea instead of coffee: I reckon the caffeine levels in the coffee in the States should be measured with a Geiger counter. You could power a nuclear submarine with this stuff. I got the major tremors: finally decided to stick with tea... it's a known entity.
But really, apart from that really nice dinner the first night, I decided that the food for the most part was *okay*, but nothing more. Yes, there's lots of it. And for the most part, it's available somewhere on the boat most of the day and evening. But how much food can a human consume and not feel crook? I eat when I'm hungry... today, I had a late breakfast and then after Julia's massage we met up with Nanny and had lunch not too long afterwards. Even though it was only a light lunch - I had chicken and beef cubes, Julia had a sandwich and Nanny had fruit - it was fairly soon after a late breakfast and we all filled up rather quickly on it.
Thus, by the time dinner came 'round, I still had nil appetite, none at all. It was meant to be a dress-up gala affair with lots of picture-taking, all things I abhor, so I originally opted to let the ladies take advantage of a bit of alone-time together ... deciding to spend the evening writing and maybe have a glass or two at a bar somewhere at some point. Changed my mind at the last minute, though, so we had yet another nice meal, all dressed up.
The ship sailed at 4 pm... the seas were incredibly calm, so the motion through the very slight swells was silky and almost without any movement at all.
The sea was a millpond.
It astounds me how people can say all you do on a cruise is eat. I had micro-thin bacon, sausage, scrambled-egg and this creative use of mince and chopped-up snags for breakfast. Atkins would have been proud. Tea instead of coffee: I reckon the caffeine levels in the coffee in the States should be measured with a Geiger counter. You could power a nuclear submarine with this stuff. I got the major tremors: finally decided to stick with tea... it's a known entity.
But really, apart from that really nice dinner the first night, I decided that the food for the most part was *okay*, but nothing more. Yes, there's lots of it. And for the most part, it's available somewhere on the boat most of the day and evening. But how much food can a human consume and not feel crook? I eat when I'm hungry... today, I had a late breakfast and then after Julia's massage we met up with Nanny and had lunch not too long afterwards. Even though it was only a light lunch - I had chicken and beef cubes, Julia had a sandwich and Nanny had fruit - it was fairly soon after a late breakfast and we all filled up rather quickly on it.
Thus, by the time dinner came 'round, I still had nil appetite, none at all. It was meant to be a dress-up gala affair with lots of picture-taking, all things I abhor, so I originally opted to let the ladies take advantage of a bit of alone-time together ... deciding to spend the evening writing and maybe have a glass or two at a bar somewhere at some point. Changed my mind at the last minute, though, so we had yet another nice meal, all dressed up.
The ship sailed at 4 pm... the seas were incredibly calm, so the motion through the very slight swells was silky and almost without any movement at all.
The sea was a millpond.
Monday 19 March 2012
We be Cruisin' - Day One
Julia and I decided on the morning of the cruise our bags needed revisiting: we'd done some re-arranging that last day in Hawaii after a particularly pleasant session with Hawaiian Rainbow cocktails - Julia *AND* Nanny each had two!! - so the bags were packed with more attention of getting everything in with relatively equal weight (to keep them under 50 lbs, for the plane) than keeping things in any particular order.
Now, the big black suitcase had all the "not-gonna-need-until-Vegas" stuff and the grey one had half-Julia's, half-my stuff and all electronic stuff was together, so that was good. We met in the lobby at 11 (check-out time) and hung around a bit playing with our tablets, taking advantage of WiFi and the relative warmth of the lobby. The friendly staff finally called us a van-sized cab (which we really needed because of all the baggage) and off we went to Long Beach.
The wind had died down, but it was still quite cool when we arrived. No question: we're Queenslanders! Heck, we found Holualoa cool at times, cool enough to put on jumpers and long pants. So, our light jackets were only just enough to keep us from shivering in the breeze.
Finally, after the obligatory check-in, we were on the boat. Part of the Carnival line, this one is called "Inspiration". There's all these levels. We were told our room wasn't ready, so we went to the Lido Deck and passing the pool went over to join a queue at the rotisserie (or Mongolian, for Nanny) food thingie. The food was okay: what I had was a bit pub-food, but Nanny's was really nice.
