2014/01/08 Wednesday: Off to the Islands

Liz deplanes our small jet in SFO

We left for Hawaii today.  Liz, my kids, and I made up one travel group.  My parents, Toots, Kate and Nick made up the other.  (Nick's itinerary was different than ours so he could fly back to Chicago for work.)  But things never quite work out they way you plan.  Our flight into San Francisco was delayed, but we made our connecting flight with just enough time to run onto the plane.  The other group tried to fly into Los Angeles, but their flight was diverted to a nearby airport due to fog.  They sat on the plane for 3 hours, continually being told they would be able to fly to the correct airport soon.  Of course they missed their connecting flight, and were told the next available flight would be three days from now.  Fortunately, my parents got on the next flight as standby passengers, and the rest of the group got on a fight a few hours later.

A side effect of the delays was that my group spend several hours waiting in the Honolulu airport at baggage claim. It's definitely a "first world problem."  There weren't any restaurants and you couldn't buy anything besides flowers there.  The kids were pretty awesome though.  By 10 o'clock Hawaii time, we were in the house with my parents, and then Nick joined us somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 AM.