Day 1: Traveling left us beat, but not Hertz

Monday, August 30 - Let me start off by saying this might have been the longest day of my life. By the time I finally put my head down on the pillow (at 7pm) I was exhausted past the point of exhaustion.

It started with us waking before our alarm. The alarm was set for 4:15am EST. So by 4:00 we were dressed, packed, and ready to go. By 4:30 we were in the car and headed to the airport. We were prepared to battle the large crowd of business people going no where as fun as where we were heading. They were no where to be found. We were prepared to standing in line at security. There was no such line. By 5:15 we were sitting at our gate waiting for our flight to bored board at 6:30am EST.

Our flight was to land in Phoenix at 9:07am local time, but the pilot announced we'd get there by quarter of 9.  At 10:30 EST we were still flying high and Bob and I were both totally confused. There's no way we're going to be on the ground in 15 minutes we thought.  A full hour later we had arrived and only then realized that Arizona doesn't abide by daylight savings time. So they're now 3 hours behind EST and sometimes they're 2.  Since we'd been up for 7 hours already we were ready for lunch, but we were hard pressed to find a hamburger anywhere at 8:30 am.  At 10:15 PST we boarded for our flight to Hawaii. 

With 3000 miles of Pacific Ocean to pass I finally figured out why the sky is blue.  Everytime I looked out my window I just kept thinking how amazing it is how the sky and the ocean appear to become one. It literally looked like I was flying in a blue sky with a few white puffy clouds below me and the earth was gone. When Olivia asks me "Why is the sky blue, Mommy" I will now have an answer: It's the reflection of the world's oceans. I just hope she doesn't ask why it's still blue over a green pasture.

It was then about 5 and half hours through our six and a half hour flight that Bob turned to me, like he'd just seen a ghost and said, "I left the car rental info and the interisland flight vouchers at home." We had no idea what car rental agency we went through since our travel agent booked it. There was nothing we could do until we landed and could start making some phone calls. But who should we call? It would be 9pm EST on a Monday night when we touched down. That's when Bob suggested we go to every rental car agency at the airport. Seriously?! Yes, seriously we'd go to Hertz, Budget, and on down the line. The only one he didn't name was Alamo which is the agency we were actually booked with. It turned out after a few deadends, we were able to call the booking agency (not our travel agent) directly and get the info we needed.

Our luggage came immediately and after picking up the car we headed for our hotel about 45 minutes away in Lahani. We're staying on the western side of Maui at the Hyatt Regency which is along a beautiful stretch of beach.

By the time we checked in and got to our room (which we later switched rooms) it was 4:15pm Hawaii time. I was beat and ready to eat. But Bob suggested we both get massages. I was game. I booked the Swedish massage in Kauai, but I also wanted to try the traditional Hawaiian massage called the LomiLomi. It was the best massage ever.  By 6pm when our massages were over we were famished. We ate at one of the resort restaurants and then called it a night. It was 7pm and the lights were out. We were both beat having been up for 21 hours.