Home

First, I have to admit that somewhere between my previous post and heading home, I was hit with an overwhelming sense of melancholy over the vacation being 'over'. It hit me when J. and the kids were out of the condo at Poipu beach that this might be the 'last' family vacation we take. This time next year, B. will be looking at colleges - and who knows if our schedules will ever coincide again? Who knows if he'll WANT to be home and with us as an 'adult'. I was a teary mess when they got home - and wished I had gone with them. I didn't feel like going in the water and since I didn't want to swim, it just didn't seem to really 'matter' if I went or not - and you know me, I can always use some quiet time. But while they were gone, I was so sad I hadn't gone with them. I told B. when he got home 'I really don't want this to be our last vacation as a family' - he reassured me that he fully intends to accompany us wherever we go for years to come. But I know how it might turn out - I moved away from home at 18 and never went back. Though I did visit my family pretty often, my visits became more and more infrequent and I certainly 'outgrew' going on vacation with my mom.

We managed to pack up and leave on Friday morning in record time - though the morning was a rushed madhouse. Had to fill up the rental van ($75 for the entire week - not too bad); drop off the van, check in, etc. It was crazy. And so incredibly hot and humid - I wore long pants 'cuz I knew I'd be chilly on the plane so shorts were out.

Hawaii airports aren't like other airports. First, most of the baggage claim area and check in areas are basically outside - in the scorching heat and humidity. We lug 7 pieces of luggage onto the rental car shuttle, into the check in area - and made a couple wrong turns so lugged it back - it was hot and humid and gross. Then, ATA takes an average of TEN MINUTES per customer to check in. We kid you not - we timed them. After standing in line for close to an hour just to check in, we get to the counter and the agent very quietly asks 'would you be willing to spend another night in Hawaii on us and we'll get you on a flight in the morning out of Honolulu?'. I said 'how will we get to Honolulu?' And she replied 'we'll take care of that also - and your hotel, meals, etc. And give you each $300 towards the purchase of your next ATA flight'. THAT was the really tempting part, since that's 2/3 of a ticket EACH back next Spring. She kept insisting they weren't 'overbooked' - just too many passengers and something about 'over their limit because of the weather'. Huh? Anyway, I wanted to say 'well, if you had reached us this morning BEFORE we'd schlepped everything here, returned our rental car and waited close to an hour to get to this point, we might consider it.' Instead, we just said 'No, we want to go home'. And so we did.

It was a 5+ hour flight but we did get to see the movie Ratatouille - cute! And I tried to nap a bit but the gentleman next to J. was a maniac about folding his newspaper - over and over. We were seated middle, window in two rows - boys in one row, me and J. in the other. It was nice to just have time with J. 'alone' - and have his shoulder to snuggle up with.

We arrived in Oakland at 7PM and waited close to an hour for our luggage. One of our bags was the last to be offloaded - and it had clearly sat in the rain on the tarmac for some time. Yes, we arrived home to rain - as if the dismal reality of returning to our 'regular lives' wasn't enough, we had to be hit with cold, rainy, dreary weather to boot. Lovely. We stopped at a Taco Bell on the way home because we hadn't eaten anything much on the plane - the snack boxes available for purchase weren't appealing and we nibbled on the snacks we had. But two teenage boys and a long flight equal starvation. They (and us, too, admittedly) scarfed down $24 worth of fast food - the new 'Fiesta Platters' are GREAT - in a half hour. We were actually glad to have paid less than $50 for a meal since that had been our average daytime meal price. Dinners were many times more than that.

We commented on how strange it felt to be on a 4 lane freeway, vs. a 2 lane non-divided road. How odd all the lights were - street lights (Kauai has none, basically), billboard lights, city lights. Pulling over the Dublin grade and seeing the valley was incredibly bright - nothing like that on Kauai. Towns are teeny-tiny and spread out and the roads are lit only by your brights (when permitted) and other cars. So different.

Pulled into the driveway around 9:30 and unloaded just the bare essentials. I headed for bed around 10 to try to get back to 'normal'. Watched some of my taped shows from the week - Ace of Cakes! Then went into a great sleep - quiet, no surf noise.

This morning, J. is working on loads of laundry - thankful to have a 'giant' sized washer and dryer at his disposal vs. the smallish 'stackables' we had at the condo. Took forever to wash and dry there and I finally convinced him to just give up - leave it for home. So we'll be plowing through laundry over the next couple of days.

We picked up Chloe this morning and she had a blast. Made friends and was whining as we pulled out of the driveway, already missing her friends. But she's also glad to be home - has been sacked out near my feet after running through the whole house at full speed. We have an appointment with the groomer tomorrow 'cuz she's looking and smelling like she just spent a week out on the 'ranch' with a bunch of friends and they did a lot of carousing. She needs to be cleaned up a bit.

It's great to be home. It's always wonderful to come home, even if the vacation was just great! We had a ball and are already booking the same condo for next year - arriving April 10th and leaving April 18th. That way, I'll be SURE this wasn't the last family trip - and be sure to make the most of every minute of the next trip. J. has a slide show already formatted on the PC and I will work on getting some pics posted here - have tried it in the past and couldn't get it to work but will keep trying. There are some great shots I'd like to have you see.

Thanks for sticking through the 'vacation travel blog' of this past week - we'll be resume normal programming beginning Monday.