Julia and Nanny each got a pink drink thingie with an umbrella and settled into the warm sun and the festive mood. I thought I'd better save myself for a glass of wine, as I was a bit apprehensive of what grog might cost on a cruise. As it turns out, alcohol is fairly reasonably priced, really: a glass of red priced between $6.50 and $7.50 doesn't really seem excessive, certainly not for being on a cruise. I didn't care for the Mermac, much: ended up with a nice Aussie Shiraz. Or two.
We had set sail - almost imperceptibly, this occurred - when we decided to have dinner in the Mardi-Gras Dining Room. It was beautiful: elegantly presented, the portion-sizes were like for humans, not the usual gargantuan piles of food one stares at aghast as the plates arrive at your table. In a lot of restaurants in the US, hospitality is measured in size-of-portion... if you are able to clear your plate, it is assumed you didn't receive enough food. The waitress even commented something to that effect when I'd cleared my plate at Kincaid's.
Afterwards, we wandered about the ship a bit and set things up so that we could put drinks and purchases on our "Sail & Sign" card.
After a glass of Merlot (for me - the ladies were done for the evening) in what we've gome to call the "Queen Street Mall" lounge, we finally called it a night. You could barely feel the ship move in the swells as we returned to our cabins, to discover that our beds had been turned down and one of the towels had been artfully twisted into a semblance of a seal, complete with little eyes. The attention to detail and the over-all friendliness of the staff on this cruise was really quite remarkable.
Internet: not cheap, but not prohibitive, either. If I felt so inspired to absolutely HAVE to have blog items up online tonight, I could do as I am doing: type everything into a text file, log on (at $75 per minute) and in a few minutes have the whole thing done. *If* I felt so inspired. Which, at this point, I don't.
Email can wait. The blog can wait. We're on a cruise!
The tablet: bigger disappointment. I'm definitely going to have to look around for apps. There's absolutely NOTHING useful on the thing at all. And there's icons to games I'd really like to get rid of: don't intend to ever play any of those. But it will all have to wait till Vegas, I guess. So, interestingly enough, even though I've spent a fair bit more for this tablet than I did for this netbook ($479 for the tablet versus #325 plus $30 for the 2-gig SIMM), data entry is significantly easier and more productive on the netbook.
Now, the big black suitcase had all the "not-gonna-need-until-Vegas" stuff and the grey one had half-Julia's, half-my stuff and all electronic stuff was together, so that was good. We met in the lobby at 11 (check-out time) and hung around a bit playing with our tablets, taking advantage of WiFi and the relative warmth of the lobby. The friendly staff finally called us a van-sized cab (which we really needed because of all the baggage) and off we went to Long Beach.
The wind had died down, but it was still quite cool when we arrived. No question: we're Queenslanders! Heck, we found Holualoa cool at times, cool enough to put on jumpers and long pants. So, our light jackets were only just enough to keep us from shivering in the breeze.
Finally, after the obligatory check-in, we were on the boat. Part of the Carnival line, this one is called "Inspiration". There's all these levels. We were told our room wasn't ready, so we went to the Lido Deck and passing the pool went over to join a queue at the rotisserie (or Mongolian, for Nanny) food thingie. The food was okay: what I had was a bit pub-food, but Nanny's was really nice.
Julia and Nanny each got a pink drink thingie with an umbrella and settled into the warm sun and the festive mood. I thought I'd better save myself for a glass of wine, as I was a bit apprehensive of what grog might cost on a cruise. As it turns out, alcohol is fairly reasonably priced, really: a glass of red priced between $6.50 and $7.50 doesn't really seem excessive, certainly not for being on a cruise. I didn't care for the Mermac, much: ended up with a nice Aussie Shiraz. Or two.
We had set sail - almost imperceptibly, this occurred - when we decided to have dinner in the Mardi-Gras Dining Room. It was beautiful: elegantly presented, the portion-sizes were like for humans, not the usual gargantuan piles of food one stares at aghast as the plates arrive at your table. In a lot of restaurants in the US, hospitality is measured in size-of-portion... if you are able to clear your plate, it is assumed you didn't receive enough food. The waitress even commented something to that effect when I'd cleared my plate at Kincaid's.
Afterwards, we wandered about the ship a bit and set things up so that we could put drinks and purchases on our "Sail & Sign" card.
