Despite Delta's assurances, I was very worried about our first connection in Honolulu. The flight was scheduled to leave from the tiny airport in Kapalua at 8:30. I had little faith in the ability of the 'Ohana flight (operated by Empire Airways but labeled with a Hawaiian number) to leave on time. I had even less confidence in the rental car operation. They did not even open for business until 7:00. I did not know how many shuttle vans they had, but they were not very large, and they serviced both Avis and Budget. I was also pretty certain that early morning must be a busy time for them.
I could not do anything about it at this point, but I was still nervous enough so that I slept only fitfully. I was up before Sue's phone's alarm went off at 5:30.
I probably would not need it before we got to Minneapolis, but I planned on carrying my ancient leather jacket in my arms. I therefore had some room in my suitcase for some of Sue's excess junk. She piled enough tee shirts and paperwork in it so that there was a reasonably good chance that her suitcase would weigh less than the 50 lb. limit imposed by Hawaiian Airlines.
While waiting for Sue, I ate the sandwich that Donna had prepared for me. It had been better when served hot on Thursday, but I had no reason to complain. Sue brought hers with her to the airport.
We planned on leaving for the Avis/Budget office at 6:40, but we did not actually depart until 7:00. Although I had driven right past the rental car office on Thursday without noticing it, we had no trouble finding it. We arrived there at about 7:15.
The lady who inspected our Nissan Rogue found scratches on the right rear area. Most of them were already there when we picked up the car. A few new ones were yellow. I could remove most of the yellow part with saliva on my finger, but there was at least one place where a small bit of paint was apparently removed. I had never hit anything, but Sue said that the car brushed up against some roadside vegetation on the road back from Hana. It might have happened then.
I had to fill out and sign an incident report. I did not know what to say, and so I just said that I probably parked close to some shrubbery.[1]
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By the time that we boarded the shuttle bus I was pretty flustered about the incident report. At least the process had not been overly time-consuming. It appeared that we would arrive at the airport in plenty of time to catch our plane to Honolulu, and we did. In fact, the air strip was completely empty when the shuttle dropped us off at the Kapalua Airport, and the terminal was nearly so.
We checked in, and although the scale showed that Sue's bag weighed 51.1 lbs., the man at the counter declared it “perfect.” We were both relieved that Sue did not need to remove more stuff, which would probably have ended up in my backpack.
Sue ate her sandwich while I walked around and took a few photos. At about 8:15 a Mokulele Airlines flight with a handful of people aboard departed. There was no sign of our plane until about 8:45. By this time there were more than twenty of us waiting to board. We all had to go through security, which was managed by four TSA employees.[2] As usual, Sue required a hand-search, which took at least ten minutes.
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The flight did not take off until a few minutes after 9:00, more than a half hour late. We flew just south of Moloka'i, and I tried to determine where Kalaupapa might be, but I saw nothing that looked like a peninsula with a towering cliff-face at one end. If I had ever bothered to glance at a map, I would have realized that it was on the north side of the island and therefore not visible from our plane's vantage.
We landed in Honolulu at about 9:45. Puddles told us that it had clearly rained overnight, but it was clearing by the time that we arrived. This was a good break because we were required to walk a short distance on the tarmac to reach the gate. We then headed downstairs to retrieve our luggage, which we would need to haul over to the Delta counter, wherever that was.
We asked an employee in the baggage area how to get to the Delta ticket counter. We were at carousel 9 at the time. She told us that we needed to go to carousel 19, where there was an escalator up to the check-in counter.[3] She pointed outside to the direction that we needed to go.
We went outside and immediately found an escalator. Rather than walk around at street level we ascended and began the long trek. We could see a long row of more than a dozen signs for various airlines, but nearly all of them were foreign. We could not see anything for Delta. Who knew that twenty-six airlines flew to and from Honolulu?
We continued our trek on the sidewalk just outside of the airport. Every few airlines Sue would need to stop, remove a layer of clothing, and catch her breath. She was just miserable.
The very last sign was for American and Delta. Before approaching the ticket counter we had to pass through the agricultural inspection, which was a joke. They didn't even ask us any questions; they just marked our bags as having been inspected.
