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Off to San Jose
Sep. 11th, 2023 10:40 pmOFF TO SAN JOSE
Off to the airport this morning, to hop on an airplane to San Jose, where I'll stay a few days before heading on to Germany. Having a layover like that is the only way (currently) to avoid two consecutive red eyes traveling from Hawaii to Europe, which would absolutely trash my sleeping schedule.
I have been actively dreading this trip for so long that it's no big surprise that I'm feeling sick to my stomach all morning. It lets off enough for me to get from home to the airport, but then settles in again when I have a hurried Burger King meal in Maui. Bleh.
It's not that I'm dreading the trip. I love seeing the folks in San Martin, and I love traveling to Europe. It's that I've long dreaded leaving Lucy with all the problems of the summer.
But honestly, things are better than I could have hoped. Lucy's feeding tube is out for a week now. She's been eating. She isn't willing to eat as much at a sitting as we'd like, but she returns to the food again and again if it's one of the more acceptable dishes (which unfortunately is a constantly moving target).
At Lihue, the PreTSA line seems to be longer than the regular line. For quite a while at Lihue, the lines have been comparable, but this is the first time PreTSA was longer. But there's no way I'm taking off my belt and shoes or subjecting myself to the naked photograph machine, so I definitely hop into PreTSA, even if it's a few minutes longer. Still, it's probably only 10 minutes total.
I have no seat mate on the trip from Lihue to Maui. In olden days, it was just a matter of comfort, but today it's a matter of health too. So I purposefully picked the left side of the plane, which only has two seats on those little puddle jumpers, and far enough back in the plane that it shouldn't be seen as super valuable. So in a non-full flight in a world where most people travel to and from Kauai in groups of two to eight, my companion seat is most likely to be occupied. Sure enough!
On the flight over to Maui, as I thought would be the case, we pass right by Lahaina. I'm more surprised that the pilot points it out. It's a big blackened stretch, but there are some other buildings fairly close to it. But we'd seen that in the news reports, that there were some houses right in the middle of the destruction that survived. It's sobering.
On my flight from Maui to San Jose I have another row to myself. This one was more hit or miss, but one of the exit rows on these Hawaiian Airbus 321s only has two seats in it, along with a pull-down seat for a stewardess (that's scarcely used). Those were fortunately available when I made my reservations, and so I took the window seat, and the other seat, which looks like a center, was untaken. Yay. Overall, that means a pretty safe flight, disease-wise, all the way from Lihue to San Jose.
Had a Pineapple Rum on the on the second flight, as various Rums are an occasional treat on Hawaiian Airlines. Spent the next hour struggling to stay awake and/or struggling to sleep in the confines of the plane, which is still not super comfortable for sleeping despite my awesome, empty exit row.
On a plane leaving Hawaii, one wonders how many of these people are thinking, "Well, that was a once in a lifetime experience." It's certainly how Kimberly and I felt about it back in 2001.
I get less work done on the flight than I'd hoped. Mostly on my Traveller history book. I do a third-draft edit of chapter 3 and get most of the way done with revamping the maps for that chapter. I also incorporate comments on chapter 9, I think. And then the 5 hour flight is done. Huh. I guess that means the work at least served its purpose of making the flight go by.
We have a failed Popeye's dinner. Bob remembered I'd asked for it last time, so he and my mom have their order ready to go. Except we fail to use their horrible website to order. Then we do it in person. And when we get home, about 30 minutes south, find they'd given us the wrong order. So no popcorn shrimp for me. We eat kinda' OK chicken nuggets and cajun fries instead.
And now I'm hearing about Lucy long distance. After a great breakfast she's apparently not going back to her food constantly, or really eating at all, at lunch time. Hopefully full from the breakfast? I dunno, I guess we'll see, but I do have some concern that she's going to literally be off her feed from me being at our town.
But at this point we've literally done what we can for her, and hopefully it's enough.
