Island Fever

[I wrote this yesterday...we are getting ready to leave for the airport now and I've never been so excited to get on a commercial plane in my entire life!!!]

We've been in Hawaii for about ten days now, and here I am, sitting back in our room at the Navy Lodge at Pearl Harbor while the girls are sleeping.  We spent the past week in Maui, and on Sunday we returned to Oahu to try and catch a military hop back to Travis AFB.  

Just about 15 minutes ago, Chris booked us one-way tickets to Sacramento on Hawaiian Airlines. It seems that our streak of luck flying space-available has run out, as there are not any flights to Travis in the next 24 hours.  We woke the girls up around 11:30pm last night and loaded them in the car.  It felt like deja vu from the other night, when we were evacuated from our room in the middle of the night because of the tsunami (aka "salami" according to Tess) warning. We schlepped our luggage to the Hickam Passenger Terminal, hoping to hop on a KC-10 red-eye back to Travis.  Just as we were checking in, the "mission" changed and our plane was suddenly going to Oklahoma instead. We shrugged our shoulders and headed back to our hotel room, anticipating that we'd get on C-5 this evening destined for Travis, which had 50 seats available. But no such luck. When we woke up this morning, the flight no longer existed on the schedule.

And so it goes flying space-a. Ironically, our commercial flight home tomorrow goes through Maui. So we flew into Oahu, then to Maui, back to Oahu, and now back to Maui en route to Sacramento.  I'm starting to lose track of all the coming and going.

The past 24 hours have felt a bit like purgatory...waiting around, trying to get home, not knowing when we'd leave or how long it would take to get there. Waiting is never any fun, but it's a lot harder when you find yourself waiting on plans that are up in the air and likely to change at the drop of a hat. Flying space-a is a lot like being on active duty in the military...once you get on board, you're at the mercy of the mission...you surrender control.    And that is a lot harder to do when you travel with two little ones.  

It's strange to be so ready to leave paradise, but I am. My heart longs for the comfort and predictability of home, both for my sake and the wellbeing of our girls. My skin is tired from the salt, sand, and sun, and I feel like I'm quickly slipping into Jack Johnson psychosis. We are sufficiently exhausted, and while this holiday doesn't rank highly in the "relaxing" category, it certainly has been an exciting adventure and I am grateful for the experience.

We continue to follow the news on Japan, and I'm struck by how strange it feels to be here in Hawaii while all of this has happened.  There is a massive Japanese population here in Hawaii, both of immigrants and of tourists.  I wonder what they are feeling as they watch this tragedy transpire from afar. 

Just last week we went to Pearl Harbor to visit the memorial of the USS Arizona. Pearl Harbor is the only time, other than 9/11, that our nation was attacked on US soil. Many lives were lost, and our country retaliated by dropping a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima.  And now, Japan is facing a nuclear meltdown for a very different reason, and instead of being the cause of it, our Navy ships are providing aid to the Japanese in the aftermath of it. 

Despite what transpired during WWII, the US and Japan have become strong allies. As we drove on the bridge over Pearl Harbor en route to our hotel room on the Navy base yesterday, we saw a massive aircraft carrier sitting in the harbor. I had never seen one so close before.  The sheer size and grandeur of it made my jaw drop. There were at least thirty fighter jets sitting on the upper deck. This colossal ship wasn't here a week ago, and I suspect it had been mobilized for the Japanese crises.


Our trip to Hawaii hasn't always felt like "vacation," but it has been quite an adventure.  In these final days it has felt like we've been trapped in the movie "Groundhog Day." We took a risk by coming with small children and by traveling space-a.  And in the end, I guess our experience here confirms that risky living isn't always fun or relaxing, but it sure does make for a great story!  More stories and reflections to come...hopefully to be written from my desk in California ;)