As vacations
go Butch had outdone himself. He had
arranged himself three weeks in Hawaii.
For the first week it would just be him and Cathy on Maui. The second week they would be joined by his
brother Bill and his wife Carol on Kauai. The third week it would be Butch and
Bill joined by their younger brother Carl on the Big Island of Hawaii while
Cathy and Carol would be returning home. Cathy would have to deal with the cat
that is always grumpy after being left for two weeks. This part of the plan raised some concern, as Cathy has no common
sense when it comes to the cat.
Tickets bought, car arrangements made, the trip was coming
together nicely. One of Butch's many
sayings - plan your trip, pay your money and take your chances on the weather.
The first week of January 2004 was described by a Portland weatherman as
"having a grumpy old uncle come for a visit, not shower, and not
leave".
Things got really ugly. First it snowed, then freezing rain and ice fell over the snow and it just wouldn't thaw out. That closed the airport for three days. We were scheduled to leave on Friday and Thursday night we had no idea whether we would be leaving the next morning. At 4:00 AM Friday morning Butch called the airlines only to hear the same old recording over again - the flight was still on schedule. This only meant that they hadn't updated the recording and that we had to proceed as if the flight was leaving. Around 5:00 AM the TV news speculated that the airport was finally going to reopen. With this thread of hope we proceeded to close down the house, pack the truck, and try to leave the house. This was no easy task as the driveway and front porch were a solid sheet of ice. Butch had chained up the Expedition making it usable on the ice. He pulled up to with in 8 ft. of the front porch giving the illusion that it wasn't far over the ice. Sliding and hanging on for dear life we managed to load ourselves into the truck.
The temperature read 34 degrees, giving us hope that the ice would melt. In reality it just made the top layer of ice was slippery water. We slowly made our way to the freeway where we found bare pavement. With the chains on we were able to do a whopping 35 miles an hour. The chains proved to be necessary in the airport parking lot as there was 6 in. of snow covered by several inches of ice. With any luck we think we parked at the end of a row but with the snow and ice we weren't really sure where the lines were. Our intention was to remove the chains when we got there but when we saw how slick it was we said "no way". We had pretty much traversed the ice to the road with the bags when we saw the bus coming. Butch hollered "start taking the bags to the bus while I lock the truck". Cathy hollered back "wait I've got my boots on and I need my tennis shoes from the truck". Having been in this position many times before Butch grumbled and went with the flow, getting the bags on the bus and Cathy's boots from her. One of the ladies on the bus pointed to her feet and asked "didn't you bring any shoes?". Butch hurriedly made his way back to the truck. With success in sight he slipped on the ice whacking his leg a good one on the open door. He felt fortunate not to have fallen. He replaced the boots for the tennis shoes, locked the truck and made his way back to the bus.
It was on the bus that he remembered the pain and felt a
huge lump on his leg. Not expecting a
lump he thought it deserved a look-see.
Sure enough, one had formed the size of a golf ball. Since he had a medical professional
available he thought he would get her opinion.
Ew! That looks terrible. I'll
bet it hurts.
When we got
to the terminal there was a line wrapped around the lobby. Somehow we just knew it was the one we had
to be in. Once we established that we
were where we were supposed to be and that it was going to be awhile, Cathy
told Butch he should put some ice on that leg. The snowstorm finally came in
handy. All he had to do was go to the
sidewalk and pick up a piece of ice.
Butch was hoping nobody would pay much attention to a man sitting down
with his pants leg pulled up and a grocery sack against his leg. No such luck. Some people whispered while others just shook their heads. Butch joined Cathy when she finally worked
her way towards the check in counter.
He got there just as the local news station did an airport update in
front of them. The cameraman pointed
his camera at the long line that we were front and center in. We may be movie stars. Once we checked our bags and got our
boarding passes the rest of the security check in went very smoothly. On the way to the gate we stopped at Wendy's
to replenish Butch's ice supply and get a soda. Eventually we were loaded on the plane only to wait while they
de-iced it.
It was a kind of a good news bad news sort of morning. The good news was that we were able to
leave. The ride from the terminal to
the runway seemed really bumpy and Butch made some remark about having snow
chains on the tires to get across the ice.
As the plane lifted into the air the entire cabin clapped and
cheered.
We talked to the Hawaiian based flight crew who were all
thrilled to be in the air again. They
came in Monday night and were supposed to leave Tuesday morning. Only they found themselves stuck in Portland
until Friday morning. That must be
tough being from Hawaii and having three days canceled from your life because
of the ice. The plane sat down two
hours late and Butch repeated his earlier remark about having tire chains on as
the plane had a bumpy landing and ride from runway to the terminal.
Being two hours late means that we missed our connecting
flight to Maui. But we were in Hawaii
and they have flights going about every hour or so. Good luck smiled upon us, as we were able to catch a flight right
away. Our baggage on the other hand
waited for a later flight. We collected
our bags, got our car, stopped at Costco and arrived at the resort just after
dark. What a long day!
The accommodations were great! We had a deluxe ocean view room on the third floor overlooking
the ocean and the beach. We wondered
who screwed up giving us this room but we were thrilled to have it.
On Saturday Butch's leg was pretty much useless so we
decided to check out Kaiser Hawaii. It
turns out there's a clinic close by and they could see him at 10:45am. Cathy was pretty impressed as the little
clinic was well equipped with a lab, x-ray and pharmacy. Check-in was easy. Butch just showed them his Kaiser card and drivers license
(although they never let him drive anything).
When the doctor took a look at the big bump on his leg she said
"EW", that looks terrible.
I'll bet it hurts (That must be one of the standard lines from the
Kaiser's doctors handbook.). She then
proceeded to press on the lump bringing him a good foot off the table. It was diagnosed in medical jargon as a
hematoma - basically a big ugly lump.
It made Cathy feel good that she had made the right diagnosis. Just to be on the safe side the doctor
decided to have the lump x-rayed. After
the x-ray she returned with good news - it's just a big ugly lump. She became a lot friendlier when she found
Cathy was a Kaiser doctor also.
By the time we were done at the doctor's office it was well
into the lunch hour. Hearing that
Carl's Jr. had a new low carb menu we decided to try it out. Not seeing anything on the menu, we asked
the lady at the counter about it.
Judging by the blank look on her face we knew they hadn't received the
memo yet. It was during lunch that
Butch first missed his cell phone.
That's when Cathy realized he was not so silly for requiring a lock code
for the phone. It would be useless to
anyone who found it. The only place
that it could be was the doctor's office, which by now was probably
closed. When they got to the doctor's
office it was closed but a guy was cleaning the carpets. When we ask if anybody had found a cell
phone he said yes! Putting an end to an
anxious hour.
One thing we discovered about the Hawaiian vacations is
that it doesn't take long to lose your enthusiasm about writing travel
journals. In fact I've found where we
started travel journals about our trips to Hawaii and they end after only a few
pages. It must be something in the
water. As for the rest of this trip it
went just fine.
THE END