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The boat was a horrendous mess. Fiberglass dust, epoxy flakes, extension cords, and tools everywhere. An ice chest used for storing electrical junk blocked the forward corridor, and a drawer inset for the galley blocked the midship corridor. To get anywhere in the boat, one had to leap the hurdles. Forget finding anything at this point. And yet, for once I didn't care. After all, I'd soon be on a flight out and away from all of that. Our bags were packed, ready to go. I'm standing here outside my slip...

I'd packed matching accessories. We each had our cute little zip locked 1 quart baggies of food and toiletries. Our double bagged toiletry baggies each had fingernail clippers, soap, contact solution, eye drops, hand sanitizer, sunblock, lube, condoms, tissue paper, and toothpase. Our food baggies each contained three Thai peanut flavored seitan strips, six fizzy multivitamins, six teabags, and two raw energy bars. Eric's backpack had been crammed with the laptop, bendable small tripod, vegan travel guides (bagged), sandals (bagged), poncho, camera accessories, two spoons, pens, plastic cutlery, and a copy of "Lies My Teacher Told Me" (borrowed from Mark). My travel pack (a gift from Mark) contained all the 8 sets of warm weather clothes, two sets of cool weather clothes, batteries for the camera, our rail pass, a moleskine notebook, pens, power adapters (borrowed from Mark), headphone with microphone, cheap headphones, a mini solar charger (borrowed from Mark), our 770 internet tablet, battery charger, and power blocks for various devices. The weight of our bags seemed formidable. I confiscated Eric's keys and weeded the unnecessary cards from our persons. We wouldn't need our library card on the journey and finding replacements to keys lost would be a pain.

With all of that done, we had to go and catch our plane. I locked the hatch, checked the bilge pumps, closed the thru-hull valves, set the alarm, and finally locked down the entry hatch. Then, feeling sweaty, I decided to put my jacket back in the boat. So, I opened the hatch, deactivated the alarm, tossed the jacket, reset the alarm, locked the hatch. Then I realized my keys were still in my pocket. I sighed, unlocked the hatch, inched it open very slowly, dropped the keys inside, and locked the hatch again. Thankfully I hadn't triggered that sensitive alarm.

And we were off! Well almost. Halfway down the row of boats Eric suggested that I reconfigure the power line with an extension cord so that it would be less likely to be knocked out by a neighbor. Of course, the extension cord was back inside the boat. Sighing, I walked back, unlocked the hatch, deactivated the chirping alarm, found the blasted power cord, reconfigured the power line to the boat, tied the power cord to the rail, checked the power in the boat, reactivated the alarm, checked the bilge one last time for good measure, and locked the hatch.

I ran back down the planks to meet back up with Eric, and we walked up the dusty trail to the 19 Airport bus. I remarked on how odd it was to be catching the bus in the opposite direction, and at night. We were scheduled for the 9:30 pm overnight flight to LAX arriving around 6:15 am. I figured that the more overnight flights we had in our schedule the better, as we'd be sleeping when we were sleepy whether we were going forward or backward in time. Our trip to the airport from Sand Island Access Rd seemed longer than the distance warranted. After all, flights regularly flew over our boat. We could even see the runways from our deck. Taking a dinghy to the airport would have been shorter, though airport security might not have appreciated us walking down the runway toward the terminal. Eventually, the bus made its turn into the departures row of Honolulu International Airport and we descended.

Inside, I peered around looking for the Hawaiian Airlines desk. I found the dimly lit desk a little ways down and started walking that way with a purpose. Most of the lines were vacant and dark. I walked over to the computerized check-in terminal, but it said its hours of operation ceased at 5:30pm. Great, just great. I followed Eric to the one open line for Hawaiian Airlines, even though it was designated for some class of service we weren't entitled. Anyway, they checked us in, handed us our tickets, and we were on our way. Security is always a pain, in new and inspiring ways. Our shoes, laptop, and fluids had to be separated from our person, our pockets emptied. I beeped going through the detector when I had forgotten to remove my watch fab, and had to take another go at it. Not beeping the second time, I think I disappointed the security guard who had been applying his rubber gloves and vaseline.

Cheeks clenched, I ran away with Eric toward our terminal, way, way at the end. They weren't boarding yet though. Several people clustered around the Samsung charging station, their phones, pda's, and ipods linked them to the advertisement power spire. We searched around for a place to park our asses, but had trouble seeing the gate by the time we found empty seats. Thus, we stalked seats closer to the gate, playing a silent game of musical chairs until we'd been victorious.

