BIG Island: Preparation for Departure
Aloha!
It began with a BIG bang and ended with the same! That was the essence of the whole trip, “BIG” everything. So, not too surprisingly, this post is gonna be, no prizes for guessing, “BIG”
Also, stay tuned for updates, pictures and goodies.
First lets get some terminology out of the way…. I read Maya (M)’s blog and liked her way of representing names used throughout the blog or posts nicely. So, I (R) shamelessly copied it. Me = R, my honey Subha = S.
Oct 4th evening…..
R gets off work late after a barrage of tasks crossed out of his “akshaya”-to-do list, get a huge glare from the front passenger seat throughout the seemingly endless drive through Mathilda on the way home. The 4 mile ride seemed to be a circle island drive that R & S would be looking forward to in the coming days. Except, err.. we needed to get there first!
Finally we got home late and after a quick dinner, when we began packing, R realized that he had left his trekking shoes at the office. Would R “trek” to the office?? No way, the pretext was that R could go jogging when he found “time”. Wow,, like that’s ever gonna happen. The shoes remained “pristinely” untouched in its 90 day imprisonment inside a “Safeway” plastic bag under R’s cluttered desk. But what this meant is either a late night or early morning drive to the office or a first stop search for a “Big” 5 at the Island. Ooosh… that would be a waste of time.
Having gone through the checklist of things to take.. Camera, spare Memory Stick, Camcorder (dropped on feasibility concerns), Sun screen, swimming gear n goggles (like R’s gonna be goin swimming big time, he can’t dip his head into the bath tub!), beach towel, printouts of confirmations, maps, laptop (this is a VACATION!!!), credit cards, cash……. Final unwritten item on the list was a “good night sleep” and that was slowly slipping away, as R began reviewing some snaps from our earlier trip to Japan! When will he ever get it?? It was 2am before the lights went out. 3 hours to go.
Oct 5th early morning….
5am it was, as the alarm clock chimed in with NPR’s headline news. In NY, people were already “walking out” in protest of President Bush’s administration in a demonstration hartal sponsored by “World Can’t Wait” organization. Well… that told us something… we need to walkout of the mainland into an island! The excitement of travel took care of making us forget our tiredness or the previous night quarrels as we sprung up to get ready and get on with the journey. A shot of Narasus Coffee provided the required early morning boost as we made a lightning stop at the office for me to fetch my trek shoes and get out. As R stopped at the office, he did take a last glance at his email to make sure that the nightly software build went through successfully. R could walk out in peace, but certainly not under the radar! R must have been staring at the screen relishing the success of the build a minute too long for S not to notice… but there was not much argument this time with the Mrs on the subject.
We sped off through light traffic into Foster City, where we would park at Rathish’s and the latter would drop us off at SFO. It was an agreement to save 60 bucks on parking. I could play a Mastercard ad in my mind… “Flight to Hawaii 750 dollars.. SFO Parking… 60 dollars… a few minutes of extra sleep in the morning… PRICELESS”… and I sighed.. it was too late to change anything. I called Rathish a few exits from his place, and fortunately he was already awake and I did not feel as guilty. Soon, we swapped the luggage from one trunk to another. It was a smooth ride to SFO but we did not stop at the departure area before picking up the rest of our quarrel from 2 weeks ago with the Budget car rental folks over some unauthorized fuel surcharges on our car rental to Tahoe. We seemed to win with a “thundu seetu” bill showing evidence for our refuelling..
Feeling victorious, we waved goodbye to Rathish as he descended the escalator back to his car as we took the tram to the terminal. The security area was unusually crowed for an early weekday morning. A rude shock awaited our new “Banana Boat” sunscreen which dreamt of visiting and being used in the gorgeous beaches of the Big Island when we picked it up ceremoniously from the aisles of the “Sports Authority” stores in Sunnyvale. Instead, it would find its way to the dumpster at the security checkpoint despite our best efforts to load him up on the plane baggage deck. It was getting late and some rude people in the check in line disappointed S with some looks that she has never seen before. R & S rushed through security into a crowded aircraft that convinced us that there was after all something to see in the “Big Island” (several people scared us that it was nothing more than a “volcanic wasteland” and others commended us of our brilliant choice on the worst island for the first!). There was lots to look forward to, as we ascended above the San Francisco bay.
To be Continued…
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