Hawaii -- Part 2

We arrived in Honolulu at night, so it was dark (obviously) and we couldn't see the ocean as we came in. What we could see were all the city lights, which was exciting.

There were four things on the agenda that night:

1. Get our luggage
2. Pick up our rental car
3. Find our hotel
4. Go to sleep

Getting our luggage was a grand success. It was there, cruising around the carousel when we went to get it. Our friends and traveling companions, the Smith family, were not so lucky the next day and had to wait several hours to get their luggage back from an unplanned side trip it took without them. That is another story for another time, though.

The rental car was also a success. We rented a jeep for the two days we had in Honolulu. It was fun to drive around with the top down. Once we got our GPS to find a satellite, we were in business and able to head out for the hotel.

GPS really does make things easier in a state where many of the street names look and sound alike to me. With only nine letters in the Hawaiian alphabet, they had to get creative. We drove straight to our hotel and checked in...and found out that we had been upgraded to an ocean view room. How cool is that? Yay for needing two beds. Oh, the view. Now, it's nighttime, so I can't tell for sure, but I was pretty positive that it'd be like looking at a travel brochure.

Sleep came pretty easily -- we arrived at 9:40 Hawaii time, so it was after 1 AM our time by the time we got to our room. It's always such a relief to be able to fall asleep in a hotel since I usually struggle with it every time I travel. I didn't sleep very well, though...but was ok after a couple of nights when I got adjusted. Plus, I wasn't going to let a little bit of sleepiness spoil any of our plans. When I got up the next morning, I went out on our balcony and saw this: