![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aI roll out of bed about 5.30, fifteen minutes before my alarm goes off. It gives me enough time to take a shower before we leave, which is nice. These trips out to the airport have become entirely normal in recent years, so I'm feeling scant stress.
The only hard part is saying goodbye to the kitties, not because I'll miss them (though I will), but because I always feel bad leaving them all alone in the house. I think I was maybe more nonchalant before the year that Munchkin locked herself in a room, and before the year that we left Lucy on her own and she was so obviously terribly lonely when we got back. (It was the mew heard around the world.) This year I worry because Callisto is limping around and doesn't seem to have gotten better, but likely that won't change in the week we're gone, as it hasn't changed in the last two months. And Julia will be in to see them every day.
We're through the airport to our gate in thirty minutes or so. The only slight catch is at security where an idiot TSA agent neglects to ask Kimberly if she has any sensitive spots, then pokes her right in the scar.
Our plane is one of Hawaiian's new Airbuses. They're what have allowed for the new direct flight from Oakland to Lihue, but they're smaller than I'm used to. Just one aisle, and it's clear that even the staff isn't used to that, because they're constantly making announcements about how we can't get up out of our seats at all when the cart is moving through the plane's single aisle, and did they mention ... it's a single aisle. Also, just three lavs for all the proletariat, which seems skimpy. (Indeed, there were intermittently long lines, often streaming up to the fourth or so row in front of the lavs; unfortunately, our seats were in the third such row.)
We have one other slight catch on the plane. Their breakfast is (remarkably) hot food, rather than the diabetic breakfast of sweet rolls and cookies that we've gotten before on Hawaiian. But it's an egg sandwich, which Kimberly can't eat. So, we get her something packaged off of the scam cart, alas.
As is typical for my flying experience, the person in front of me is one of the sociopaths on the plane, so he puts his seat back the second he can. And doesn't even put it up for breakfast. Or landing. But these new Airbuses at least seem to have a little more leg room, and he doesn't make my knees bash into my jaw when he pushes back, as is the case nowadays on most of the long-haul trips I take. (Remarkably, Hawaii is now one of my shorter plane trips, and just under six hours going to the islands.)
A seat behind me and across the aisle, a guy spends the first thirty or forty minutes braying about how he needs to get on the internet so that he can do work. He tries again and again to go through Hawaiian's entertainment wifi system to find the internet, and keeps proclaiming to everyone who cares (well, actually to everyone around him, because no one cares) that he can't find it. Finally, he corners a flight attendant who explains to him that they don't have internet on the flight. He throws considerably less of a fit than I expected given all the whining beforehand.
Meanwhile, the other woman in our row keeps practically climbing over the back of her seat to get at her boyfriend. And then late in the flight she starts writing something on her computer, but apparently can only write if she speaks all the words out loud. Kimberly later tells me that she's applying for a teaching job, which we both find ironic.
Ah, humanity, and all your sniffling, coughing, sneezing disease. I'm glad I'm not usually in this close of quarters with you.
Did I mention this is our last vacation to Kauai? Because next time we come out here, it's the big move. But as my dad points out, we might still vacation on Hawaii, just on other islands.
So we arrived in Lihue before noon. This is shockingly early, and was thanks to the non-stop flight, which is amazing. Usually this is just our travel day, but we actually ended up with a good chunk of the day in Kauai!
So we went to Costco and then home and had a (slightly late) lunch. Then hung out for a while before swimming.
Yep, first swim on the first day, haven't done that for a while!
In any case, we're now safely at home at my dad and Mary's house, and this is presumably also the last time we'll be house guests here.
Times are a'changing.
The only hard part is saying goodbye to the kitties, not because I'll miss them (though I will), but because I always feel bad leaving them all alone in the house. I think I was maybe more nonchalant before the year that Munchkin locked herself in a room, and before the year that we left Lucy on her own and she was so obviously terribly lonely when we got back. (It was the mew heard around the world.) This year I worry because Callisto is limping around and doesn't seem to have gotten better, but likely that won't change in the week we're gone, as it hasn't changed in the last two months. And Julia will be in to see them every day.
We're through the airport to our gate in thirty minutes or so. The only slight catch is at security where an idiot TSA agent neglects to ask Kimberly if she has any sensitive spots, then pokes her right in the scar.
Our plane is one of Hawaiian's new Airbuses. They're what have allowed for the new direct flight from Oakland to Lihue, but they're smaller than I'm used to. Just one aisle, and it's clear that even the staff isn't used to that, because they're constantly making announcements about how we can't get up out of our seats at all when the cart is moving through the plane's single aisle, and did they mention ... it's a single aisle. Also, just three lavs for all the proletariat, which seems skimpy. (Indeed, there were intermittently long lines, often streaming up to the fourth or so row in front of the lavs; unfortunately, our seats were in the third such row.)
We have one other slight catch on the plane. Their breakfast is (remarkably) hot food, rather than the diabetic breakfast of sweet rolls and cookies that we've gotten before on Hawaiian. But it's an egg sandwich, which Kimberly can't eat. So, we get her something packaged off of the scam cart, alas.
As is typical for my flying experience, the person in front of me is one of the sociopaths on the plane, so he puts his seat back the second he can. And doesn't even put it up for breakfast. Or landing. But these new Airbuses at least seem to have a little more leg room, and he doesn't make my knees bash into my jaw when he pushes back, as is the case nowadays on most of the long-haul trips I take. (Remarkably, Hawaii is now one of my shorter plane trips, and just under six hours going to the islands.)
A seat behind me and across the aisle, a guy spends the first thirty or forty minutes braying about how he needs to get on the internet so that he can do work. He tries again and again to go through Hawaiian's entertainment wifi system to find the internet, and keeps proclaiming to everyone who cares (well, actually to everyone around him, because no one cares) that he can't find it. Finally, he corners a flight attendant who explains to him that they don't have internet on the flight. He throws considerably less of a fit than I expected given all the whining beforehand.
Meanwhile, the other woman in our row keeps practically climbing over the back of her seat to get at her boyfriend. And then late in the flight she starts writing something on her computer, but apparently can only write if she speaks all the words out loud. Kimberly later tells me that she's applying for a teaching job, which we both find ironic.
Ah, humanity, and all your sniffling, coughing, sneezing disease. I'm glad I'm not usually in this close of quarters with you.
Did I mention this is our last vacation to Kauai? Because next time we come out here, it's the big move. But as my dad points out, we might still vacation on Hawaii, just on other islands.
So we arrived in Lihue before noon. This is shockingly early, and was thanks to the non-stop flight, which is amazing. Usually this is just our travel day, but we actually ended up with a good chunk of the day in Kauai!
So we went to Costco and then home and had a (slightly late) lunch. Then hung out for a while before swimming.
Yep, first swim on the first day, haven't done that for a while!
In any case, we're now safely at home at my dad and Mary's house, and this is presumably also the last time we'll be house guests here.
Times are a'changing.