Allison and Leo took off on their honeymoon, I think they were flying to Maui. I was invited to the airport to wave goodbye but I begged off as it didn’t sound all that much fun. Oh, I’m happy for them and all, but it’s a hassle these days going to airports to see someone off. Use to be you’d be able to join them all the way up to the boarding gate. Now, not so easy.
With 3 days left here in Kona, and with a rental car, I had a great time exploring the town and outskirts. Since I’d already circumnavigated the island, stayed pretty close to town. Did visit several malls, Walmart, and some autoparts stores looking for paint to touch up the scrape on the front of the rental car. I was stressing about that a little as I’d not paid for any insurances offered, carrying only the collision coverage that I have when I use my VISA card. True, that saved me lots of money, but now I was worrying that it was going to cost me $3-400 to repair. Yikes. Finally, it hit me, my brother has to fly all the time for his job, and uses rental cars all the time. He’ll know what to do. So I give him a call, and he says just not worry about it. Drive it in, don’t say anything about it, and let them inspect it. If they care, they’ll note it. If not, I’m off the hook.
Scrapes and scratches on the cowl.
See those scrapes? That’s what I was worried about.
After I had a plan for that, I got to work trying to find a mobile repair service in Palmdale or Lancaster spending long hours at the breakfast nook on the new Tablet computer I’d bought for the trip. The thing sucks. Slow as molasses. Even though it is rated at 1.3GHz, it sure behaves like those old computers we used years ago at 450MHz. Annoying. Anyway, I couldn’t find any mobile services and finally called the main RV dealer in Lancaster. Talked to the service manager and he wouldn’t send anyone out to my RV, or give me a phone number of one of his techs that would do it on their way home or something. Wanted me to limp over to his shop. I didn’t care for his attitude either. But, didn’t feel like I had a choice so I made an appointment for early afternoon of the day I’d arrive on the red eye flight.
With that kind of taken care of, went out and checked out some places I’d been before, or had passed.
Here’s Huggo’s on the Rocks where we’d hung out before. I’d enjoyed the food before so I came back for another go.
Huggo’s On the Rocks
Ooo, a nice bar too.
I got to hang out in the condo shown, bottom floor. At night, so got to see the ocean in the moonlight, the stars blocked by wispy clouds, and listen to the surf pounding on the shore.
Over there was one of the condo’s that some of the wedding party had rented.
Over there is the public beach and a bunch of shops renting surf style toys. As you can see, not much in the way of sand.
And here is that club we’d all gone to the other night. I visited it again but without company it’s sort of dull. More of a dance club then a corner bar. Even though it’s on a corner.
And soon, it was time to go home. My flight didn’t leave until 11pm so I spent my last day looking for souvenirs, finding a decent book to read on the flight home, etc., just generally hanging around.
Timed out everything so I had very little food left in the freezer or fridge, left a few things for the next guests, cleaned up a bit, locked up, and headed for Quinn’s Almost by the Sea which had become my favorite bar in Kona. If you visit, note that this place has terrible parking. It’s on a corner and can be dangerous to get into the tiny parking area. It’s easy to get blocked in too. But, I like the place so had a nice dinner and a few drinks there my last evening in Hawaii. Then, drove up the street to fill the tank, and off in the dark to the car rental place at the airport. Just as Dan predicted, when I got to the inspection, the guy paused at the front of my car looking at the damage, but he didn’t ask, and I didn’t volunteer anything and he signed me off. Yes!
Then I get on the shuttle and head for the airport. Go up to the kiosk and scan in my boarding pass. Everything looks good, has my name and date and such, and offers an upgrade to first class. OK, I didn’t spend as much as I’d budgeted for Hawaii so for $251 more, I upgrade. Nothing happens after that but it seemed like it took it so I figure it’s an all electronic thing and off I go to the boarding gate and the delightful NSA setup. The guy looks at my paper and says, “That’s just a boarding pass sir, you forgot your ticket”. Damn. So I rush back to the kiosk and notice there’s a little slot for my printed ticket to come out. One of the gals that works there sees me and asks me if I’d lost something. Whew. My ticket was being held behind the counter where several people were lined up buying tickets on my flight.
Off I go back to the NSA check station just in time for 10 people from some shuttle to line up behind me. When they let us through, there’s a bunch of crowding, people pushing, grabbing their stuff off the conveyer, and generally being impatient asses. I was plenty early as were most of the people in line behind me but they all seemed to be jackasses about my taking my time. AND of course, since I’ve only flown 3 times in the last eight years, I have to relearn the procedures every time. But, it works out, and then I have to wait for an hour for boarding. Then, they don’t board us on time. Another hour passes. Don’t know what the hell they were doing. Maybe sobering up the pilots.
