Day Two

Last update: 05/01/01 10:13 PM

A start, Sheri the travel coordinator at work early this morning tracking luggage and trying to find us a flight to Maui (Moee or something close to this is how the locals say it).

Notice the MotoSprint phone too, it is continuing to work like a million dollars here in Honolulu.   Imagine no longer paying a phone bill when you vacation.   This is fantastic.  I hope this lasts.  Sheri just said she found our luggage somewhere in Mauii and they promised to keep an eye on it until AA decides is okay for us to travel the last leg of our flight (s) out.  As for the phone, will it work on the beach ? somewhere outside the cities ?  I know most of us are worried about vacation but kevin is keeping an eye on the technology too.  If you could see all the batteries I've got with us you'd be buying battery stock now rather than cruising k's web pages.  Note the cell phone survey being conducted throughout the trip is coming up basically MOT.  I've seen atleast one Nokia, around 10 star tacs, couple are even the new silver guys.  Also wil point out that the skytel pager is getting news so there is coverage but none of my pages are finding their way to this part of the planet.  Oh well, I check the news once a day and kissed it off.

Side tracked there for awhile, now Kevin looks out the window at the wonderful view on this our first beautiful day in Hawaii.  This is the special AA day on Oahu which they threw in the package for nothing.

Ah, but it beats sleeping in the airport.   Looking over the other direction out the window which only opens about 4 inches I see this.

At this point my faith in god and every thing that is good is restored, this must be a sign that things will start looking up.   Sheri indicates that we can get on a 10:40 flight to Mauii and its even on the airline which is holding our bags hostage.   This is even better.   This is wonderful, wow, this was surely sent from the Hawaiin travel gods which kevin prayed to last night just after the nap in the hotel lobby and just before crashing at the old Honolulu Airport Best Western. Don't tell Sheri, she thinks its her travel planning skills. I turn to look back out the window and..........

A sure sign that things are looking up.  Of f to breakfast.......more when we have some time.........

Returning much later to this little effort, its actually end of day 3 but back to remainder of day 2.

We headed off to the Honolulu airport, checked out of our lovely accomodations and are moving again.  We arrive at the airport, head for Hawaiin Air and are pleased as there are no American Airlines people anywhere to be found.  Further they are pleased that we have no baggage (never knew how nice this could be) despite the fact that as usual there are more carry ons than you can count.  Each time we go through the security check points the computer never gets a look but the minidisc player with headphones with a long cord hanging out gets them everytime.  Each time we open it up and they look at the minidisc player and they say "cd player ?".  I assure that its not but that it is harmless and off we go.  We arrive at the gate and we are actually way early.  Looks like its time for another flight change.  We visit the gate and ask if we can move up one flight and faster than we can get two people to the washroom (while the other keeps an eye on the technology) we changing to the earlier flight.    Of course while typing it in they comment again, "no luggage checked ?".  We assure them that it was checked a couple days back in Chicago and tell them about the collection we are taking up for ransom so that we may have more than one change of underwear for this special occasion.  Last comment here was the flight attendant who wanted Kevin's machine turned off before takeoff, I assured her that I had asked it to turn off but that Bill Gates' little OS takes its own sweet time.  I showed her the "you may turn off your computer now" screen.  This seemed to make her happy that we won't be interfering with the take off. 

Arrived at the airport in Maui which is beautiful compared with LA and Honolulu.  Very open and nice, short trip and we have a car and we are on our way to the Royal Hahana which is just north of Kaanapali (think Robin Leach and you'll have it rolling off your tongue in no time).

Sheri's luggage gets a flat in the parking lot on the way in.    Kevin lacking tools just drags it along.  Looks fatal but leave this for later.  We check in very uneventfully and the AA Fedex which they were to send us is actually here waiting for us.  Of course were a day late so.......

Room is on the 12th floor ocean view.

More pics from the lanai......

This is cool, Kevin who has actually held up incredibly well through this travelling excitement at this point gives the new digs the seal of approval.    Next stop is the beach.

Here is where we tested the MotoSprint phone.  First call from the beach is a complete success.  Ask Joni to call us back to make sure that we can be found even in the middle of the Pacific and it works like a champ.   Its dark there at home and we're laying in the sun making phone calls, free long distance too.   They are not betting on us doing this very often but we are getting our money's worth from the Sprint guys.  Seems like MOT is a good buy any way I look at it at the moment.

Next, the problem we have on every vacation, Kevin takes too many pictures of birds, animals......just about anything he can find.  This chews up film and makes the developers a fortune.  Plus relatives have to wade through all of these when we get back.   The solution ? digital camera.  Bits are cheap and I can click to my heart's content anything that I'd like.

Note here for those that care (Kim remember our discussions on how much RAM to have for the new machine), this little Sony is a dream for this but at the moment, front page, front page editor, explorer and communicator is making this little guy very unhappy.  Definitely need more RAM for the next vacation (which I will mention current discussion says we are thinking about a month's leave of abscence from work and disappearing to out here for a little more than a vacation, yeah, fat chance, one problem, one of our readers will have to take in the cats cause the quarantine out here is ridiculous).

Back to the excessive pictures of stuff at the beach......

Pigeons all over the place and they will dig for food all over, head goes back and forth side to side, dig, dig, dig.....

Another little guy who just kept visitting me.

OK, just a little more from the beach, the view looking up when the clouds hide the sun.

A matter of minutes later when the clouds move quickly.......

Those were looking straight up, these are the other direction to indicate Kevin's been here, couldn't find anyone else reading pilot stuff on the beach.

Sheri did brave the cool water first.

At this point we bale and head back to the condo.

As we return, Sheri is talking about going out to see the sunset, Kevin says it will be an hour or so yet.  Sheri is preparing, Kevin is thinking siesta.   Compromise, Sheri stakes out the best spots to see the sunset.  Kevin ? ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz.........

Well skeptical as I was ( I just remember the sunrise on Haleakala the last time I was here), we headed off to see the sunset.  All I can say is, she was right, it was truly kool and much warmer than at the top of a volcano.  Some of those watching had out shells and were sounding them off to indicate it was sundown.  This was eary (sp?) but truly an experience.  Enuf (as in Znuff) said, pictures take it from here.

Once the sun was gone to camera lost ability to focus and they faded from here on out. 

Off to dinner in Whaler's Village or something like that.  Dinner was at the Hula Grill.  No pics 8-(

I'm about a day behind but stay tuned, tomorrow were headed for the rain forest......

I'm back......its actually the end of day 5 and I'm catching up today, been way out in the country in Hana (R,F) which was a wonderful ride with some fantastic falls and rock climbing but no technology whatsover so the postcards have been down for a few days.   Good news is we are staying here in Kuaii from here on out. Now for some catchup......First, our first day in the rain forest. Day 3 in Maui, headed for something called the Iao (eeao) Needle.