Finally … Hawaii Bound ?

Getting together with others we know is a pretty common thing during the months of January and February.  That’s especially true if we happen to be in Arizona during those months. Friday was no exception and we were busy at the SanTan Brewery passing along stories and telling lies. The little town of Chandler does have a cute downtown area with several unique shops and restaurants.  It’s definitely worth a trip if you’re in the area.  We had a fun, fun time.

What a group this was for sure!

After our little get together we noticed a Farmer’s Market getting ready to set up across the street.  We were too early for most of it but we did find something we wanted.  We had been looking for a very small table this size so it didn’t take much thinking to make up our mind that we had to have it.

We made another discovery.  Murphy’s Law Irish Pub was just down the main walkway.  We hadn’t been there but certainly wanted to.  Quickly we jotted it down on our next must-do place.  With a phone call to Terry’s mom, we put an invite out for the very next day.  We have very few days left in this area and knew we had to make the most out of the ones we do have left.   We also knew the very next day was going to be a busy one.  After all, we had to get ready for our trip to Hawaii.  Packing a lot of stuff isn’t our thing but we still had to assemble a few things.  With packing what little we were going to take and getting everything else in order, the lunch at Murphy’s Law needed to be a quick one.

It wasn’t as quick as we hoped but the food was certainly good.  All three of us ordered Shepherd’s Pie.  It was a little different than what we had tasted previously but very good.  Another thing they had on their menu was sliders – corned beef and cabbage sliders.  I sure would have liked to have tasted those.  As it was none of us could finish the huge portion we were served of Shepherd Pie and we all walked out with leftovers.

Like I said, I knew Saturday would be a busy day.  It wasn’t all just packing and securing.  I knew much of it would be spent figuring out just how we were going to get from the Phoenix airport to the Honolulu airport.  Flights were pretty full and I figured this might call for “creative” flying.   First I thought we might have to go from Phoenix to Las Vegas to Los Angeles to Honolulu.  Then, I discovered a flight from Phoenix to Long Beach with a shuttle to Los Angeles and then to Honolulu.  With a little more research a better option showed up.  This was  a flight on Delta from Phoenix to Los Angeles with lots of empty seats!  Now we just hoped the flight stayed that way.  Once in LA, there were better options for the final leg of the trip – LAX to HNL – and the flights looked like a piece of cake. 

Researching hotels in the Waikiki area was another interesting task for Saturday.  After all if we were traveling on Sunday, we needed some place to stay that night.  Hotels in Hawaii are not known for being cheap or even reasonable for that matter.  Finding a nice hotel within a couple blocks of the beach and under $200 a night can be difficult.  In addition to the room charge most hotels tack on a resort fee of at least $25+.   The resort fee  applies if the hotel isn’t on the beach!  I can now say mission accomplished.  We're ready to go but just have to wait until morning.  The alarm is set and everything else finished .... we hope.

Now that the plan is in place and the details figured out, all I can say is I hope it stays that way.  I hope no airline cancels a flight and puts their passengers on mine.  I hope there aren’t any mechanical issues that cause an airplane to be grounded.  I don’t have a crystal ball.  All I can do right now is cross my fingers and hope at this time tomorrow night that I’m watching the sunset from Waikiki just like when I took this picture last August.

When we return we’ll have a couple more days before we pull our motorhome out of its site and head south towards Tucson.  It’ll be good to get on the road again.

‘Tis life on the road …. and, sometimes in the air.

PS ... One more thing.  We did get the kayak we were floating in the pool (from our previous blog) back into the bag without too much difficulty.  Whee!  It was much easier than we thought it would be.