8 August 2011: BWI Airport, DFW Airport, and Honolulu, Hawaii

It’s the middle of August…you know what that means…time for vacation. After Cin’s summer job ended, we had a few weeks until she went back to teaching school, so off we go! We spent all weekend before working at a friend’s brand new duathlon event that went off very well but left both of us exhausted. So we spent Sunday evening packing up and then collapsed on the bed, only to be woken up nice and early by the alarm on Monday morning. We put our luggage in the truck and drove to my parents’ house and my mom then took us to BWI airport for our flights, first to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and then on to our final destination of Honolulu, Hawaii.

The drop-off went without a hitch, we breezed through security, and then got a decent breakfast at the Rams Head Tavern location within the airport that consisted of omelets that were much better than expected. Nice. We then boarded our flight to DFW, which was a very pleasant flight where I got a decent amount of writing in…in fun news, I’m now writing a book! My proposal to a major technology published company was accepted so now I’m writing. Combine that with everything else I’m doing these days and this vacation is all that much more needed. J

Once at DFW, we walked around a bit and found that the best restaurants in this airport are in the D concourse. C, where we arrived into, is pretty lacking, but D has awesome choices. We ate at one of the Mexican joints here last time we were in this airport but this time chose to eat at the Tigin Irish Pub (their webpage is here), where I had some Guinness BBQ wings and Cin had a roast beef and cheddar sandwich. I also had two Black and Golds, which is Guinness and Stella Artois, which was delicious. We then headed over to our gate and boarded our flight to Honolulu, which took off after only a slight delay due to a malfunctioning latch on an overhead bin.

The flight to Honolulu, which takes about eight and a half hours, was as long as it sounds. I did some more writing for my book and worked on some other projects I am currently working on until I had exhausted the battery on my Macbook Pro. Booooo. I did watch the first of the two movies on the flight, Thor, and found it much better than expected. Then I played some games on my iPad and just relaxed a bit, until we finally landed, me with some very tired eyes due to staring at so many screens for so long.

Despite traveling for over fourteen hours, it was only 4.30pm when we landed in Honolulu and brightly sunny. We picked up our rental car, a red, convertible, Mustang, and drove to Waikiki, where we were staying for this leg of our trip (six nights on Oahu and four on the Big Island). We eventually found our hotel, the Doubletree Alana Hotel (their website is here and their TripAdvisor page is here). This hotel is a pretty standard Doubletree. It is, however, right across the street from the Hilton Hawaiian Village (their webpage is here and their TripAdvisor page is here), which is right on Waikiki Beach. I had stayed at the Hilton the last two times I was here and loved it. The Doubletree proved to be cheaper and only a quick three minute walk from the Hilton and the beach, which made it a good choice. Note, however, that this hotel is not directly on the beach and feels like a pretty standard Doubletree, so be prepared for that should you choose to stay here.

After we checked in, we walked over to the Hilton and then down Waikiki for a while to go to Duke’s Barefoot Bar and Restaurant (their webpage is here and their TripAdvisor page is here), which is a staple of Oahu and in a beautiful location right on the beach. The wait for a table was over an hour and the bar area pretty crowded, so we opted to just get a drink and then headed back towards our hotel. I had a Kona Pale Ale, which was delicious. We stopped at the beachside bar at the Sheridan on the way back and had dinner, which was delicious. I had two Primo beers and a beef hotdog for dinner and Cin had a sandwich that was also quite good and a delicious fruity concoction. We then walked all the way back and went up to our room, where we promptly showered and went to sleep, exhausted.