As Herbert Viola tells Tom Cruise in Risky Business, sometimes you just have to say "WTF."
I'm abbreviating, but you know what I mean. So it is that I took my longtime friend Chris Teske up on a mileage run to Honolulu. He's trying to add to his already formidable number of lifetime United miles. I had a little Taking Midway research to follow up on before 2nd Pass hits my inbox.
The journey goes something like this: buy the cheapest possible economy ticket from Orange County to Honolulu. Work the upgrade. Fly to Hawaii. Spend eight hours enjoying the sights and smells of a tropical paradise. Watch the sunset. Fly home. Total elapsed time: 27 hours.
I love travel, as you well know, dear reader. I'm also inclined to be in the middle of a writing day and get a faint whiff of longing for my favorite places (Mammoth, Hawaii, and of course, London). So this was a chance to indulge. Instead of wishing for that wonderful sense of peace and acceptance known as Aloha, I would experience it directly, Plus, it's been an adventurous six months here on the homestead I am not owed a breath but I sure could use one. A bemused Calene told me to have a good time.
I knew going in that this would be a test: long direct flight, short turnaround, cramped seating if the upgrades didn't materialize. Fourteen of those twenty-seven hours would be spent in the air. I brought a book in my Thule travel backpack (Rick Atkinson and World War II), my laptop, my travel journal, and a change of clothes. Charger. Noise-cancelling headphones. All aboard.
Left the house at 5 a.m. Saturday morning and got back at 9 a.m. Sunday. What I remember most is not the flights, but the experiences: breakfast burrito at Urban Tortilla in the SFO E Terminal, wandering Compass Books (and finding a copy of Taking Paris), the smell of the tropics that smacks you in the face like a warm washcloth as you first step out of the terminal in HNL, wandering Waikiki which is like wandering Las Vegas or New Orleans, only with a better sunset. Followed up on the Midway stuff.
Early in my career, I covered a lot of events on Oahu: Oceanfest, mountain bike racing at Kualoa Ranch, Xterra. Calene and I took the boys when we could. Sometimes I went alone. We traveled on a shoestring. So wandering around Waikiki late on a busy Saturday afternoon was an exercise in nostalgia. The first thing Calene asked when I got home was whether or not the Denny's by the Outrigger Reef was still there. We used to enjoy a cheap breakfast and the waitress was a commanding woman named Pinky. Yes, I told Calene, it's still there. I made sure to check. Not sure about Pinky. It's been thirty years.
Chris and I checked out a couple dive bars, had dinner and watched the sunset from the Elks Club in the shadow of Diamond Head (Chris is a member. Forget any preconceptions you might have about an Elks Club. This place on the water was magical), then Uber'ed back to the airport. Got the upgrade for the flight back, so I was able to sleep on the packed redeye. Made the connection in SFO with two minutes to spare then fell right back to sleep as the sun rose over San Francisco Bay.
Was such a short trip exhausting? Yes — but not as much as it was exhilarating. One great thing about travel is perspective. You step away from daily routine, inevitably, you examine your life from afar. I always thought I needed a week or at least a weekend for that sort of insight. Turns out a whirlwind 27 hours that makes absolutely no sense does the exact same thing.
Would I do it again? Not tomorrow, but yes. Sometimes you just have to say WTF.