When we finally completed the check-in process, the lady at the Delta counter warned us that we needed to hurry because the flight was already boarding. We used the TSA pre-check line to get through security. Even so, Sue's artificial knees still added several minutes to the process. It also did not help that the security area closest to the check-in counter was not open.
We made it to the gate with only a few minutes to spare. This was a great relief to me. We did not have a plan B if we missed this flight, and it would not have been fun to negotiate one with Delta.
The flight to Los Angeles bore no resemblance to the flight from Atlanta to Honolulu. The configuration of the coach cabin was 2-3-2, which meant that Sue's aisle seat was next to my window seat. It was also several hours shorter; the crew treated it as a regular domestic flight rather than an intercontinental one. As soon as the plane reached cruising altitude, a flight attendant sold sandwiches out of a cart.[4] Only a few passengers bought the brown bag lunches. The attendants did not offer drinks until much later. At the same time a selection of snacks was provided.
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The flight was a little bumpy in spots. For much of its duration the seatbelt sign was illuminated.
We flew over the south side of Moloka'i again. The visibility was quite good, but I could not make out anything of interest.
I watched the first four episodes of 30 Rock on the display on the back of the seat in front of me. I had not seen this show in a long time. I thought that most of the humor held up pretty well. I also tried to play the electronic Sudoku game, but for some reason it did not work. The app for monitoring the details of the flight was also much less impressive than the one on the outbound flight.
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We arrived in LA at about 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time, which would be 2:00 in Honolulu. Our next flight would not depart until 10:00. We found a restaurant called Barney's Beanery. It was just what we were looking for. Sue got to sit on a booth seat, and I sat on a chair with a very low back. That did not bother me at all, probably because I was relieved to be able to set down my backpack and my heavy jacket. At that hour it was not very crowded at all.
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Sue ordered “tres enchiladas.” I asked for a burger and fries with a Lagunitas IPA.[5] Our waitress, Evelyn, brought Sue a burrito and me a toasted ham and cheese. She realized immediately that my order was wrong, but it took some time (of which we had an abundance at this point) to convince her that Sue had not intended to order a burrito. The burrito was right above the enchiladas on the menu, and Sue may have accidentally pointed to it.
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While we waited for Evelyn to bring us the food that we had actually ordered, we spent the time identifying the people pictured on our tabletop, which was a collage of newspaper and magazine clippings. The theme was the sixties, a decade which both of us remember much better than any of the subsequent ones. It was fun to identify the Beatles, the Stones, Marilyn Monroe, and dozens of lesser lights. Sharing forty-year-old memories may be one of the few joys of getting old.
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The food was pretty good, too. I had enough time to consume two beers, which were also quite enjoyable.
More hours passed. LAX had free internet, and so I had plenty to entertain me. I caught up on my notes and then did a few Sudokus.
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At last it was time to board our flight to Minneapolis. Our seats were, to our surprise, to the left of the jetway as we entered, We had 16A and 16C. Seated in 16 B was a large man. He, of course, asked us if we wanted to sit together, which I firmly answered in the negative. Sue and I had already talked about this, but maybe this time it was a mistake; he had very broad shoulders and a bad habit of “manspreading.” So, I was was pretty well pinned to the window for the duration, and throughout the long dark flight Sue could not avoid rubbing thighs with him no matter how she positioned herself.
Because I had stored my backpack in the overhead compartment, I was able to stretch out my right leg beneath the seat in in front of me. It can get quite sore if kept at a right angle for long periods. I was also very happy that I brought my neck pillow with me. I managed to get some sleep, but I never heard anything from Sue. If she was sleeping, she was very quiet, which would be a first.
I gave up on tying to sleep just as the plane was passing over the boarder between Nebraska and South Dakota. It was still quite dark.
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[1] At the time that this was written, I did not know whether Budget would charge me for this. I was, however, confident that my credit card would cover it if they did.
[2] It was incredible to me that more TSA people worked at the airport than airlines people. Each airline had one desk clerk, and one guy handled the luggage for both of them. In between he practiced playing the ukulele in the lobby. The only places to which you can fly from Kapalua are Honolulu and Kailua-Kona. What terrorist would target those flights on tiny planes?
[3] In retrospect, I think that this was very bad advice. There apparently was a Wiki Wiki Shuttle that could transport people between the terminals. I should have researched this a little.