[By Brooke, with editing by Chris]
Checking the baggage with a little girl having an endless and high-pitched conversation between stuffed chipmunks at a tea party was a little grating at 7:00 AM on a Sunday. After enduring that, the first flight (DTW to SFO) was uneventful, with our seats together in first class and the flight leaving on time. (editor's note: Other than the balding jackass behind me was pounding his keyboard like a 15-year-old boy after an all-night Internet porn session.) Northwest first class is just ok. The breakfast was nice - sausage, eggs, potatoes, yogurt, fruit, and a bagle or apple and walnut bread, mmmm, and as much as you can drink. No cloth napkins, though. 4:40 of flight time in clear and calm air. When we got to SF, we found out that our next flight was delayed for 2 hours - on top of a 4 hour layover! So Chris and I decided to take BART into the city....
I decided that I needed a backpack because Big Pink
wasn't meant for extended use walking around full of computer and papers. We found the North Face store and I got a cool yellow backpack
that has a built-in laptop sleeve. My criteria was that Big Pink would slip right into it and it did. After I was re-outfitted, we found a cafe called "Mocca" in a nice alleyway off of Union Square. I had a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce and brie. It was very, very good. C had the tri-tip beef (mine was better...editor's note: I totally disagree...the beef was excellent and needed no namby-pamby cheese or sauce).
We BART'ed back to the airport in record time and had a lot of time to wait. For the next leg, Chris and I weren't seated together - I was in First and he was in (ahem) Coach. However, our charm/luck quotient was quite high and we were able to score him the first class seat next to me from the very nice gate agent. :D The only problem left was that since our flight was delayed 2 hours and we only had a 1.5 hour layover in Honolulu, that meant we were going to miss our flight to Lihue. There was only one seat available on the 8:00 flight, so we were going to have to stay the night in Honolulu and fly to Kauai the next morning.
But wait! The very clever Northwest reservation agent told us that there was a United flight direct to Lihue (from SF) leaving 10 minutes after our original flight. I mentioned that we wouldn't want to do it if we were going to be in coach, but she said that we would get into first! Score! Now we had 30 min to get to the United terminal, check in and get tickets with a United agent, make it through security and then make it to the gate. She transferred our luggage and we started jogging.
Our luck quotient was still high, because we didn't have to dodge people on our way from the end of terminal 1 over to terminal 3; there was only a very short line at the United First Class reservations desk; and the person who helped us was very nice. Then there was barely a line at security. We were flagged as SSS, which meant that we had to be frisked. Chris started to get a little nuha (pissy), muttering something about how we didn't have time for this, but I assured him that we did. I was right and the trouble was again averted.
Then we ran out to gate 87 (farthest away on terminal 3). We ended up getting there 6 min before they were starting to board. I noticed that our seats were 4A and 4D, which didn't sound to me like they were together. They weren't. But luckily, Chris starts to smell like a goat after a sprint like that :D. We thought our odds were pretty good at getting someone to change seats. The guy next to me was on the plane first. He said that he didn't mind moving, as long as he could sit in an aisle seat.
We decided to ask the person who would sit next to Chris to move. He finally showed up (another crusty old codger) and said that he really preferred the aisle. The aisle seats were proving to be at a premium, especially given the number of old dudes with small bladders on the flight. I should really let Chris tell this next part because he does it better, but Chris said "fine". He still had to put his bag in the overhead bin, so he sort of pushed the old man over and was a little obvious in his "unhappiness" and proceeded to shove the old man's luggage aside to make room for his stuff (editor's note: the second old man was quite rude and needed to realize the error in his ways). After Chris sat down, the man decided to change seats. :D I guess the old man realized that it could be a pleasant flight for him in the window seat or an unpleasant flight in the aisle seat.
We had a great flight because we were able to sit next to each other and I had a run at the rather well stocked on-board liquor cabinet. Shrek 3 is much better after a few cocktails. In general, the United first class is way better than Northwest's, including better seats. Still not enough room in the lavatory for joining the mile-high club. Nine hours and fifty-two minutes of total time in an airliner and no way to make C smell like a goat for a good reason. The only question remaining was whether or not our luggage made the transfer. It did! Matt and Danika met us at the airport and the house is super cool. Today we are going to go for a 10 mile hike, after which Danika will pick us up and we'll go to Banana Joe's and/or Ono Char.