Day 1 Hawaii--April 2, 2010--Happy Birthday, Mom!

Fri. April 2, 2010: This is the big day—we’re going to Hawaii! And so far, so good. This is written from the LA airport (LAX?). We started with two small problems: Marv was randomly selected as being unable to check-in online, meaning he had no boarding pass in Detroit and had to answer some questions to get through the check-in. After we got that taken care of, the swab of his backpack was suspect, so he was “wanded” and patted down in security. But once another machine cleared him, everything improved greatly, including exit aisle seats to Chicago and an empty seat next to us from Chicago so we could spread out and come and go as we pleased. “Orson Wells and Me” during the flight.We saw the film We board in about half an hour with next stop---Hawaii!

The next leg of our journey was unremarkable. We sat next to a woman who was going to Hawaii with 4 generations to celebrate her 85^th birthday. She was delightful! We watched the film “Dear Heart”, for which Jeff Bridges got the best actor Academy Award this year. Arriving at the Kona airport was easy and we got or luggage and took a shuttle to get our rental car. That took a while but Dollar was out of the Dodge Charger-size vehicle we had reserved so they upgraded us to a Lincoln Towncar at the same price. We’ve never had such a big car! The GPS took us straight to the Crown Kona Bali Kai, where we checked in and got our rooms. We’re in separate buildings so I don’t know how Kris and Heidi like their accommodations, but we’re happy with our “Mountain View” (not really) room with a kitchenette and king size bed. Bed we can see the ocean across the street from our lanai. It should do us very well for our five days here. We tumbled into bed about 10:45, having been up for nearly 24 hours straight without sleep!