Here's the rub: We needed to find the time between (a) the end of my finals (Dec 20) and (b) the beginning of Mike starting his work at Dreamworks (Jan 5, yay!). Taking airfare into account, and all that fun stuff, the final call was to fly out on the morning of the 22nd (around 9:00 am) and arriving at 5:30 am or so on the 31st. ...This means that there was less than 48 hours between the end of my last final (ended at 3:30pm) and the flight to fit in (a) baking a ton of cupcakes and cookies for people for Christmas, (b) have lunch with the dance girls since one of them was visiting from Germany, (c) having dinner with my parents, (d) go to Mike's parents' place to get a ride to SFO in the morning, and, oh yeah, (e) PACK.
For the most part, things were done. Cupcakes and cookies were done for the most part, lunch was fun, dinner was good, packing managed to be stuffed somewhere in the nooks and crannies between everything, so all was well.
Maybe.
So apparently Mike and I are either really stupid, or I'm subconsciously sabotaging our trips so I can have something exciting to blog about.
Here's the exciting story of our leaving.
We made it back to Mike's parents' place, backed up my laptop since we were planning on taking it, repacked a little since we needed another luggage to fit our sleeping pads and hiking poles in (TSA would probably not appreciate all of that danging off our backpacks), and then it was already 1 in the morning. The plan was to wake up around 5:30 in the morning, leave at 6:30, get to the airport at 7:00 or so with enough time to check in bags, go through security, get some breakfast, and relax before boarding the plane. ...Or so was the plan.
We were able to get to the airport a bit after 7:00 am, saw the ridiculous holiday travel lines, groaned, and got in line at US Airways. We had booked our tickets through Orbitz, and it showed that it was a US Airways flight, which was not preferred, but oh well, what can you do. After waiting in line for about 20-30 minutes, Mike turns to me and goes "Oh. My. God. OUR TENT."
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Mike and I forgot our beautiful tent. Our beautiful tent that would protect us from Hawaii's winter rains, mosquitoes, and centipedes that apparently emerge during the rains and have REALLY painful bites. Yay. We being panicking, call Mike's parents and ask them to please turn back to the airport, and began wondering if we can make it back to Berkeley in time to get the tent (it being Monday morning at 7:45 in the morning), if his parents could ship us the tent, or what we could do. The problem was multi-folded: (1) we love our beautiful 4-season tent, (2) Hawaii was supposed to be raining like the dickens, and we did not want to be trapped without shelter, (3) everything in Hawaii closes at like, 5 pm, and our flight landed at 4:56 pm, (4) we are planning to leave at bright and early 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning to drive from Hilo to the Waipi'o Valley area because it was, according to most things we read, about an hour and a half drive, then we had to park at some store, pay for parking, and then hike the next mile to the Waipi'o Valley Lookout itself, and then proceed to hike down and up really steep hills, yay. So there was that.
All in the mean time, we stay in line at US Airways, and finally get to the counter for the self check-in kiosk things, sign in, and then the screen flashes that the flight was being flown by United.
United was not in the same terminal at US Airways. In fact, it is in another terminal basically on the other side of the airport.
What. The. #$%@.
So after waiting around for about 5 minutes for somebody to help us and confirm that our flight was indeed at United now, no help came, so Mike's dad (who had arrived at this point), showed us the underground passageway (i.e. the parking lot) to the other terminal, got there, and cried a little at how long the lines were and at how little time we had before the plane took off (about 45 minutes).
Mike was finally able to flag down somebody, I run over to his side of the terminal, toss our bags down, and run to the security. The security line looked long, and we told the person up front that our flight was to leave in 35 minutes or so. Apparently she thought we had time. To my surprise, it was actually a lot faster than I thought it would be. Still, we had to run through, rush to the restroom, and run to the gate. We got there just as the people were calling our names at the little desk in front of the gate, got our tickets, and boarded (they had already begun boarding).
We landed in Honolulu, had a 4-hour layover wherein we were able to get a roasted 1/2 chicken with veggies (yum), look at all the warnings about bringing flora and fauna from the mainlain to the islands and vice versa, and read a little.
We finally landed in Hilo, and, oh yeah, we still don't have a tent huh? So Mike's dad had convinced the Hilo Surplus Store to stay open until 6:00 pm, so we hoped and we hoped and we sacrificed a little baby to the gods in hopes that we could get there
We landed around 5:00 pm, our luggage was right there when we got to the carousel, and time was on our side. Until we arrived at Thrifty, proceeded to wait 20 minutes for somebody to get to us, get lost trying to find our rental car, return the rental car because something was screeching that should be not screeching, got a really hideous bright blue PT Cruiser, and rushed over and got to the Surplus Store at around 5:58 pm. We picked up a tent, a gas canister for our stove, a lighter, met the nicest people on earth, and finally stopped at the Hilo Bay Hostel, checked in, drove to Safeway for some food.
That was that.
Here is a picture of the Mauna Kea Observatory from the plane.
Thanks for putting up with all the text. It will be mostly pictures, as usual, at this point.
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