Probably twenty minutes later, they began boarding first class passengers. I watched them lining up against the wall of windows, wearing their evening dinner jackets and acting proper. However, not too much longer, we were in line to board as the plane boarded the back of the plane first. More precisely, I was in line while Eric sat on his butt. He didn't want to bother standing in the slow moving line with a heavy backpack. When I got closer to the gate, Eric joined me. I expected the gate attendant to rip my boarding pass and give me back port, but apparently now they just scan the code on the pass and hand the whole thing back. Ah technology, progress... grunt grunt.

Up the aisle, past the perpetually smiling flight attendants, and to the back of the plane I found our seats in the middle row. Eric met up with me shortly after. He'd been checking on our meal arrangements. Unfortunately, despite trying to confirm our vegan meal option repeatedly beforehand, we would not be getting a vegan meal. Apparently, Hawaiian Airlines had discontinued "special" meals five years ago. Seven and a half years ago, when we'd flown to Hawaii, we'd at least been able to get a soggy mushroom, rice, and hard roll from this airline. Of course, I think Hawaiian Airlines had gone bankrupt since then, twice if memory served me right. How it still managed to keep operating when Aloha Airlines had shuttered itself completely, I don't know. Grumbling, I took my seat.

Eric asked the passing flight attendant if we could switch seats to a window row. She said we could as soon as everyone had boarded, so they knew the seats were vacant. So, as soon as the doors had closed, we ran over to the window and claimed a seat. A Hawaiian styled safety and advertisement video played on all the monitors. Squinting at the screens, I noticed part of it was filmed in an area of Waikiki I recognized.

Around us, several babies were wailing. "Great, we're on the plane full of people going to the colicy baby convention." I said to the amusement of the ladies in the seat behind me. I had to admit that I'd stolen the joke from a Dilbert cartoon.

Takeoff was smooth though thrilling as usual--the blast of the jet engines, the thrust back into your seat, and the slight bit of fear as you realize you're not on terra firma anymore. As we banked, I could see the Honolulu evening skyline with our harbors below. Climbing, climbing, climbing, ears popping, climbing, damn ears popping again. Way up above 30,000 feet or so, the engines finally quieted down a little, the plane leveling.

The evening movie was "Race to Witch Mountain" starring The Rock. Disney had remade an old classic and thrown in a wrestler-turn-actor to keep it interesting. The inflight announcement told us that whether we rented earphones or used our own, the cost would be $5. Well that was a new way of gouging passengers. I wondered how they tracked that. I doubted they had some computer which showed which audio jacks were in use. No, they probably just relied on the flight attendants.

I used to be a hero on these flights. I would carry lots of single dollars. Whenever someone needed change, I would help out. But now, the flights were all cashless, using portable charge machines with glowing green screens. They didn't accept cash anymore. My cash had become obsolete!

Despite the lack of sound, I watched the movie. I was even able to figure out some of the cheezy cliched dialogue being used. It didn't appear that I was missing anything worthwhile. Lots of stuff blew up, and the movie made absolutely no sense. I really hoped that Disney didn't remake the sequel. Wasn't there a sequel? There probably will be.

I rummaged around in our bags and got out some seitan strips and raw bars for Eric and myself to munch upon. Eric even managed to get a couple bags of Lays chips from the flight attendant. He'd been trying to get some of the taro chips for free since we wouldn't get a vegan meal, but they wouldn't give us those. They charged for those chips. When the flight attendant asked me if I wanted their animal dish, I gave him a piece of my mind. Perhaps I should have accepted the dish, merely to cost Hawaiian Airlines the value of the meal. In a way, the cost of our tickets subsidized the cost of everyone else's animal meals.

For the rest of the flight, I read some from the Lies book, then I tried to get some rest with probably no success. The jarring, noisy flight, coupled with being stuck in a seat near 90 degrees meant little chance of that.

Arriving in LAX, we waited for almost everyone on the plane to get off before even bothered to get our bags. It just wasn't worth the hassle. As we disembarked, I thought about how long it had been since I'd been in California. Seven and a half years since I'd been in my birth state. I still had friends and family in the area which I hoped to reconnect with. Still, I doubted many of my family members would make much effort to meet me. I'd let them know I was coming, and received no response.

Ah well, California here I am, watch out!