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October 27th 2023

Published: November 2nd 2023

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Eeda and Jahn

Arthur

The only thing he tore-up while we were gone - my apple watch charger. It was $5. :) He also ate an entire tub of oatmeal paw butter for his paws. LOL Poor boy

We are obviously home now. The jet lag from Hawaii is real and it’s a bit tough. I am going to try to retrace a few steps but basically… we woke-up Friday, I felt drugged after staying out so late last night at the luau and then staying-up late afterwards with Kamie. I went swimming, finally came back to the room and we packed everything. We had to check-out officially but they have a luggage hold room so we checked our luggage and then walked the resort. We had lunch at this place in the village that offers sliders and fries and potato salad. Kamie left the table to go to the restroom. His sliders and potato salad were sitting there, unaccompanied, and A PIGEON LANDED IN HIS POTATO SALAD AND STARTED EATING ONE OF HIS SLIDERS!! I gasped, a neighboring table gasped, and the pigeon had to be shooed away by the waitress. They offered to make him new food but he wasn’t feeling too well so they just discounted the ticket. They didn’t have to do that but that was a site to see!! Kamie came back to the table and wanted to know where his food was?! LOL

Stupid LAX Terminal 1

That iced coffee from Burger King sucked and it was $7.41

Everything is outdoors in Hawaii including most of the restaurants and the pigeons and birds and chickens and roosters and ducks are living the good life. We stopped by a gift shop and got Kamie a “Hawaii 5-O” mug. We went to the Waikiki Beach Honolulu Police Dept so Kamie could get the Hawaii 5-0 picture he wanted. We finally took an Uber to the airport for our overnight flight. On the way to the airport I asked our driver about the military and the housing in Hawaii. The military housing is the nicest housing we saw the entire time we were there. Hawaiians, at least in the outskirts of Honolulu, live like most people in big cities live that don’t have a lot of money - they live in high rise apartment buildings – many that are old and do not have air conditioning – they just open the windows for a breeze. The miliary housing is real houses with solar panels and small yards and fences and it's all gated.

We had a good flight to LA and Kamie turned 50 about 2 hours into our flight. I told everyone all week that it was his Birthday

Flying home

On no sleep

so lots of people wished him Happy Birthday all week. We got into LAX and had about 3.5 hours from the time we landed until the time we had to get-up to get in the shower and catch the shuttle to our next flight. When we got to LA, we had no dinner, we were tired, and our sliding glass door on our room got stuck. This super nice maintenance guy showed-up and used practically an entire can of WD-40 and the door worked great. We grabbed some cheese and fruit and a Caesar salad from the hotel 24-hour bistro then tried to get some sleep. I remember being awake at 3am. The alarm went off at 5am and I slowly crawled to the shower. Kamie was wide awake which was weird. We got ready and left the hotel, got to the airport, and found out Allegiant Air and Southwest (two airlines we will probably never fly again in our life) were put in the “new” terminal which is basically a terminal with NO TSA Pre-check (eh) and no Starbucks, one Burger King and nothing else, and it’s like a 2 mile walk to our gate. We lived. We got

Leaving LA

on the plane and I sat next to this Mexican guy who is from LA but currently lives in Lebanon, Missouri. He was carrying a bag (that weighed like 50 pounds) full of enchiladas that he had either purchased in LA or got from family who made them in LA. He started to eat one on the plane and I thought I was going to get sick. That was such an uncomfortable flight. I slept the first two hours. The last hour+ could not go by fast enough. We got to the car, got some Fazoli’s and chicken nuggets from Chick-fil-et and I drove home. I was nodding off and made Kamie talk to me so I could stay awake. I kept rolling down the window so the cool air would wake me. We got home around 6:30pm. Arthur cried and cried because he missed us and was so happy to see us. Arthur and I fell asleep in the recliner and I don’t remember moving again until about 7am or 8am the next morning. I am not sure. I forced myself to wake-up and try to get on Missouri time. I took Arthur for a long COLD walk, made

I don't remember what he was saying

...I'll find out and update this post.

a long grocery list, spent $133 at Aldi’s, came home and unpacked groceries, spent $165 at Wal-Mart, came home and unpacked… put everything away and fixed myself a soda. Sat down. 4:30pm. Phone beeps. Kamie’s brother and his wife and their son were in town for granny’s funeral services which started in thirty minutes. I had no idea they were coming to town. It was a pleasant surprise! We didn't make it to the family night viewing until about 6:30pm which had been my plan all along so that's good.

Now… all the funeral services are over and everyone has left town and I made a long list of things to do last night and one was to finish this blog. I ordered a little device from Amazon yesterday (overnight shipping) which I can plug into my phone and grab photos then put it in my computer and drop photos. It was worth every penny. I have now uploaded hundreds of photos to every blog I wrote on this trip – which is a total of 9 blogs including this one. I’m not sure why some of them didn’t come through. You can simply Google “Eeda and Jahn” and

His BIrthday

He turned 50 at midnight Missouri time

you will find this blog. You can always read the old entries. Most of the pictures for this trip are in reverse order… like you will see the end of our day and as you go through them, you’ll see the beginning of the day as the last picture. I am not taking the time to rearrange them. At least future trips and future blogs will have pictures the same day we take them (and yes, there will be future trips, keep reading).

