Aloha

Aloha and welcome to Hawaii where we will spend the next four hours trying to catch some sleep at the Honolulu airport.

We arrived here a short time ago11:30pm Hawaii time. Yesterday I had set my watch back one hour. Today I am setting it back another two. This trip has made the switch from daylight savings time easy. I no longer have to run around my house trying to remember where all my clocks are (inevitably forgetting the one that wakes me up in the morning). My father recently reported to me that he found 14 clocks to change. At the time he told me, he could think of two more he'd forgotten.

After a five hour flight, John and I must now wait at the airport until Aloha Airlines opens. Then we can get in line, an hour before departure, to buy tickets to the Big Island. When you travel cheaply, there are sacrifices that must be made. Sleeping in an airport is one of them.

It feels strange to be here after being at the around-the-clock airport of LA. At 12:00 midnight, this airport is closed. We are able to get in and out only because of the open air terminal at the international gates, but it feels like we don't belong. The cleaning man is pushing the chairs back and his mop is in hand as I write.

At the entrance to Aloha Airlines, we spotted another back-packer. He too was waiting for the doors to open. He, however, was under the false impression that local time was 4:00am and he had only a half an hour to wait. I corrected him on his miscalculation. Funny, he didn't even say thank-you.

Apparently this new longer wait for him was the last straw. For some reason, he felt inclined to tell us why. He'd been robbed in LA. When he picked up his pack from the luggage carousel, he'd discovered he'd lost all of his climbing gear which he'd attached to the outside straps. More reason to carry everything on board, I thought. I got the instinctive feeling that he wanted to spend the next several hours discussing it. But John and I felt more inclined to sleep than listen, and we left him sprawled out on the cement in his sleeping bag. We wheeled our baggage cart back to the international terminal to find our own place to sleep, out of hearing range.

So now, along with an assorted group of other travellers (and who knows what else), we are flopped sideways in the standard-issue, non-ergonomic airport chair. I have a funny feeling that I'll have a permanent bruise in my left side the shape of its arm. Hopefully I will be able to sleep in this awkward position. And hopefully I will be able to mentally block out this annoying Hawaiian 'Muzak' that is being piped in here. Continuous dreamy, swaying words are interrupted by occasional high pitch strains. Four hours of this may send me over the edge.

Aloha!