After a glass of Merlot (for me - the ladies were done for the evening) in what we've gome to call the "Queen Street Mall" lounge, we finally called it a night. You could barely feel the ship move in the swells as we returned to our cabins, to discover that our beds had been turned down and one of the towels had been artfully twisted into a semblance of a seal, complete with little eyes. The attention to detail and the over-all friendliness of the staff on this cruise was really quite remarkable.
Internet: not cheap, but not prohibitive, either. If I felt so inspired to absolutely HAVE to have blog items up online tonight, I could do as I am doing: type everything into a text file, log on (at $75 per minute) and in a few minutes have the whole thing done. *If* I felt so inspired. Which, at this point, I don't.
Email can wait. The blog can wait. We're on a cruise!
The tablet: bigger disappointment. I'm definitely going to have to look around for apps. There's absolutely NOTHING useful on the thing at all. And there's icons to games I'd really like to get rid of: don't intend to ever play any of those. But it will all have to wait till Vegas, I guess. So, interestingly enough, even though I've spent a fair bit more for this tablet than I did for this netbook ($479 for the tablet versus #325 plus $30 for the 2-gig SIMM), data entry is significantly easier and more productive on the netbook.
Sunday 18 March 2012
A lovely Visit with Mike and Techie Heaven
We were going to invite Mike to breakfast at the hotel where free breakfast came with the room, but he had better ideas: The kettle!
Off we went in his car that really cold, windy (but clear) morning and soon found ourselves being regaled with a story of his exploits trying to catch a plane (or two) to Canada as we waited for a table to clear at The Kettle. This was a popular place indeed for people to brave the cold wind for breakfast.
The food was delicious: we decided today was going to be our shopping day (our all-time favourite activity anywhere, eclipsing visiting museums, art galleries and going bungie-jumping, even): warm clothing first on the list, then tablets and a RAM upgrade for the netbook I'm typing on.
You know, a strawberry is not a strawberry (wait till you have had strawberries in the US: they beat any Aussie strawberries I've ever had!), and in the US Target is not like our Target at home! Wow, they sell food here.
Went first to Fry's Electronics to upgrade the RAM on my netbook. Mike confided in me he doesn't much care for Fry's, and I've come to agree with him, based on my experience there. Customer Service is definitely not their strong suit. I had to *buy* a screwdriver to open the RAM cover of the netbook to show the clearly bored, not excessively helpful clerk the exact RAM I needed. I should have looked closer at the available slots: had I done so I would have realised I actually had to *replace* the existing SIMM for a two-gig SIMM in order to upgrade. I just bought a single-gig SIMM.
Their tablet selection was pov, were out of everything we were considering.
We finally ended up at Best Buy. They only had the 32-gig Toshiba, so I ended up getting that. Nanny picked up the Galaxy Tab 10.1 (32-gig) and - surprise-surprise!! - Julia got herself the Acer Iconia Tab, which she is tickled pink over. This, despite the fact she wasn't even looking at getting one when we went into that store.
My tablet weighs almost twice what the Galaxy does... pretty much what my little netbook does.
It's a pig. But, it's what I wanted.
No special deals per se... I thought being in LA, you'd be able to find stuff for cheaper, but this is a latest-greatest technology thing: everyone wants one, so only minimal deals to be made.
After a bit of poking around in the mall, we finally ended up at Michaels, where the ladies showed incredible restraint: all they got was a few ribbons and stuff! Meanwhile, this is where I found out that I couldn't just add a SIMM to the netbook to upgrade. So, we dropped Julia and Nanny at the hotel for a nanna-nap and then went back to Fry's to exchange the 1-gig for a 2-gig SIMM, which is working well.
Dropped in for a bit at Mike's, met his reclusive cat Pele and sat in admiration and a wee bit of envy at his amazing programming skills. Okay, a LOT of envy! I could have hung out with him longer, but we'd made dinner reservations at Kinkaid's, so we finally left to pick up the ladies at the hotel and then headed down to Redondo Beach.
The promised storm never made landfall - thank goodness! - but the wind and cold more than made up for it. At the restaurant, up on pilings over a crashing surf, the wind buffeted us with gale-force gusts as we scurried from the car.
