What Else Could Go Wrong?

 Note: this is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.] 

5/22/21

We are finally home after an unexpectedly long journey and we're now recovering from 6-hour jet lag and a sore butt.

The trip over to the mainland went so smoothly it was eerie. No delays, quick check-ins, even managed to have an open seat next to us on the long flight from Kona to Denver despite a very full plane. We had a very short connection time in Denver but made the next flight with time to spare. Had an efficient Covid-style check-in at our hotel in Cincinnati (electronic registration, no-touch key cards), easy Lyft ride to the car rental office the next morning and a beautiful drive to Knoxville, ending with great barbecue and beer that first night on the river.  Then the weather crapped on us, with temps dropping so low that it frosted for two nights in a row, thus putting the damper on our goal of seeing spring flowers and bushes in bloom.

Still, the Tennessee/North Carolina trip itself was interesting and we had enough good days that the weather wasn't a total buzzkill.

 

At the end of our itinerary we were able to reconnect in person with a number of good friends from our working days in Ohio. Sadly, one especially close Ohio friend passed away while we traveling in North Carolina and we were unable to see her before her death. However, by delaying our return home a day we were able to attend the funeral -- a sad event yet a heart-warming tribute and a chance to see many mutual friends.  Another Ohio friend also died while we were there, the husband of a very close colleague in my department, but in this case the funeral wasn't for several days after we were scheduled to return and it would have been difficult to change our arrangements again. 

It seemed fitting that the journey home would include some definite travel challenges that reminded us that snafus are often a part of the deal.  Our flight from Cincinnati to Denver was delayed by about six hours when the plane's computer found a part that was malfunctioning.  To determine that it was really a part and not just the computer itself fritzing out, the pilots had to conduct several time-consuming reboots and diagnostic checks (I suggested my method of giving it a good whack to see if that would help but they didn't follow my advice).  The part wasn't stocked in Cincinnati and had to be flown in from Chicago, which took a couple of hours. Thankfully, rather than having to wait for the part to be installed, we were put on the plane that brought the part, and finally took off for Denver.  Of course we arrived way too late to make our original Kona flight, and all the later flights were totally full.  So United put us up in a Denver Airport hotel and re-booked us on the next day's flight. All went pretty well after that and we even arrived in Kona a little ahead of schedule.  

 

The next day we had a beach breakfast picnic that was very nice, but Karen lost her Iphone in the process.  Fortunately the phone was locked, and as soon as we discovered it was missing I went online and put it into Lost Mode -- making it worthless to anybody who found it.  I also made the phone display a message saying that a reward was offered for its return and giving my own cell number to call.  Sure enough, around noon we got a call from a woman who said she had bought it from a homeless man (probably not true) and would meet us to return it for the reward.  This turned out to be close by and we gratefully gave her a generous reward just a short while later.  Whew!  Crisis averted. But then this morning MY phone suddenly turned into a techno-brick.  I'm still working on this problem and will catch you up next week.

 

There's more to the saga of our return journey but I'll stop there for now and let you ponder the old saying, "what else could go wrong?"

Hope you are all well and enjoying your late spring.  Carpe diem!