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Another Day, Another Cancellation
Nov. 29th, 2023 09:52 pmMan, this trip was cursed, particularly the travel portion of it.
I woke up this morning to the sound of rain against the windows in our "suite" up in the sky in Honolulu. Very pleasant.
After my morning shower, I decided to go out for a walk since we had a plenty of time before we were going to go out to lunch before returning home. Though I took an umbrella with me (I *always* have an umbrella in my backpack because I live in Hawaii), it turned out that the morning shower was somewhat superfluous.
Fun walk! And it let me improve my patchwork knowledge of Oahu neighborhoods, something I do more every time I'm there. I walked through Chinatown and then up a small stream that's actually the convergence of two streams and then circled around a couple of parks, one that I've been to before and one that I definitely want to after seeing it in the distance. It was raining, but my umbrella kept me from getting TOO wet. And then it just started pouring when I was at least a block from the hotel. I was very wet by the time I got back, even with umbrella. (Should have brought a rain coat too! Both Kimberly and I thought about it!)
I hung out at the hotel room for another hour or so, and didn't really get dry, and then we headed out to the Dim Sum restaurant. We got pretty wet just getting into the car! But the Dim Sum was great. (Kauai is a Dim Sum desert, so we make sure to partake when we're in the "big city".)
--
But after that we were off to the airport and that's where the fun began.
We had a 1.20 flight, with the plan being to land on Kauai about 2, take care of a few errands in town, and then come home well before my 5pm game.
Except I look up our flight in FlightAware and click through to the previous flight, the one that's supposed to supply us with a plane. Hawaii runs its interisland flights very tight, and so it's always one flight arrives, people get off, and they're immediately loading people for the next leg. And I soon discover that our would-be plane is circling Honolulu. I watch it come in for one landing, then pull up after being down to a few hundred feet, and then it does it again, and then the flight is heading way, way west and I'm pretty sure it's decided to go land on Kauai instead. (And it eventually does.)
The culprit is of course that weather. (Remember that drenching rain? Foreshadowing!) So when they start making an announcement I *know* they're going to be cancelling the flight, our second cancellation of the trip, and so I'm most of the way to the gate agent by the time they say that. There's two people already in front of me. The second is a very rude guy who gets all Karen-y about how he's in line and people have to stand behind him, and I tell him, no we're not going to stand in the middle of the whole walkway like he does, but yes he's welcome to keep his place in front of me. "CALM DOWN", he tells me, and I start ignoring him at that point. I line up to the side like a normal human being as does everyone else, but he's definitely gone onto my overentitled douchebag list. And, hey, it turns out that he's the father of the three children who have been literally RACING up and down the small walkway screaming for the last 30 minutes.
The sad part here is the total lack of karma. As our flight is being cancelled, there's ANOTHER flight for Kauai that's boarding (because we're at least 30 or 60 minutes behind by this point, and Hawaiian runs flights every 30 or 60 minutes). The gate agent deals with the first gal in line then douchebag, his wife, and their three hellspawn, and she tells him he's lucky, he got the last seats on the flight that's just leaving.
(And I suddenly know how Amazing Racers feel, and I'm not even racing for a million dollars, I'm just trying to get home.)
But then she prints up my ticket, and it's for that flight. YAY! Except she somehow missed Kimberly. And so she rips up the first ticket, prints two more, and they're for a 2.30 flight. That's unfortunately over in another section of the airport, which sucks because of Kimberly's knee problems, but we hustle over.
Hustle and wait.
Shortly after our 2.30 departure has flipped to 3.15 and I've watched THIS plane that's supposed to be heading our way sitting on the tarmac at Kona for an hour before _finally_ taking off, an announcement tells us that due to the weather (which seems to have dropped from torrential to light rain) ALL OF THE RUNWAYS ARE CLOSED and all planes are being diverted back to their airports.
I start to wonder if we're ever getting home.
But things look like they're starting to turn around, because our plane doesn't. It keeps resolutely heading our way, and I've now got some of seatmates also trying to get home also watching the animated plane move on my laptop. And it finally does one broad loop of Honolulu AND LANDS.
The drama's not quite over yet.
They're slow to start boarding.
We sit around for a while on the plane because they're loading luggage forever, I assume because they're collecting it from other flights.
And then we get onto the runway, and all is well
AND THEN THEY PULL US BACK OFF THE RUNWAY, TO THE SIDE.
This time, it was apparently a data problem. They said it was something about the count or weight of their cargo. I have to guess the actual value didn't match their computer value. But they managed to get an "update from [or for] the computer" and then they were allowed to take-off.
Wow.
Very turbulent ride back.
But Julie the Benz was waiting at the Lihue parking lot. We just ducked in under a day away, which meant $15 rather than $30 parking fee.
Taco Bell, Home. It's after 5pm by this point, but we've already cancelled the day's gaming. So it's The Challenge instead.
Kimberly agrees when I called it a hellish trip. Except maybe the Dim Sum. And the walk before it became a drenching.
I mean, well worth going, because Kimberly got her MRI, and we already got the results. (Did I bury the lede? I probably buried the lede. But her results were a sesquipedalian mishmash of huge words that pretty much said she has a very rare problem with some sort of fracturing of something that is likely to require surgery, and she set up an appointment with an orthopedist, but in the continued series of we-can't-get-timely-medical-care-on-Kauai, it's scheduled for mid-January.)
But almost everything that could go wrong with the travel did.
