We got up around 7am, packed up all our gear in our luggage then stored it in the resort's shed. Then...our last, last, last trip (for this vacation) to Little Beach. Two desperate, final hours!
It was fantastic. Much swimming and sunning and watching of people.
Then we went back to the resort, showered up, packed up the car...
There is Luggage in Every Available Non-Driver Space in this Mustang...
We drove to Kahului and dropped Davie off at a book store. We leave at 3pm, but he doesn't leave until around 9pm. So he's going to "hang out" until then.
We get to the plane, check in, and fly off to Seattle. Only to discover that we're sitting next to the most ridiculous family on the planet. For these folks, the airline rules are only inconvenient suggestions that apply to other people.
- "Sit down and buckle up prior to take off," means let your infant out of his seat so she can walk back and forth across your laps.
- "We are now zooming down the runway," is Dad's cue to unbuckle, stand up, and open the overhead bin to dig a toy for the demon infant from the luggage! While we're gathering speed and about to lift off!
"Put All Your Shit Away for Safety."
Russell, however, has been using his iPad to master GarageBand! There's a whole story about Russ and the iPad...but he's been using it and using it well.
Once in Seattle, we have a 6-hour layover. And we discover a flaw in our plan.
We all carried all of our luggage on the Hawaiian plane except for the big suitcase which we checked. But our flight from Seattle is in 6 hours...on Southwest. Which means someone has to go outside TSA Security to get the bag, then recheck it with Southwest. Damian volunteers.
I discover that the bag has been deemed abandoned and put into long-term storage. I get someone to rescue it. Then I discover that I can't check in the bag until 4 hours before the flight, which means 230am. But...the Southwest ticket counter doesn't open until 430am! So I've gotta wait 4.5 hours to get it checked in before I can go through TSA to rejoin the family.
I sat in the ticketing area with my Macbook and iPad. I did some surfing, some blogging, some reading and gaming. I couldn't sleep at all. It was cold there! So cold that I caught a....cold.
Meanwhile, everyone else sleeps in the Southwest gate location.
Then, 4am rolled around. I went to the Southwest counter to check in...only to find that I was second in line! Already! What's more is thath first group is one of about 5 people who, instead of having actual luggage, used large ice chest / coolers instead. About 10 of them!
They then spent the entire half hour prior to the start of ticketing by putting each cooler on the scale weighing the chests. Then they'd open the chests and shift things around to try to get each chest under the 50-pound limit. Then they'd re-weigh, re-open, re-shift, re-close. Over and over and freaking over!
Eventually I got the bag checked, got through The Sexual Assault screening and to the gate. Then on the plane and off to Baltimore!
Where we discovered it was freaking cold! We got home and immediately scrambled for our sweatpants and hoodies!
A few hours earlier, we were hiding from the sun on naked beach...and now we've turned on the furnace! Ewwwwwww!
But that's the end of our Maui 2011 adventure. Thanks for following along.
---Aloha!
