Westward Ho. Around the World in 80 Delays.

Brief comments on the above photos:

-         Glenn (in his dreams) on his first surf lesson close to the world-famous “Pipe”.

-         The portions are enormous, the arses are AWESOME (no, folks, this is not Sue) and it took an hour to get this ‘gal out of the railings

-         The sunsets are enormous and just plain AWESOME

Its only the 12^th day of the new year and already in the past 2 weeks we’ve taken 3 flights, 2 hire cars and this is the 9^th different bed we’ve slept in!

Leaving on Boxing Day at the start of our big trip was difficult for me as I lost my Dad just 3 days before Christmas.  Apart from the shock, there was the emotional pull of wanting to be with family, but we decided to carry on as my brother will be arranging the funeral

The long haul flight from Heathrow to LA was the most comfortable we’d ever experienced.  Air New Zealand premium economy is amazingly high spec and has now spoilt us for the future!  By comparison United Airlines from San Francisco to Honolulu was c***.  The plan of flying west has really worked and we’ve not experienced jet lag so far….We met Glenn’s son Tim at the Radisson hotel in LA as planned, but all was not well with him.  He had a really bad dose of food poisoning and his journey from Mexico to be with us had been fraught with complication.  Nevertheless we set off for San Diego the next morning – trial by fire on 7 lane highways in a small (by American standards) hire car surrounded by huge trucks vehicles that looked like they came straight out of cartoons.  Installed in our first motel we left Tim to recover and went in search of the ocean.  We watched the sun set into the Pacific at the end of an old pier with fishermen and families vying for space in the dilapidated wooden café selling clam chowder and tacos with chillies and cheese. We took a drive through suburbia on the way back to the motel and marvelled at the excess in Christmas lighting.  Already noticing the waste in packaging and too large portions of food (everyone needs to take out a doggy bag it seems), we now wondered at the cost both to the pocket and the planet in the burning of so much energy.  Not only Christmas lights, but all the commercial signs and gas flares illuminating walkways to restaurants just abound everywhere in the cities.

Tim recovered enough to be able to do a tour of the Midway (aircraft carrier) in San Diego next day with his dad while I took a tour bus of the city.  In fact Glenn quips that already on this tour he has been on an (each is “AWESOME”) aircraft carrier, the last of the great battleships the “Mighty Mo” USS Missouri and a submarine and Sue has eaten a lot of ice cream – so all are happy!

SanFran was memorable for its good weather for the time of year and we did all the usual things.  Glenn ate crab. And more crab. He went up and down every Switchback on every Cable car (poor, sad thing) and I went shopping (yeehah).  We then visited with (notice how we are stumbling into the vernacular) Sue’s  sister-in-law and managed to start leaving stuff behind, in which will probably become a repetitious and senior feature of this trip.

Onwards to Hawaii and Waikiki beach.  We write this from our 17^th floor condo (we think it is called Benidorm Towers) but somehow it isn’t Benidorm but if it is, it has ATTITUDE!  It is as beautiful as they say so that we won’t bore you.  The pix speak a thousand words.  It is full of great WWII ships (Glenn made me put that in).  Some above water and, sadly, some underwater……..  But the Americans do do things well at their visitor sites. 

We move on into the 3^rd world tomorrow and may lose internet for a while.  Those lovely people in Fiji have already moved one of our flights and cancelled another, so we are not best pleased and the weather looks like unrelenting warm rain for the entire stay in what is, of course, cyclone season.   It’s not all plain sailing but Glenn reckons it won’t affect the diving too much so he plans to get seriously wet anyway.  Aloha from Oahu…

PS from Glenn:  did I mention the great ships!!??  PLEASE, PLEASE someone ask me for more pix of them!