USA Day 13 - Hawaii to San Fracisco

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Today will mostly be taken up with travel. We just have enough time for one last walk along the strip. Preparations are ongoing for the weekend’s Honolulu marathon. We (I) play a very judgmental game of ‘here for the marathon/not here for the marathon’ with passers-by. Daughter no 1 says I'm a troll, then promptly joins in...

Then it’s time to check out and head for the airport. Google maps suggests that instead of catching the bus (20) which actually goes in to airport and takes 73 minutes, we catch a bus (42) that passes nearby the airport and takes 60 minutes, leaving us with a ‘4 minute walk’ to the terminal, and is therefore, allegedly, quicker. We fall for it and catch the 42. Once off the bus, we have to cross 2 freeways, walk round the airport perimeter road, which really isn’t designed for pedestrians, then the full length of 2 multi storey car parks before we reach the terminal. It has taken a 20 minute walk, in the traffic, in the heat to finally reach the terminal building, right next to the 20 bus stop.

Once we reach the airport, the remainder of the journey goes smoothly. Unless you count the queue for security, when the Japanese lady behind me’s lack of social distancing reaches the point where we are physically touching. I am not impressed and tell her so. She doesn’t speak English, but I think she gets the gist of my displeasure. Unlike on the outward journey, nobody is interested in our vaccine passports at check in, or at the gate. In fact, the only time we have to show them is in the café to buy chips.

We board the plane – this time we are on Hawaiian Airlines which is very pleasant; a perfect trio of seat back entertainment, cheese sandwiches and rum punch make the journey fly by. They even demonstrate the emergency exits with a hula dance. In fact, I’m a little disappointed when it’s time to land and I don’t get to watch the end of my film. We pick up our hire car and return to Palo Alto for one last weekend with daughter no 2.

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