We made it!

So I think I surprised her. I started off by turning on the video camera, which may have spooked her a bit. Then I told her that I had been lying to her for a year. She seemed a bit shocked:) I tossed her the wrapped tour book of Kauai, which she unwrapped and just stared at it. I said, “That is where we are going.” She started the “are you kidding” marathon. It took several minutes to convince her that I was serious, but she finally believed me. The few people that have found out since say I have earned a bunch of brownie points, which is good I guess, but I really just want my wife to be happy and I thought this just might do the trick. I don’t want you to think she wasn’t all ready happy, I mean, she is married to me:)
Our flights were good, but the day started at 4am, so I’m guessing it won’t be a late night in Hawaii. We didn’t exactly get to the airport when we wanted, so there was a huge line. Luckily, the curbside check guy came by and told us he could help us. He printed our boarding passes, checked in our bags and probably saved us 45 minutes, easy. I’ve never really used the curbside check in, but next time, I think I’ll print my boarding passes at home and check my bag curbside and skip the whole line thing. We flew to Denver first, and saw the plane that crashed a week or so ago, still sitting in a field at the end of the runway. I’m really not afraid to fly, but seeing a crashed plane sure makes you think twice. The flight had an episode of The Office, so I was entertained for a half hour. Our second leg into LA was started with a guy who was supposed to sit at the bulkhead, which I’m sure you know means he doesn’t have a seat in front of him in which to put his bag. If you sit here, you have to put your stuff in the overhead bin, which was full. The flight staff (not sure what they want to be called now) was attempting to find a place to put his bag, but it was 10 to 12 rows behind him, which didn’t sit well with him. As he approached my row, he was complaining to the staff, which I’m not sure what he wanted them to do, build another over head? Ask everyone in the area to reclaim their bags so they could re-distribute them to better accommodate this guy? Yes, lets hold up a plane so you can easier access to your MP3 player, I mean, who wants to be on time. He finally huffed that he would just sit in the empty seat in the row in front of me, luckily not in the empty seat next to me. If you read my blog from when I came home from El Paso last time, you know that I have a history of pissed off people sitting near me coming out of Denver. It must be the altitude. We made it to LA without this guy going off, but I did hear the flight staff say when he went back to get his bag, “Great, we have a bunch of happy people on board today.” (and that was full of sarcasm if you couldn’t guess). The rest of the flights were good, but I realized 6 hours sitting in a seat hurts my knees really bad. I'm not sure how I'm going to do 15 hours to South Africa, but I'll suck it up and only whine a little bit (Get ready Chad). Our luggage was the last to come out, so I was a bit nervous, but at least I wasn't one of the 3 couples still standing there when I left, looking into the that luggage hole with nothing coming out. We picked up our Mustang 5.0 convertible, which I'm sure screams "tourist" to the locals, but I always wanted to drive one, so here is my chance. I will say that you can squeal tires, in the middle of the night, in a very quite neighborhood on a slightly damp blacktop road, just in case you were wondering. No better way to tell the new neighbors we are here than to lay a patch in your first hour here. We met the people who live in the house next to ours, really nice. I hope we can spend a little time with them. They just retired here from Alaska, even though they don't appear to be old enough to retire. They gave us a few local tips to go along with the tips I got from Roxanne at work who has been here several times. One thing I learned last night is, when it gets dark in Hawaii, it gets freaking dark. Headlights can only light up a patch in front of you, then, nothing. We have to drive on a road that reminds me of the roads in Jamaica, very narrow and blind corners. I hope I don't meet anyone in those stretches, might have to see if my rental can 4 wheel drive.