ROSEMARY'S ADVENTURES: THE OTHER HALF OF GETTING THERE

So lucky to have a good place to wait for boarding.


Handy Electrical Setup At Our Gate

Preparing the last blog at a nicely set-up electronic station at D-1 (our gate) is fairly easy. A bunch of us stand at a shelf with our equipment. I have to fiddle with blogger so the photos come out reasonably aligned. But it is good to standing. Walking back and forth to the bathroom and then to the fish place (where I get a $5 container of fruit) takes up some more time. And I talk with folks who, like me, wait for 4:40 to come around so we can board the aircraft to Hawaii.

A sturdily built dark-skinned woman with an adorable little girl is with a large gentleman I think might be her husband. I surmise they are Hawaiian but don’t bring it up. The baby is nine months old. Mom and the baby had a four month vacation in Bahrein (sp?) visiting her soldier husband. It was very hard leaving him. Her brother flew over to help her bring the baby back on the 14 hour plane trip. She was teething and not happy about it, her mom says, although the cutie is smiling and cavorting while we are in the waiting area. Her grandparents are waiting to babysit so mom can sleep when they get back. What a nice family!


Tail of Our Plane. Inuit with Lei

When the baby crawls all over his ample chest, I admire the tattoo on the brother’s right arm. A design, it looks aquatic somehow. When I tell his sister I admire it, she says, “It’s tribal.” They live in Honolulu. I tell the mother I was amazed to learn that the Hawaiian population was only 10% native Hawaiians as of the 2010 census. “I didn’t think it was that high,” she says somewhat disgustingly.

All three of them (husband, mother, and brother) just re-upped for six years in the service but they will all be stationed in San Diego starting March 1, which will be very wonderful.


Salmon Plane

The flight will be six hours long. I’m now wondering if I could have taken a different airline to get to Honolulu faster from Atlanta. It’s doubtful I’ll go to Hawaii again but if I do I’ll check that out for sure. I was so enamored of Alaska Airlines from my recent trip to Oregon that I wanted to fly it again and didn't know how to compute the time in the air.

The crew is so very helpful and pleasant. One has a beautiful flower in her hair. Another tells the folks in the exit aisle (jokingly) that because they have such a big responsibility they can’t drink alcohol. Everybody laughs. The Brits call them "trolley-dollies" but their responsibility for safety is huge.

Plane in the Dark Outside My Window

OK, so now I’m flummoxed again about time. It’s 6:19 PM up in the air above Seattle, 9:19 in Atlanta but only 4:19 in Honolulu. So how long have I been awake if the alarm rang at 1:30 AM? Almost 18 hours if I’m doing the math correctly. I am too tired and slightly jangled to figure out what it will be when I land in Hawaii at 9:30 PM.

Pilot: “I don’t want to alarm you but it will be bumpy for about 10 minutes. I’ve asked the crew to wait awhile before serving beverages.” I just love this part. I really do. While it is true we could go down it’s so very, very unlikely that I just enjoy the rockin' and rollin'.

Note to self: For night flights, get an aisle seat. All I can see out the window is the blinking red light and steady white light on the left wing. I limit my beverage intake so I disturb my buddies in seats 24B and 24C only twice to get to the bathroom.

My buddy in 24B is a young man five years out of high school. He is so happy to be coming home for a visit he can’t stop smiling As a Coast Guard cook, he lives and works in Ketchican Alaska. Where did you hear that place before? (The blog before this one.) His father’s side of the family and assorted neighbors use an immense spotlight and turn on all their car and truck lights on the beach New Year’s Eve so they can surf. They try to be on the last wave of the old year and the first wave of the new year (the very same wave if they’ve timed it right). His 85 year old grandfather still surfs. All the members of his father’s side of the family surf well (men and women). His mother’s side are not Hawaiian and focus on fishing.
Because he had Hawaiian lessons only in elementary school he does not speak Hawaiian as a pure language. But he and his family speak a combination of English with Hawaiian, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese words thrown in lavishly. He says, “It took two years -- two years -- for my friends in the Coast Guard to understand me. But I changed how I spoke also.”
“The Spanish brought us the guitar generations ago but we changed how it’s played.” (Slack key, which I love to hear.)

By the time I get on the shuttle outside Baggage Claim my knees are shaking from fatigue. I had reserved the budget transportation ($15) to travel with others to our various hotels. The Hawaii Prince Hotel is on the dock where sailboat masts are clanking just a tad from a light breeze. Air is very warm. I think my brain is still working until I try to figure out the room key. Thank goodness for directions printed on the back.