Our Vacation

I ranted about vacation issues in my last posting but promised to actually cover the trip with my next effort. Here goes...

Our trip was a long one and was scheduled around my Mom's 90th Birthday Celebration in Walnut Creek, CA. From there, we continued West to spend 2 weeks in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. On the way home, we stopped for a week in Thousand Oaks, CA and spent Thanksgiving with our Son Grant and family.

When we first looked at options for getting to and from Logan Airport, we decided to rent a car going to the airport and to Uber home. Our flight to San Francisco had an early departure so our plan was to rent the car at Worcester Airport the day before and then make an early trip to the airport. When snow was forecast for that morning, we decided to go early and spend the night at a hotel near the airport. That was such a nice way to do it that we'll probably do it again.

Since I already mentioned our plan to Uber home, I'll finish that part of the story. After our issues with the car going to the airport (see my previous post), Budget gave us a free day of rental. When heavy snow was forecast for the time of our return home, we decided to use that discount to rent a car to get home.

So, we picked up the rental in Worcester on Nov. 7 and spent the night in Winthrop, MA. We left for San Francisco the next morning. We arrive just after noon, picked up our rental and drove to our hotel in Walnut Creek. Our Son Grant was there with his family and my Sisters were there with their families. We all had  great weekend with my Mom.

Saturday, Nov. 9 was Kristen's Birthday. Rather than make it a huge extended family event, the 2 of us had dinner with Grant and family and then returned to my Mom's for cake with the extended group. Sunday, Nov. 10 was Mom's 90th birthday and we celebrated with a luncheon for about 40 people at one of her favorite restaurants (Thanks to my Sister Stacy for making all of the arrangements!).

We didn't take a lot of pictures on this leg of the trip but we did go for a walk in our old neighborhood (of 22 years, 1984-2006) and talk to some of the neighbors. This is our old house.

We spent Monday night near SFO before heading to Kona on Tuesday morning. We've stayed in Kona many times. We spent most of our visits at a place a couple of miles from town so, to get to the restaurants, we had to drive and pay for parking. On our last visit, we stayed in a VRBO that had a great water view but was right in the middle of the restaurant area. It was no longer listed on VRBO but I still had the owner's contact information. The unit was available and he put his Mother-in-law in charge of setting everything up. She was unresponsive and we came to realize that the transaction was a lot riskier without VRBO guaranteeing things. We canceled and went through VRBO to book a nicer unit that was right next door to the first.

Our unit was 3rd in from the left, 3rd down from the top (shades were down on the 2 units above us). Our previous unit was 1 to the right (behind the palm).

View from our lanai. Restaurant with blue roof used to be a Bubba Gump (and was a restaurant that we liked before that). The restaurant to the left used to be a Charthouse. There's a great farmers market just across the street from the blue roof.

Looking the other direction from our porch. There's a whole row of restaurants along the left side of the street (with more restaurants up the hill behind them). One of our favorites, Huggos, is on the ocean side right next to the big hotel.

Our building from out at the big hotel.

Sunset from our lanai

Sunset from our lanai.

On past trips, liners have arrive every day or two. This time, we had two in the first week and then none. The cruise lines must avoid the time around Thanksgiving. This was taken at dawn.

Kristen with the tikis at Hikiau Heiau at Kealakekua Bay. She posed her with Briar and Grant back in December, 2001.

(Yes, that's my finger) This spot, just toward the airport from Kona is a historic site. and was a great snorkeling spot.

Lots of turtles. The ancient Hawaiians built fish traps out in the bay. The traps were walled areas that the fish could swim into and then not find their way out. Lots of fish in there and I fortunately was able to stand up to spot the way back out.

We left Kona on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and spent a great week with Grant, Melissa and the grandkids.

We finally returned home on Tuesday, December 3. A huge snowstorm that was forecast for Sunday continued on through Tuesday morning. Fortunately, Kristen had the foresight to find someone through Facebook to clear the driveway before we got home.

Some pictures of the snow the next morning:

We had taken the bird feeders down back in early summer after the bears had mangled them (see earlier blog). We finally thought that the bears would be in hibernation and that it would be same to put the feeders back out. The bears struck again within 2 days.

Just to complicate things, we were responsible for cutting, installing and decorating the town tree

and bandstand. The tree was several hundred feet from the road in the deep snow so that was a lot of fun. Before we could even go for the tree, we had to clear a path across the town common to the band stand and clear the snow from the grandstand.

We had had a number of volunteers to help us decorate but the 20 degree temperatures on Saturday helped all but one find reasons to bail. Even so, we were pleased with the result (but they may have to find someone else to do it next year).

