ON THE WAY TO VACATION

I can't begin to say how happy I am to be on my way to 2 weeks of vacation with my loved one of the past 42 years--to the beaches of Hawaii!

Don and I had planned to get married in Hawaii back in 1971 when he took his R&R from his tour in Viet Nam.  I'd wanted to go to Hawaii since I was a teen and saw Elvis in "Blue Hawaii" and I'd also had  a great desire to learn how to surf, based on all those Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon beach movies.

Alas, my trip to the land of black sand beaches and luaus has been delayed these 42 years.  I've never been on a surf board (and with my arthritic knees, I doubt that I ever will now) and we married in Duluth, MN instead of Honolulu. Don returned home from the war earlier than expected and got a medical discharge from the Air Force.  Then came college, kids and careers, and our traveling days were put on hold for many years.

So finally, we are on that long delayed trip, and wouldn't you know, things are already going wrong.  As I was  pulling out of the driveway to head to Mpls, I caught the front fender of the car on a snow drift and tore it all apart.  Don couldn't fix it right then and we didn't want to risk driving it the way it was, so I heaved all the bags into the pickup and we bumped along to the city. When we got to the hotel, I found out that the free airport shuttle service they offer isn't free if you don't book directly with the hotel. Whoever heard of that! I swear I never saw it on the website when I made the reservation.  Oh well, I'm not going to let that keep me from my trip.  We're going to head out to get some dinner in a few minutes.  Let's hope nothing more goes wrong.  After how hard we've worked this past month we really, really need this vacation!  I can't wait to get there tomorrow!