Two Wednesdays

In the Air – Wednesday, February 13 #1

My duffel weighed in just over 50# so I moved a couple things to my carry-on. Overweight bag fees seem to run between $100-200 – ouch! The flight left on time and was pretty uneventful – 8 hours from Guam to Honolulu. It was hard to believe my month on the islands was over – I saw so much, and learned so much, and met so many people, I almost didn’t want it to end, but I’m also really looking forward to resuming my journey on the mainland in my own van, and being reunited with Tula, and spending some time with Toni. They served us breakfast, then ice cream sandwiches for a snack, and sandwiches later. My seat mate was a native of Guam – about my age, and we talked about the island, and he mentioned how the younger generation isn’t learning the native language or anything. It turns out he’s a former police officer who mostly does crash investigation now. We talked about the theft of my purse, and he’s very aware of some if these thefts and told me how quickly they can break into vehicles. He offered to look into my case when he returned from Hawaii because he still knows everyone on the force. And when we exchanged cards at the end of the flight, I wrote down “my” officer’s name, and it turned out to be this guy’s nephew! What are the odds? If they can catch the guys, what they did was a felony and they could end up behind bars.

We took off from Guam at 7:15 Wednesday morning, and crossed the international date line, and arrived in Honolulu about 8:30 Tuesday night, 11 hours before we took off! Weird! But it makes up for losing the day on the way out.

I just stayed at the airport overnight – had to be back at the crack of dawn anyway – and Honolulu hotels are so expensive, especially with taxi fares it both ways – the couple hotels that actually had shuttles had been booked up for a while. And since I wasn’t tired it seemed silly to waste a lot of money. So I found a spot with a comfortable bench up against a wall and settled in, and I could get on the computer, so it started off fine. After a while, a young lady the age of my kids wandered over with her backpack and gear – she was flying home to Australia after an extensive backpacking trip throughout the US. We talked for quite a while and that helped pass time. She pulled out her sleeping bag and got comfortable on the floor, and it made me wish I had my sleeping bag! A couple other people were sleeping on the floor too. Eventually I got a little tired, and by then the airport was pretty quiet, and I tried to get comfortable using one beach towel under me and one as a blanket, but I only got a little fitful sleep – just couldn’t get very comfortable!

In The Air – Wednesday, February 13 #2

I got checked into my flight to San Diego at dawn, and then had trouble staying awake both in the waiting room and on the plane. So I got a bit of sleep. We lost a couple more hours on the way to California, so it was evening when we landed again – back on the mainland! My cousin Gunnar picked me up – he and his wife Linda live in Denmark but have a home in San Diego, and they were in town, so we had a great evening at their beautiful home. I hadn’t seen them for years and it was so nice to get caught up. Linda had made a really nice meal, and we stayed up late visiting despite an early flight in the morning back to Florida – I slept like a rock when I turned in, and wished I could have slept another 10 hours! The lack of sleep is catching up!