No, wait. I’ve got the sequence of events messed up. And I’ve only just started talking about our arrival the Kona coast. Ernnh.
So back up…
Of course, we flew from Kaua‘i to Hawai‘i. This time, our seats were on the island side of the plane, and we had a view of the distant volcanos as we came in for a landing at Kona. Although truth be told, my eyes were on the water and the beach,
and I didn’t see the shields rising into the clouds until we looked thru our photographs later.
And when we had landed, the plane didn’t taxi up to the terminal but rather stopped on the tarmac well away from the building.
How retro this felt. I remember years ago walking out on the tarmac to board PanAm 727s. There was something integrative about being close to the ground, something that made you feel part of aircraft operations as you climbed the steps up to the side of the fuselage.
This was like that, although the plane was a 717.
They opened the cabin door, and we stepped down the stairs to the tarmac, I with my backpack and Moleskine notebook, Trudy with her backpack and camera. (Frankly, without the notebook and camera, many of these stories would have fled our recall by now, we are grateful for them both.)
And there we were standing in some kind of no man’s land between jet and terminal.
After some dilly-dallying by me looking back at the airplane trying to absorb this retro moment, most of the passengers had made their way into the terminal building, and the fair and industrious Trudy was waiting patiently for me to join her, which I did presently, as an airport employee began waving me away from the plane toward the door in the side of the building.