Dinner was every bit as good as Mike had claimed it would be: it was the very best meal we'd had so far on our holidays.
The visit with Mike was very pleasant: he's a vivid, interesting, highly intelligent person to be around. I think if he ever saw my code, he'd wonder what the heck I was trying to do, writing code at all. Maybe when I retire and have time, I could do a proper programming class at Uni and learn to do it right. But it doesn't keep it from being fun for me and also makes me admire people who can develop stuff like Mike does all the more.
Please note: we will be posting images from this and the last and next few posts very soon. Need to organise the images: this will happen!
Off we went in his car that really cold, windy (but clear) morning and soon found ourselves being regaled with a story of his exploits trying to catch a plane (or two) to Canada as we waited for a table to clear at The Kettle. This was a popular place indeed for people to brave the cold wind for breakfast.
The food was delicious: we decided today was going to be our shopping day (our all-time favourite activity anywhere, eclipsing visiting museums, art galleries and going bungie-jumping, even): warm clothing first on the list, then tablets and a RAM upgrade for the netbook I'm typing on.
You know, a strawberry is not a strawberry (wait till you have had strawberries in the US: they beat any Aussie strawberries I've ever had!), and in the US Target is not like our Target at home! Wow, they sell food here.
Went first to Fry's Electronics to upgrade the RAM on my netbook. Mike confided in me he doesn't much care for Fry's, and I've come to agree with him, based on my experience there. Customer Service is definitely not their strong suit. I had to *buy* a screwdriver to open the RAM cover of the netbook to show the clearly bored, not excessively helpful clerk the exact RAM I needed. I should have looked closer at the available slots: had I done so I would have realised I actually had to *replace* the existing SIMM for a two-gig SIMM in order to upgrade. I just bought a single-gig SIMM.
Their tablet selection was pov, were out of everything we were considering.
We finally ended up at Best Buy. They only had the 32-gig Toshiba, so I ended up getting that. Nanny picked up the Galaxy Tab 10.1 (32-gig) and - surprise-surprise!! - Julia got herself the Acer Iconia Tab, which she is tickled pink over. This, despite the fact she wasn't even looking at getting one when we went into that store.
My tablet weighs almost twice what the Galaxy does... pretty much what my little netbook does.
It's a pig. But, it's what I wanted.
No special deals per se... I thought being in LA, you'd be able to find stuff for cheaper, but this is a latest-greatest technology thing: everyone wants one, so only minimal deals to be made.
After a bit of poking around in the mall, we finally ended up at Michaels, where the ladies showed incredible restraint: all they got was a few ribbons and stuff! Meanwhile, this is where I found out that I couldn't just add a SIMM to the netbook to upgrade. So, we dropped Julia and Nanny at the hotel for a nanna-nap and then went back to Fry's to exchange the 1-gig for a 2-gig SIMM, which is working well.
Dropped in for a bit at Mike's, met his reclusive cat Pele and sat in admiration and a wee bit of envy at his amazing programming skills. Okay, a LOT of envy! I could have hung out with him longer, but we'd made dinner reservations at Kinkaid's, so we finally left to pick up the ladies at the hotel and then headed down to Redondo Beach.
The promised storm never made landfall - thank goodness! - but the wind and cold more than made up for it. At the restaurant, up on pilings over a crashing surf, the wind buffeted us with gale-force gusts as we scurried from the car.
Dinner was every bit as good as Mike had claimed it would be: it was the very best meal we'd had so far on our holidays.
The visit with Mike was very pleasant: he's a vivid, interesting, highly intelligent person to be around. I think if he ever saw my code, he'd wonder what the heck I was trying to do, writing code at all. Maybe when I retire and have time, I could do a proper programming class at Uni and learn to do it right. But it doesn't keep it from being fun for me and also makes me admire people who can develop stuff like Mike does all the more.
Please note: we will be posting images from this and the last and next few posts very soon. Need to organise the images: this will happen!
Saturday 17 March 2012
Early Starts and Late Nights
Nan was up first, as per usual, making a cup of tea. The alarm went off, but it seemed frightfully early: we'd made a slothful practice our whole stay in Holualoa of sleeping till we felt like getting up - which is probably why we were feeling human again. Still, we had a jeep to return and a plane to catch, so we got ourselves out the door 5 minutes early.