Finally, we in first class board first. Ahh, comfy seats. Then the rest of the plane boards and off we go. Warm nuts, drinks on the house, movie, free headphones, etc. Nice. I tried to sleep but it was surprisingly uncomfortable. Even with extra pillows, couldn’t really find a position that allowed for long term sleep. Kept waking up every hour or so. But I got enough and when we arrived at LAX at 7am, and got some strong coffee, I was good to go. Turned out the jet stream was so fast and strong, that they’d delayed the trip so we wouldn’t arrive too early. Well, OK, that’s fine I guess.
Then my shuttle from Palmdale arrived and after around 2 hours I was back at my RV safe and sound. Standing there looking at it, and ruminating about my anti-freeze leak and how I’d limp the RV to the shop, I suddenly realized that, hey, I’ve got stopcocks on my engine! I can turn off the freaking water so it can’t leak! Hah! Don’t have to limp up to a shop where I already don’t care for the service manager, and why didn’t he just tell me about that common feature of RV’s?
So, I jump into my grubbies, climb under the engine and turn off the valve there, then up on top of the engine to turn off the other. Grab my two gallons of distilled water and a five gallon jug of anti-freeze and top off the radiator. Reconnect the batteries, change, start it up and off I go to Rosamond. No leak, no overheating. I’ll fix that leak when I need heat.
And, that’s the end of my trip to Hawaii. Back at my brothers house, we just hung out, visited with friends, went to bars. Dan, having just retired, slept a lot during this period. Cat napping virtually all day every day. Reading when he was awake. Can’t blame him for that, he deserved it.
Thanks for reading!
Wow. You should return that laptop, Dude. 1.3Ghz is didly. Our 2002 desktop is 2.4Ghz, and our 2008 laptop is 2.5. I didn’t know anyone even made a 1.3 today. Even our laptop has trouble with some applications, so it’s not all about processors.
Nowdays I do 75% of my email and browsing with the iPad I won in 2011. Now talk about fast! And it has proven to be super-convenient; it is like combining a computer with a Smartphone. It can’t do everything a computer can, it’s mostly internet access oriented and its less about computing stuff, but what it can do it does faster and almost anytime, anywhere. It can’t do everything with photos that a computer can, but because of that it is simpler to store and screen photos on; I love pulling up an iPad album and handing it to someone so they can finger swipe scroll through images at their discretion. Even computerphobic elders pick up on it quickly and enjoy that it’s like thumbing through an old album.
My next desktop will be an iMac, though I don’t relish the software changeover; not everything I am used to using can be transferred, dammit. Because they don’t need so much security software and aftermarket applications to bog them down, Apples are the thing to have for saving a person time. The new Samsung tablet I guess is rated almost as good as the iPad, but I am super-happy with mine – the newer iPad3 or 4 have higher screen resolution, but my iPad2 works damn good for me, and is so much easier to haul around than a laptop. Give buying one some thought… maybe you can find a used iPad2 for a good price.
And 1.3Ghz? That seems a pretty darned slow processor to me. You may also be lacking in SIMM (memory or RAM) card ability, or if the video card isn’t fast enough to process today’s high-data information to the screen – that could be a bottleneck making the processor look slow when in fact it’s a slow video card. If they won’t trade up for a faster laptop, see if you can add more RAM cards or a faster video card.
Thanks for posting the Hawaii trip. If I ever get there, I’ll know where to go and where not to go, etc. Very enjoyable reading, and I appreciated all the pix too.
You missed something, Haf, it’s a tablet. Little thing, 10.1″ with a touch screen. Type of device people are using for travel these days. It doesn’t have a traditional processor, it’s a RISC type. And it’s a dual core. Using Ice Cream Sandwich as the OS. I think it’s so slow because of the OS, not necessarily the hardware. Reason is that it’s very fast on some things, but if you’re on-line, sometimes it takes forever for something that a modern laptop or desktop breezes through. I did my research before I bought it, and it was in my price range. Not the best available, but adequate, with pretty good reviews. I thought it would be well suited for my needs. Hasn’t turned out that way though. It’s cute and small though. Much handier then a laptop to carry around when you’re traveling, especially if you’re flying.
Oh, and thank you for the kind words about my efforts here on the blog.