Aloha O'ahu
We slept in today; it was 6:30 before we got up. The morning brought us light rain showers sporadically presenting a beautiful rainbow on our morning walk along the beach. There were several large bronze statues with plaques like the one of Duke Paoa Kahanamoku shown below.
The hotel check out time was 12:00 noon. The shuttle that took us to the airport was scheduled to arrived at 12:30pm. We had some time to kill so we sat on the patio outside of our hotel enjoying the beach until time to check out. We saw lots of boats on the horizon, surfers, a few snorkelers, and always the sun starved sunbathers lined the beach. Just another day in paradise.
Panarama of Waikiki Beach
This hotel is very popular for weddings and we saw brides and grooms I think every day, and sometimes more than one set a day. After checking out, we saw two more wedding groups as we sat in the outdoor rocking chairs on the hotel's front patio while we waited for the shuttle to the airport.
The shuttle arrived on time and got us to the airport with plenty of time to kill and wait for our 3:02pm departure. We decided to spend some of the time having lunch. Stinger Rays (ha, ha) was delicious. After eating we went to find our boarding gate. It seemed to always be the last one...hum. It was an hour before boarding time but there was still no plane at the gate. At least we had some gorgeous scenery to keep us occupied. The plane finally arrived and was unloaded just in time for us to board. They booked too many passengers on this flight to the Big Island and asked for 1 person to give up their seat for a later departure and $100 fly credit. No one volunteered apparently so the airline paged the purchaser of the last ticket. The TSA agents randomly pulled Joyce aside for a pat-down again (maybe they know something I don't?). Finally we were aboard. It was only a 45 minute flight to Hawai'i, and the view was spectacular as we flew from O'ahu and over the sister islands before reaching Hawai'i.