I remembered the instructions the landlord had provided in the PDF ... something about a shortcut from the house down to the airport, so we set off in direction Kamuela hoping that I wasn't going to miss the turnoff. And finally, there it was "something"-ini drive. Down the hill we went - all the newer roads on the Big Island seem to go straight up and down, no switch-backs - and came out on the highway from Kailua to the airport with less than a mile to the airport turnoff. Saved ourselves heaps of time!
After dropping Nanny, Julia and the luggage off, I returned the car: the process was about as painless as it comes. Saw Becky and Murphy at the airport and gave them a hug: poor Murphy looked like she'd done the holidays running marathons or something.
It was with enormous regret that I watched the Big Island disappear in the distance... no, I couldn't live there any more, but our stay had been so restorative I was sad to see it come to an end.
The less said about our flight from Honolulu to LA, the better. It seemed interminable... the trip did two things for me: firmed my resolve to drop the kilos (resolution based observing the plight of those excessively well-nourished fellow travellers nearby) and not baby-sit boys, ever. We had a couple of biligual chappies behind us who - fair enough - became a bit restless towards the end of the flight, as boys do, but their behaviour was a trial for their dad (who I sort-of felt sorry for - what do you do?) and surrounding passengers, i.e., us.
The food was pay-for, no free lunch (dinner). None of it looked particularly interesting so I opted out. They'd run out of sandwiches by the time they got to us, so Julia ended up with a tin of crisps. Whoopie.
Longest five hours in recent memory.
The landing was marketed as being of a potentially difficult, rough nature, but as it turns out, we never felt the wheels touch the runway: brilliantly smooth landing.
LA was freezing cold: 10 - 12 degrees C with a fair bit of wind to make it feel much colder. I was relieved to hear this was a bit unseasonably cold, but then, Southern California can be a very cold place one day, a blisteringly hot place the next day.
Hotel Hermosa was really very nice: excellent value for the money. Paradoxically, I was feeling a bit hungry by then, but nothing was open but fast food so I had a few of Julia's potato chips and finished her soft drink. Too tired to write in the blog, we collapsed in bed.
I remembered the instructions the landlord had provided in the PDF ... something about a shortcut from the house down to the airport, so we set off in direction Kamuela hoping that I wasn't going to miss the turnoff. And finally, there it was "something"-ini drive. Down the hill we went - all the newer roads on the Big Island seem to go straight up and down, no switch-backs - and came out on the highway from Kailua to the airport with less than a mile to the airport turnoff. Saved ourselves heaps of time!
After dropping Nanny, Julia and the luggage off, I returned the car: the process was about as painless as it comes. Saw Becky and Murphy at the airport and gave them a hug: poor Murphy looked like she'd done the holidays running marathons or something.
It was with enormous regret that I watched the Big Island disappear in the distance... no, I couldn't live there any more, but our stay had been so restorative I was sad to see it come to an end.
The less said about our flight from Honolulu to LA, the better. It seemed interminable... the trip did two things for me: firmed my resolve to drop the kilos (resolution based observing the plight of those excessively well-nourished fellow travellers nearby) and not baby-sit boys, ever. We had a couple of biligual chappies behind us who - fair enough - became a bit restless towards the end of the flight, as boys do, but their behaviour was a trial for their dad (who I sort-of felt sorry for - what do you do?) and surrounding passengers, i.e., us.
The food was pay-for, no free lunch (dinner). None of it looked particularly interesting so I opted out. They'd run out of sandwiches by the time they got to us, so Julia ended up with a tin of crisps. Whoopie.
Longest five hours in recent memory.
The landing was marketed as being of a potentially difficult, rough nature, but as it turns out, we never felt the wheels touch the runway: brilliantly smooth landing.
LA was freezing cold: 10 - 12 degrees C with a fair bit of wind to make it feel much colder. I was relieved to hear this was a bit unseasonably cold, but then, Southern California can be a very cold place one day, a blisteringly hot place the next day.
Hotel Hermosa was really very nice: excellent value for the money. Paradoxically, I was feeling a bit hungry by then, but nothing was open but fast food so I had a few of Julia's potato chips and finished her soft drink. Too tired to write in the blog, we collapsed in bed.
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