Happy to be home. Doesn't seem to be raining, nor has it since our return.
I woke up this morning to the sound of rain against the windows in our "suite" up in the sky in Honolulu. Very pleasant.
After my morning shower, I decided to go out for a walk since we had a plenty of time before we were going to go out to lunch before returning home. Though I took an umbrella with me (I *always* have an umbrella in my backpack because I live in Hawaii), it turned out that the morning shower was somewhat superfluous.
Fun walk! And it let me improve my patchwork knowledge of Oahu neighborhoods, something I do more every time I'm there. I walked through Chinatown and then up a small stream that's actually the convergence of two streams and then circled around a couple of parks, one that I've been to before and one that I definitely want to after seeing it in the distance. It was raining, but my umbrella kept me from getting TOO wet. And then it just started pouring when I was at least a block from the hotel. I was very wet by the time I got back, even with umbrella. (Should have brought a rain coat too! Both Kimberly and I thought about it!)
I hung out at the hotel room for another hour or so, and didn't really get dry, and then we headed out to the Dim Sum restaurant. We got pretty wet just getting into the car! But the Dim Sum was great. (Kauai is a Dim Sum desert, so we make sure to partake when we're in the "big city".)
--
But after that we were off to the airport and that's where the fun began.
We had a 1.20 flight, with the plan being to land on Kauai about 2, take care of a few errands in town, and then come home well before my 5pm game.
Except I look up our flight in FlightAware and click through to the previous flight, the one that's supposed to supply us with a plane. Hawaii runs its interisland flights very tight, and so it's always one flight arrives, people get off, and they're immediately loading people for the next leg. And I soon discover that our would-be plane is circling Honolulu. I watch it come in for one landing, then pull up after being down to a few hundred feet, and then it does it again, and then the flight is heading way, way west and I'm pretty sure it's decided to go land on Kauai instead. (And it eventually does.)
The culprit is of course that weather. (Remember that drenching rain? Foreshadowing!) So when they start making an announcement I *know* they're going to be cancelling the flight, our second cancellation of the trip, and so I'm most of the way to the gate agent by the time they say that. There's two people already in front of me. The second is a very rude guy who gets all Karen-y about how he's in line and people have to stand behind him, and I tell him, no we're not going to stand in the middle of the whole walkway like he does, but yes he's welcome to keep his place in front of me. "CALM DOWN", he tells me, and I start ignoring him at that point. I line up to the side like a normal human being as does everyone else, but he's definitely gone onto my overentitled douchebag list. And, hey, it turns out that he's the father of the three children who have been literally RACING up and down the small walkway screaming for the last 30 minutes.
The sad part here is the total lack of karma. As our flight is being cancelled, there's ANOTHER flight for Kauai that's boarding (because we're at least 30 or 60 minutes behind by this point, and Hawaiian runs flights every 30 or 60 minutes). The gate agent deals with the first gal in line then douchebag, his wife, and their three hellspawn, and she tells him he's lucky, he got the last seats on the flight that's just leaving.
(And I suddenly know how Amazing Racers feel, and I'm not even racing for a million dollars, I'm just trying to get home.)
But then she prints up my ticket, and it's for that flight. YAY! Except she somehow missed Kimberly. And so she rips up the first ticket, prints two more, and they're for a 2.30 flight. That's unfortunately over in another section of the airport, which sucks because of Kimberly's knee problems, but we hustle over.
Hustle and wait.
Shortly after our 2.30 departure has flipped to 3.15 and I've watched THIS plane that's supposed to be heading our way sitting on the tarmac at Kona for an hour before _finally_ taking off, an announcement tells us that due to the weather (which seems to have dropped from torrential to light rain) ALL OF THE RUNWAYS ARE CLOSED and all planes are being diverted back to their airports.
I start to wonder if we're ever getting home.
But things look like they're starting to turn around, because our plane doesn't. It keeps resolutely heading our way, and I've now got some of seatmates also trying to get home also watching the animated plane move on my laptop. And it finally does one broad loop of Honolulu AND LANDS.
The drama's not quite over yet.
They're slow to start boarding.
We sit around for a while on the plane because they're loading luggage forever, I assume because they're collecting it from other flights.
And then we get onto the runway, and all is well
AND THEN THEY PULL US BACK OFF THE RUNWAY, TO THE SIDE.
This time, it was apparently a data problem. They said it was something about the count or weight of their cargo. I have to guess the actual value didn't match their computer value. But they managed to get an "update from [or for] the computer" and then they were allowed to take-off.
Wow.
Very turbulent ride back.
But Julie the Benz was waiting at the Lihue parking lot. We just ducked in under a day away, which meant $15 rather than $30 parking fee.
Taco Bell, Home. It's after 5pm by this point, but we've already cancelled the day's gaming. So it's The Challenge instead.
Kimberly agrees when I called it a hellish trip. Except maybe the Dim Sum. And the walk before it became a drenching.
I mean, well worth going, because Kimberly got her MRI, and we already got the results. (Did I bury the lede? I probably buried the lede. But her results were a sesquipedalian mishmash of huge words that pretty much said she has a very rare problem with some sort of fracturing of something that is likely to require surgery, and she set up an appointment with an orthopedist, but in the continued series of we-can't-get-timely-medical-care-on-Kauai, it's scheduled for mid-January.)
But almost everything that could go wrong with the travel did.
Happy to be home. Doesn't seem to be raining, nor has it since our return.
