Friday, 6 February 2015

Day 1: Traveling to Kona

Today is the day! Our flight left Winnipeg at 6:00 AM, meaning we had to be at the airport to check in at 4:00 AM. We were so excited we could barely sleep, so as it was we woke up just after 2:00 AM. 

Got into Chicago at 8:30AM.

This place sure got a lot of snow earlier this week. We saw a lot of it piled up beside the taxiways.

The building architecture of Chicago O'Hare is impressive. The use of open steel structures is really neat:


So we hung out in the United Club Lounge while waiting for our next flight. Our departing flight for San Francisco was delayed a couple times due to the rain storms in the Bay Area. We didn't depart until two and a half hours after our scheduled departure time. Our concern was that would use up our entire layover time in San Francisco, and we'd risk missing our connection.

As it turned out, our connecting flight from San Francisco was delayed by 8 minutes to allow connecting passengers (us) to catch the plane. Then it was delayed another two hours so a flight crew could arrive. Those rains storms in the Bay sure played havoc with flight schedules.

I have to give full credit to United Airlines for the way they kept us informed of the delays. As soon as a new departure time was entered into their system, we got text messages and notifications in the United App informing us of the delay. With WiFi on board many domestic US flights, it was easy to check on the status of our flights.

Found a Boudin's bakery in the airport and introduced Tim & Jody to San Francisco's famous clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. Mmmmm good!

So here's us hanging out in Terminal 3 in San Francisco, waiting for our fought to Kona: 


At this moment (7:30 PM) we're sitting in our seats waiting for a flight crew and new cabin crew to arrive. Now they're estimating an 8:00 PM departure, which after a six-hour flight will get us in to Kona just after midnight. Which will be 4:00 AM Winnipeg time. We'll have been up for more than 26 hours by the time we get to the beach house. Road warriors we are. 

Thursday, 5 February 2015

Our Next Adventure Begins Tomorrow

Wow, it seems like a long time since our last vacation, but in fact it's been only eight months since our trip to Bonaire. Tomorrow we leave for a two-week vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii. As with Bonaire, the focus of this trip will be scuba diving. We'll see some of the coral life unique to Hawaii, along with Manta Rays, and Humpback Whales. Of course we will take time to visit the other attractions on Hawaii - Volcanoes National Park, Kona, the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut, etc.

We'll be traveling with our good friends Tim and Jody, and staying at a vacation rental property in Kona. Our flight route will take us from Winnipeg to Chicago, to San Francisco to Kona. Yeah, it will be a long day, but we are so looking forward to it.

Watch for further blog posts every day or two, and join us on our adventure.