Hawaii. Oh Hawaii. There are a lot of things I want to say about Hawaii but I don’t know what all they are…. Hawaii is beautiful. Hawaii is a vibe… basically, an island vibe… just like you would find in Florida, Jamaica, the Bahamas, etc. I see absolutely no difference from the State of Hawaii and a vacation in the Bahamas except EVERYTHING you purchase in Hawaii is 10X more expensive. Why? Because it’s a six hour plane ride and days on a boat to reach Hawaii from the mainland. I read that over 90% of every item in Hawaii is shipped-in. So, would I recommend a Hawaii vacation? No. Why? Why spend so much money

Honolulu Airport

the walkways in the Honolulu airport were actually outdoors between gates.

for a place you can get the exact same feel and vibe from in Florida for SO MUCH CHEAPER?? Hawaii has done an EXCELLENT job of selling their state as the honeymoon and anniversary paradise to the world. Kudos to them. Seriously. At our luau, they had all the honeymooners and anniversary people get on stage and the stage was PACKED – two rows of couples!! I used to joke if I ever got married again that I would get “Maui’d” because that’s a “thing” – to get married in Maui. Oh hell no. Not unless I’m flying on a private jet with a multi-millionaire. Folks, it’s beautiful. I’m glad we visited. It was interesting. I know there are things that are not on the tip of my tongue right now but overall, it’s just another island like every other island in the world. It’s just 10X more expensive. Save your money and your sanity and go visit Catalina Island which is 26 miles off the coast of California and doesn’t have the humidity or go to Daytona Beach and get fresh caught crab legs for 1/10^th of the price (Hawaii doesn’t have crabs, btw).

Did we have fun?

This is from Gate 10 to Gate 20, for example

We had already passed a bunch of gates and then we had to go left to our gate and the walkway was outside. Interesting.

Absolutely. Are we glad we traveled there? Absolutely. Did I basically STEAL this trip? You know it! This is the second least expensive trip we’ve ever taken. I will say Great Value Travel has steals on trips to Hawaii and so does Costco. I even saw the guy with the Costco sign at the airport picking-up people and I joined a Hawaii Facebook group pre-travel and it seemed like everyone on there got their Hawaii package deal on Costco. So, there are deals to be had and if you don’t mind flying economy class, go for it. It’s a good experience. 😊 Also, go see Pearl Harbor. It was informative and neat. By the way, we thought we would spend SO MUCH MONEY in Hawaii but we had Starbucks for breakfast most days and just had a snack for lunch and then ate dinner. We had snacks in our room. We took $1,500 cash and came home with over $500. We didn’t spend money on much – besides two new suitcases thanks to Alaska Airlines.

Last but not least…. Kamie SAID he wanted to go to Hawaii and he said he wanted to see all 50 states. He knew

Wakiki Beach

I was booking a surprise trip for his Birthday but he didn’t know where. I stole this trip. I paid probably 1/5 of what most people pay to travel to Hawaii. He figured out where we were going six months ago. Did he resist? Never. Not one time did he say he didn’t want to travel to Hawaii. Not until THE DAY we were to leave did he throw a fit about going and he’s embarrassed about that now, I know. He’s brought it up (on his own). Also, sometimes he just acts like that about things when he’s nervous or uncomfortable. He can be a real drama queen and I’m used to it. The first day, was kinda funny. However, he continued to basically be a bully and get ugly with me all the way through Tuesday evening and then I lost it and said enough is enough. I had decided we would never travel together again if he was going to act that way. I think he got the message and all the sudden his attitude changed after Tuesday night. The way he acted Tuesday is still a side in my thorn and I will not be forgetting

Waikiki Beach again (not by HHV)

soon. In 15 years, I’ve never seen him be that way. He won’t even talk about THAT. It runs in his family to fail to apologize or admit when they are asses so there's that. Having said all that… I came home with the full mind to enjoy my vacation time just taking days off here and there and running to Springfield and spending vacation money on some new Hokas and was determined to not mention travel to him again even if it was a year or two. I was done. So….. how does Kamie feel about all this??? Is he glad we traveled to Hawaii? Now, yes. He had a good time. He loved the luau. He has brought it up (first, without me saying a word) several times and said he simply didn’t want to fly six hours so that's why he was being an ass. He has now said he liked Hawaii but he didn’t like the trip there and back. Okay, that’s fine. Don’t act that way again. I don’t think he will. He better not. At the same time, we hadn’t even got unpacked and he said “where are we going next year?” What?! Are

Big, beautiful banyan trees

you kidding me?! I ignored him the first time. He brought it up again and we have now talked, a lot actually, off and on, about where we will go next year. We are going to try to see all 50 states, we may take a cruise for our 15-year wedding anniversary, and I really want him to TRY a road trip. If I can get him to enjoy a good road trip, we can take Arthur and I have a trip I want to do that goes up to Niagara Falls, to New Hampshire and Vermont and back through Pennsylvania and Kentucky. It would be long but fun. We’ll see. The only thing we both agree on is First Class flights or no flights and we both have to agree, several times, for days in a row, about where we are going BEFORE it is booked and paid for. For now, we have some states we are going to look into but I have too much to do at the house to even think about it and I have SO much to do at work that I can imagine working a little extra in the next couple of weeks

Can you see the surf

I saw a bunch of surfers just tumble through the water LOL

to catch-up. Eh. Vacation really shouldn’t be like that but it is what it is. I still have laundry to do, I have to finish this blog, I have to decorate for Christmas… 😊 In the end, Hawaii was a good trip and I enjoyed it. I’m glad I just took off to the ocean every day and had a good swim and floated around for a few hours and didn’t mind that he didn’t want to get in the water. Sometimes, you have to make the best of the situation you are in and we both did that so good for us. Our next trip… probably to Montana… will probably be more lovey dovey than Hawaii. 😊 Ha Ha Ha

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