the long way home

it all seems so long ago now, but i still have one final hawaii recap to share.  our flight home was originally scheduled to take off at noon, but while i was up in the gym for one last hotel workout the hub texted to let me know that we'd been delayed four hours.  

flight delays are always such a mind game - you're already resigned to the fact that you're heading home from a fantastic vacation, but now you find yourself having to kill time until you get to board that plane.  ugh.  so i made one last coffee run, picking up a bag of beans to take home to my friend lilcee.

this also meant that we didn't have to rush around that morning as we'd anticipated.  i had time to sit down and enjoy my coffee while taking in the view from our room one last time.

below us, the hub was taking his last morning yoga class.

we took our time getting our stuff all packed up and ready to check out of our room, but when we couldn't stall any longer we made our way out of there and took one last look around. bye for now, moana surfrider!

we decided to grab one last delicious poke bowl from ono seafood, taking the scenic route and enjoying the views along the way.

we stopped at starbucks for a bathroom break and while i truly didn't need them, i scooped up a set of hawaii-themed reusable cups to take home.  i managed to do some shuffling around in my carry-on to accommodate them, despite the glares i was getting from the hub.  eek.

because we still had time to kill, the hub swung into the driveway for queen emma's summer palace so we could check it out.  there really wasn't much to do though, aside from browsing in the gift shop and saying hello to their resident pooch.

and since we hadn't been yet on this trip, we stopped at waiola shave ice for a cold treat.  i, of course, had to recreate a photo from about six years ago...because why not?

another text from the airline told us that we'd been delayed even further - now we weren't taking off until 7pm.  ugh.  and with nothing else really to do, the hub pulled into ala moana shopping center and we got out to do some window shopping.  we knew we didn't have any room to actually buy anything, which was probably a good thing anyway.  but it was fun to browse around and suck up some free a/c, which we earned while waiting in line to enter some of the stores.

when we got hungry, we headed in for some korean bbq.  that pretty much killed most of the time we had left, and then it was time to head to the airport at last.

we dropped off the rental car and then made our way into the terminal to check our bags and find our gate.

when we got there, we found a cart full of free snacks and bottles of water - their attempt to make up for the delays we'd had to work through.

and then it was finally time to board the plane.

this was dinner - it looks terrible, and i'm not gonna lie and tell you it was better than it looked.  luckily i wasn't super hungry, but i ate the parts that were somewhat palatable and then settled back to nap for the rest of the flight.  we didn't luck out with those awesome pods this time around, but we were still fairly comfortable in our seats.

the flight was uneventful, just the way we like it, and it was nice and cool in the plane so i got to put on my new favorite sweater - from the gift shop at turtle bay resort.

welcome home to us!

until next time, hawaii.  thanks for a wonderful week.