Mothers Day

It was EARLY on Mothers Day (May 10-2009) that Naomi and I drove to the DCA Airport (aka Reagan National) to begin The Mundy Hawaiin Adventure. A special trip in which Jim and I were going to Hawaii withMom as one of the things on her Bucket List. The other was to buy a new car, which she has already done. The trip was to be "First Class" all the way. First Class air travel, the best rooms in some of the best hotels....a trip to remember.

My flight went off without a hitch. I arrived in Atlanta with about an hour to my connecting flight to Honolulu. I of course arrived in terminal B and had to go to terminal E, which requires a short train ride. I got off the train, headed up the escalator, and found Jim and Mom not far away, they had arrived not long before me. We greeted each other, chatted a bit, and headed onto the plane (a 747-400). This was the first time on a 747. We sat in the second row in First Class, which was in the nose of the plane and had a huge open area in the middle isle (probably at least 10ft). As soon as we got to our seats, we were offered Mia Ti's....what a great start!

The seats were huge as well, and reclined all the way flat. Each had a private pull out screen and probably about two dozen or so on demand movies, plus music, games and more. I watched three movies on the way over. Dinner was a choice of chicken or pasta, I think we all had the chicken. While airline food is hardly gourmet food, it was pretty good.

Over 8hrs later, we arrived in Honolulu. As we got off the plane, mom was greeted by a Hawaiin lady bearing a beautiful purple lei (something Naomi arranged prior). While happy, mom didn't seem too impressed - which I was to discover why later. Apparently she thought "everyone" get's a lei when they come off the plane. Apparently she failed to notice that out of the 400 people coming off the plane, she was the only one to receive a lei. I mentioned that it was a Mothers Day gift from Naomi and I in leu of flowers - she failed to believe me at first until I explained the whole thing. A typical "mom-ism".



Now getting our checked luggage was an adventure. My bag was one of the very first off the plane, but Moms and Jims were not to be found. 400 people standing around getting their luggage made for quite an adventure. After it was apparent that their bags weren't coming out, Jim checked baggage claim to find their luggage arrived on an earlier flight. Oh well, no worries, better then getting lost.

Jim proceed to get the rental car, while I waited with Mom. This too took a little time as it was the last available car in it's class. A white 2009 Ford Taurus Limited Edition - very roomy with less then 1,000 miles. We left the airport and Jim proceed to give us a quick tour of the local area around where we were staying. Hawaii is so pretty and so clean. The water is a gorgeous turquoise color with the whitest white caps to be seen. The area around our hotel was very upscale too, plenty of shops and many quite upscale.

We arrived at our hotel, The Outrigger in Waikiki. We checked in and proceed up to our room on the (almost) top floor. The top floor is the Penthouse which has a gym and a spa. We had the two corner rooms, a one room suite and a regular room. Each had a lanai (aka balcony) . The suite was a corner room and had two lanais, one overlooking the Waikiki beach, and the other on the side which had a view of the mountains.



We decided to go to an early dinner, so we headed downstairs to one of the Outriggers restaurants called Dukes. Jim had been many times and highly recommended it. We all had fresh fish. I think the opah was the best.

We were all pretty beat, so we headed back to our rooms and called it a night.