-JC-

Trip Issues

We just returned from almost 4 weeks away from home. We started out with a few days in Walnut Creek, CA to celebrate my Mom's 90th birthday. From there, we went to Kona, HI for a couple of weeks. Finally, we spent Thanksgiving week with our Son and his family in Thousand Oaks, CA.

Sorry if the rest of this sounds like a rant, but that's kind of what it is it is.

Our flights were, for the most part, on time. BOS-SFO, SFO-KOA and KOA-LAX came off without a hitch (we even had an empty seat between us on the to/from KOA flights). Then there was the LAX-BOS flight.

The 8:20am flight was rescheduled to 9:39am because of snow issues in Boston and then it was moved back to 8:20am. When boarding time rolled United realize that they had forgotten to notify the crew that the flight was back on schedule (they were able to keep passengers aware of what was happening through a multitude of texts but, somehow, the crew didn't get the word). The flight was rescheduled to 9:00am, boarding proceeded and we were just about to the door of the plane when they had us return to the terminal. The delay had cost us our place in the lineup and our eventual departure was moved to 11:10am (with actual departure closer to noon).

That was flights. Then we had car rentals. Our original plan was to pick a rental car up at Worcester Airport the day before and drive it to BOS and then Uber back home at the end of the trip (the rental prices were much higher coming home). We booked that rental and rentals at SFO, KOA, and LAX.

On rentals between airports, you usually get whatever it is that needs to be moved. Our Worcester Airport to KOA rental was a new Camero that reeked like a dirty bong (I wish that I'd noticed it sooner). It was threatening to snow so we decided to spend the night before our flight near the airport. We drove all the way into Boston with the windows open (Brrr).

I wrote to Budget about their foul car and was eventually given a coupon that was good for one day of rental. In order to claim that coupon, I had to register on their site. The coupon made renting a car a favorable alternative to taking an Uber so we booked a rental for our trip home from the airport.

Our rentals at SFO and KOA were uneventful (non-Budget). Then we got to LAX. It was Tuesday of Thanksgiving week so it's understandable that things were busy at Budget. We inched through their line for over an hour and were then told that we should have gone to their FastBreak kiosk and avoided the line. That would have been nice to know. Apparently, when I registered to receive the coupon, I became a member of their FastBreak program. The car that they gave us only had 8 miles on the odometer so that was a plus.

Then there was that final rental home from BOS. We followed the FastBreak signs past the Budget counter to the line of cars in FastBreak slots. There was no indication whatsoever of who those cars might be for. We backtracked, looking for a FastBreak board with our name/contract on it. Eventually, we found a FastBreak counter with a long, long line with one person at the counter (and another that wandered in ever 10 minutes or so, helped one person and then wandered off again). When we reached the counter 30 minutes later, they were unable to print the contract because the printer was out of paper (you'd think that it would have been pre-printed). We were told where to find our car (not in the FastBreak line) and that the person at the exit would print our contract for us. That person didn't know how to do that so we had to park the car and return to the desk. The line was still long but I went straight to the person at the counter. Miraculously, he was able to immediately produce a contract. Fastbreak seems to be a wonderful thing (avoid it like the plague).

Arriving home, we found that we'd had about 18" of snow. We had been warned and Kristen had hired someone to clear the driveway. As agreed, he cleared the straight part of the driveway all the way to the back edge. We were able to pull all the way in but still had to cross about 20' of 18" snow to get to the house. Interestingly, we'd had at least one package delivered (well ahead of what the tracking indicated) and it was just sitting in the yard on top of the snow. If there are other packages, we may not find them until the snow melts. I got the blower out to clear a path so we could bring the luggage in. We cleared the rest of it in the morning.

Which brings us to our first day home. Lots to do to get the house out of vacation mode. Once the driveway was cleared, we had to return the rental to Worcester Airport and then to a large marketing. An unexpected bonus task was dealing with a pellet stove that worked fine when we got home and in the morning but wouldn't fire up when we returned from marketing (the stove has a long history of issues). No one can look at it before late on Christmas Eve.

The big task on day 2 was to get ready to decorate the town common on Saturday afternoon. We somehow acquired that responsibility a couple of years ago but we've never had to deal with snow before. But first, we decide to pay a visit to the people who sold us our stove. It seems to be a real lemon and we're working on them to replace it. We did manage to get their service call moved up to the 18th (from Christmas Eve).

Back at home, we cleared a path across the town commons, shoveled the snow out of the bandstand and got things set up to receive the tree. After lunch, we headed out to the New Braintree tree farm that always donates the town tree. It was hard work hauling a large tree across the tundra but the tree is now in it's stand in the bandstand.

We'll have lots of help for the much easier decorating job on Saturday but we sure could have used some of that help today.

That's enough of my bitching and moaning. Maybe my next vacation blog will actually deal with the vacation,

-JC-