What's Cookin', Good Lookin'?: Hawai'i Day Twenty-Two: The Journey Home

This morning, we got up, packed the last of our stuff up, cleaned the house as much as we could, and headed for the airport.

I snacked on one of the last of the muffins while at the Hilo airport, awaiting our flight to Honolulu, while Dan had satiated himself for the time being with one last iced coffee from Sirius.

After a short flight, we roamed the Honolulu airport a bit, then settled in at the Kona Brewing Company - a restaurant and bar that took over the space in the Mainland terminal in which the big Stinger Ray's used to be. Stinger Ray's became a tradition for us when on layovers in the Honolulu airport, and last year we were saddened to see it gone (or at least the big one - the smaller one is still alive and well in the interisland terminal). But we were happy to see that Kona Brewing Co. (which is a favorite spot in Kailua-Kona and a favorite beer of Dan's) was taking over the space.

The interior was a little toned down from before, but the floorplan was unchanged - and they kept the many tanks of tropical fish, which made me happy. We chose a table and were quickly greeted by our friendly and efficient waitress. I decided I wanted my last drink while still in the islands to be the same as my first - a mai tai - while Dan went for a beer. And we were upsold on the larger versions, given that neither of us would be driving for at least another 6 or 7 hours.

To eat, we decided on the nachos - which are piled high with cheese and a variety of toppings, including the now ubiquitous kalua pig. We thought we'd be ordering a pizza later, but the nachos were so big and fulfilling that we weren't left hungry at all. I thought I'd get sick of kalua pig/pork during the trip, but I could still eat it now. Maybe it's the saltiness, or the smokinesss, or the combination, but I can't get enough of it.

On our flight back to the mainland, we got another relatively sad meal - clearly aimed more at getting you to pay $10 for the non-complimentary meal than to actually tantalize the taste buds. Dan had a spinach lasagna that came with a piece of chocolate cake, while I had a smooshed turkey sandwich with nothing on it, paired with a bag of Lay's potato chips and a single chocolate macadamia nut candy. It disappoints me that for the price of a ticket, you get so much less these days (they now charge $15 for every bag you check, plus more if it's over 50 lbs), but hopefully innovative business models (like Ryanair practically giving away the seats on their flights and just charging for everything else) will change the face of air travel in the coming years. To their credit, we did have a great flight attendant named Lehua who let Dan & I share a can of iced tea, rather than just pouring us a 1/4 of the can each.

After getting our bags, we had a great cab ride in a hybrid driven by a friendly guy back to our house, brought everything inside, gave Caesar a bunch of hugs and pets, and then hopped into the car to fulfill our tradition of eating Taco Bell after returning from a trip. It took two tries - the one on 4th Ave S was closed - but the one on Rainier Ave S turned out to be open (even though some hooligans told us it wasn't and we almost drove on by). We got a quesadilla and a couple chicken burritos, went home, and enjoyed them while watching TV, cuddling with Caesar, and washing it down with some Coronas (also a tradition).