Vicious Groundhog

"When you have completed 95 percent of your journey, you are only halfway there."

Japanese Proverb

The problem was that we were barely 5% percent into the journey and hadn't even left California.  We started from Santa Barbara at 4am and in 10 hours had managed to travel down the coast a measly total of 215 miles.  When we were delayed leaving LAX we arrived late into San Diego and missed our connection to Hawaii by 11 minutes. I felt the fangs of a repetitious groundhog sink its teeth into my carefully arranged travel plans.  I had a sneaky suspicion I'd be seeing San Diego airport again tomorrow morning.


Standing impatiently in line, I watched all the other stranded passengers snag seats back to LA and onward to their Hawaiian palm-thronged paradise.  Oahu, known as "The Gathering Place", was summoning everyone, except us.  Not one to give up easily I listened to the repetitive loop of the unsoothing 'on hold music' of American Airlines for 2 hours.  As the minutes ticked by I realized it would only be a phone and not a Mai Tai that I would be holding up to my face today.  With Greg asking for upgrades as compensation over my shoulder, my frazzled telephone reservation agent managed to pluck 4 seats out from under the poor unknowing souls who would be grounded tomorrow.  With one ear burning and emotionally worn down, I rested my chin on the ticket counter and accepted the fact we would not be going to the most isolated population centre on earth today. I watched the tickets reprint for tomorrow, but I certainly wasn't going to hold my breath on the 24 hour hiatus in San Diego. 

“This is an elegant hotel! Room service has an unlisted number” 

Henny Youngman 

As a traveling family we've had plenty hectic travel journeys, delays and complete derailments, I couldn't understand why I was so devastated we wouldn't fly to Oahu today? One look at the kid's faces and I knew exactly why, their disappointment was tangible. And of course in our exhaustion we had all turned into vicious cannibalistic ground hogs ready to turn on each other once we'd gnawed through the squashed melted protein bars from the depths of my handbag.

Our frustration was not going to be easily contained in a couple of hotel rooms overnight. So I did the only humane thing possible, I unlocked the interconnecting door, reapplied some lip gloss and ran away.  Not an actual sprint, but a brisk walk along the esplanade, I left the rest of the pack to watch bad TV in the air conditioning. 

"Flying may not be all plain sailing" 

Amelia Earhart

The further I got from the overpacked suitcases, that were now open and exploded all over the hotel room, the better I felt.  The whining emptied from my ears and my thoughts turned from waging vendettas against American Airlines.  I began to enjoy the late afternoon sunshine and optimistically tried to turn the detour into an adventure.  I got my 'tourist' on and snapped some photos along the harbor promenade.  However, I soon began to look enviously at the other modes of transport. The Star of India had me gauging how long it would take to sail to Hawaii from here with courteous trade winds?

By the time I marched alongside the Midway my meglomania had ramped into overdrive and I was ready to  move up from sailing captain to naval commander.   I mused that while I navigated the Pacific I could order the shooting down of the airplanes carrying the passengers that had snagged the seats ahead of us.  

Forty-five minutes later and I'd calmed down to the realization it was a different type of navy I was after.  I figured the color of this luxury liner would look perfect on me.  

Another forty-five minutes later, sporting a blister from my new 'holiday' flipflops, I limped back into the hotel ready to hit the restaurant.  It wasn't quite the plate lunch I'd been dreaming about but it was just what the family needed to prevent us snapping at each other.

Things look so different after a couple of English ales and a plate of bangers of mash.  Acquiescing to the situation, the wrathful flames of my inner dragon had been dowsed to hardly steaming nostrils and I fell into bed with relief.

“The man who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself”

 Friedrich Nietzsche