DAY 1
Today we began our big adventure. It will be our fourth trip
to Kauai, our favorite Hawaiian Island. Flying Delta Airlines, our plane was
due to leave at 10:00 AM, leaving us ample time to breakfast at our motel and
catch their shuttle out to Kent County International Airport. Our car would
stay at the Inn, under their “Stay, Park and Fly” deal.
Checking in was so easy. We were the first ones to arrive,
thus having the whole place to ourselves. Bad news: our Delta credit card did
not provide a free bag check as we expected. We were advised that we needed the
“gold” card. Bah-humbug. Thus our medium sized checked bags cost twenty-five
bucks apiece. Had we known, we could have consolidated our stuff in one big
bag. Oh well… as I always say, “Happy vacationing demands flexibility” (and
deep pockets)
.
One layover in Minneapolis required a change of planes. As
is our usual practice I led off the plane and started walking. As is his
practice, Dave stopped to do something without telling me. In a moment I heard,
“Dorothy, DOROTHY.” Dave drove up in one of those airport golf carts—the ones
that go beep-beep demanding passage. How do you suppose they knew we were
senior citizens? We beeped our way through the vast terminal from one wing to
another, as the crowd melted around us, thus saving a very long walk. On this
flight we paid extra for the “comfort seats,” only two abreast, with extra leg
room. It was nice to sit together, with no other stranger in the middle seat.
We ordered meals. Dave had a sandwich, which came with chips and cookies, and I
had the chicken wrap which was really quite good. I gave Dave my cookies. We
enjoyed watching Delta’s comedy showing us how to put on our seat belts, don
the oxegon masks, and grab the seat cushion in case we had to belly flop into
the ocean. But we opted out of the movie, “Terminator,” reading books, and
trying, without success, to nap, instead.
After our arrival in San Francisco, we took a shuttle van to
our downtown hotel. ”One hundred thousand conventioners arrived the same day.
Apparently many of them were traveling,
as the pedestrians on the sidewalks were going faster than the cars on the
street. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the sights as we crept onward to our hotel.
Arriving at the first class address, The Donnetello Hotel we
felt as if we had come home, as we were welcomed in the small lobby with
gracious hospitality. It was nine o’clock Western time, thirty-two hours since
we left home having completed the first leg of our long journey. Hungry and
tired, we dined on leftovers from the airplane—one banana, chips and a cookie.
Also, we had a bag of Dave’s homemade nutty-fruity oatmeal bars.
The Donetello,
owned by Wyndham Corporation and operated by Shell Timeshare Resorts, is
completely redone in Swedish Modern decor. We had a spacious corner studio with
king-sized bed, two flat screen TVs, table, chair, sofa bed, frig, sink,
microwave, serving dishes and utensils.
It required the full two days and three nights of our visit
to figure out how to operate everything, because of the extremely modern and
high-tech design. The beautiful, but mysterious, faucets, in particular, were a
special challenge. Knobs, switches, locks and controls all required scrutiny,
sometimes trial and error.
It was the second day, after noticing a remote
control lying in the bathroom, when I realized that the flat rectangular black
glass, glued to the mirror wall in the bathroom, was actually a flat screen TV.
We didn’t even attempt to program the complicated media device that replaced
the traditional clock-radio. Waking up early was no problem, anyway, as we were
still on Michigan time.
Dave’s bag had arrived with a broken zipper. “Does Frisco have
a WalMart?” I asked. “You need a new suitcase.”
“Not at all,” Mr. Fixit replied. “Didn’t you pack a few
safety pins?”
No comments:
Post a Comment