Now I have to see if I can manage to sleep at any sort of reasonable time, three time zones over.
Off to the airport this morning, to hop on an airplane to San Jose, where I'll stay a few days before heading on to Germany. Having a layover like that is the only way (currently) to avoid two consecutive red eyes traveling from Hawaii to Europe, which would absolutely trash my sleeping schedule.
I have been actively dreading this trip for so long that it's no big surprise that I'm feeling sick to my stomach all morning. It lets off enough for me to get from home to the airport, but then settles in again when I have a hurried Burger King meal in Maui. Bleh.
It's not that I'm dreading the trip. I love seeing the folks in San Martin, and I love traveling to Europe. It's that I've long dreaded leaving Lucy with all the problems of the summer.
But honestly, things are better than I could have hoped. Lucy's feeding tube is out for a week now. She's been eating. She isn't willing to eat as much at a sitting as we'd like, but she returns to the food again and again if it's one of the more acceptable dishes (which unfortunately is a constantly moving target).
At Lihue, the PreTSA line seems to be longer than the regular line. For quite a while at Lihue, the lines have been comparable, but this is the first time PreTSA was longer. But there's no way I'm taking off my belt and shoes or subjecting myself to the naked photograph machine, so I definitely hop into PreTSA, even if it's a few minutes longer. Still, it's probably only 10 minutes total.
I have no seat mate on the trip from Lihue to Maui. In olden days, it was just a matter of comfort, but today it's a matter of health too. So I purposefully picked the left side of the plane, which only has two seats on those little puddle jumpers, and far enough back in the plane that it shouldn't be seen as super valuable. So in a non-full flight in a world where most people travel to and from Kauai in groups of two to eight, my companion seat is most likely to be occupied. Sure enough!
On the flight over to Maui, as I thought would be the case, we pass right by Lahaina. I'm more surprised that the pilot points it out. It's a big blackened stretch, but there are some other buildings fairly close to it. But we'd seen that in the news reports, that there were some houses right in the middle of the destruction that survived. It's sobering.
On my flight from Maui to San Jose I have another row to myself. This one was more hit or miss, but one of the exit rows on these Hawaiian Airbus 321s only has two seats in it, along with a pull-down seat for a stewardess (that's scarcely used). Those were fortunately available when I made my reservations, and so I took the window seat, and the other seat, which looks like a center, was untaken. Yay. Overall, that means a pretty safe flight, disease-wise, all the way from Lihue to San Jose.
Had a Pineapple Rum on the on the second flight, as various Rums are an occasional treat on Hawaiian Airlines. Spent the next hour struggling to stay awake and/or struggling to sleep in the confines of the plane, which is still not super comfortable for sleeping despite my awesome, empty exit row.
On a plane leaving Hawaii, one wonders how many of these people are thinking, "Well, that was a once in a lifetime experience." It's certainly how Kimberly and I felt about it back in 2001.
I get less work done on the flight than I'd hoped. Mostly on my Traveller history book. I do a third-draft edit of chapter 3 and get most of the way done with revamping the maps for that chapter. I also incorporate comments on chapter 9, I think. And then the 5 hour flight is done. Huh. I guess that means the work at least served its purpose of making the flight go by.
We have a failed Popeye's dinner. Bob remembered I'd asked for it last time, so he and my mom have their order ready to go. Except we fail to use their horrible website to order. Then we do it in person. And when we get home, about 30 minutes south, find they'd given us the wrong order. So no popcorn shrimp for me. We eat kinda' OK chicken nuggets and cajun fries instead.
And now I'm hearing about Lucy long distance. After a great breakfast she's apparently not going back to her food constantly, or really eating at all, at lunch time. Hopefully full from the breakfast? I dunno, I guess we'll see, but I do have some concern that she's going to literally be off her feed from me being at our town.
But at this point we've literally done what we can for her, and hopefully it's enough.
Now I have to see if I can manage to sleep at any sort of reasonable time, three time zones over.