Hawaii 2013: A Family Vacation

Our annual family vacation
is my Dad, a couple of my cousins, and myself. In the quest to find
the cheapest and most accommodating flight, we’ve tried everything.
See, I’m in MD, my Dad’s in NJ, and my cousins are in VA. We’ve
tried flying out of our respective airports—Richmond, Baltimore,
and Newark. We’ve tried taking the train to NJ and then flying out
on separate flights. But this year is different. We decided to fly
together. Everyone, out of Newark—because really, who can pass up a
round-trip flight to Hawaii for $637??? No, that is not a typo.
The Plan: The cousins arrive at my house on
Saturday at 5pm. We depart for NJ at 6pm. It’s a 3 hour drive. We
arrive at 9pm. Have a late dinner and go to bed to rise no later
than 2am, because the car service was picking us up at 3am for our
5:15am flight. What Really Happened: The cousins
arrived at almost 7pm. They needed to check-in, pay for their bags,
and print their boarding passes. We loaded up the car. Made a stop
at Dunkin Donuts and then headed over to Bank of America to get
spending money (I don’t bank there so this
2^nd stop wasn’t for me). We hit the road at
just about 8pm—the time my 1 cousin said was too late to leave when
I originally suggested it. We endured torrential downpours,
darkness, and fog—all contributors to poor visibility. We arrived
at shortly past 11pm. My father had gone to bed. I managed to
escape an asthma attack by repeatedly sticking my head out the
front door (no central AC in the house, window unit wasn’t in, the
screen wasn’t in the window in the living room where I was
sleeping, and my Dad is a smoker). Needless to say, I got about 30
minutes of sleep before our 6,000-mile journey began. I’ve had
requests in the past to blog about our adventures in Hawaii and
this is the year I’ll make that happen. I mean after all, if this
is how the trip begins it can only get more
entertaining…