It has been an interesting Journey so far I tell you. I will say though, I don’t regret it at all one bit. I wanted to come here and I won’t be knocked down! Knocked down, interesting choice of words but I’ll explain. Lets start from the beginning of our journey. Preparing to leave the islands.
We both choose to work pretty much right up until we were about to move. It made sense, we weren’t leaving till the 24th so why bother with worrying about taking off from work. WRONG!! We were both so busy with working and hanging with friends and family that we practically didn’t sell any thing in our apartment. My TV and the bookshelf. Yup, that was it. Basically everything was either given away or thrown away and boy was there a lot. Moving out of an apartment with the notion that not much is coming with you is crazy. Usually with my last few moves, I’d move in to a new place just before I had to move out of the last. This way I can take my stuff and stick in the next no problem. In this case that just couldn’t happen. Everything had to go. So right up until our landlord came to check us out of the unit were we almost completely done.
Leaving the Aina, my only home. This is the tough part. We drive out back to Ewa Beach so that we can help drop off some stuff at my mom’s place. She can’t carry any of that up the stairs so it was cool. Then later we go visit my grandma. She almost got me crying so hard right then and there. I never felt her hug me so hard. I love her so much. I will be back for her 80th birthday in July. I will try and make it no matter what. Then off we go to the airport. We get to the airport and I’m struggling to carry everything to the check-in booth. Talk about back breaking work. OMFG were these boxes and luggage heavy. We had to pay a little extra for two of them as they were well over 50lbs. We make it past that, then say goodbye to friends and family at the security check point. I almost cried with my mommy but I had to stay strong. If I didn’t I’m sure she would have balled out in tears. :'( Big shout out to my brother and Mina for helping with the luggage. Justin, Stan and Dominic for showing up wishing us luck and saying goodbyes. That was cool guys. In an interesting turn of events in an ironic sort of way, Julia found an old Co-Worker who was working that night with TSA from Home Depot. It’s interesting because you realize just how small the island is. She said her goodbyes to her and we were off to start our travels.
So we looked for the cheapest flight we could find and oh boy was that a stupid idea. Seriously fucking retarded LOL. Step one of our trip was to Fly from Honolulu to Bellingham airport in Washington at 11:50 pm. I thought to my self no biggie, I’m gonna be tired anyways so I’ll just sleep through the flight. WRONG! Trying to fall asleep on an airplane just doesn’t work for some reason. Julia can fall a sleep any where but not me. Especially since I was having an acid reflux attack mid way through the flight. Oh also my nose kept running so I’m irritating the guy next to me sniffing all the time. Then when I finally get a chance to nod off a little; it happens, a child starts crying. FFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! So I stayed up all night and watched some Anime and Hawaii Five-0. Kinda funny though I didn’t know Don K-Won was in that episode LOL. Good thing I loaded something on my Kindle. So as we start getting ready to land, the plane descends and Tiny instantly knows something is going on. LoL He’s crying and we can’t do anything but just try to keep him quiet.
So we finally land in Bellingham and OMFG! WE HAD TO WALK OUT SIDE?! AT 5AM IN THE MORNING!!! FUCK THAT WAS COLD!!!!!! Anyways, so we hear over head on the plane before we got out, “look to the TVs for information on your next flight if you are transferring to another flight.” Bullshit, there was only news on each TV. LoL So we just sat around waiting for someone to at least announce our flight numbers. Had some couple just totally PDAing on a set of chair right in front of us. LoL I guess they were going to Vegas and were all up in wanting to get busy before they get there. The boyfriend went some where and she came over to play with Tiny. Was hella funny since everyone thinks Tiny is this beautiful cat, and I agree with them. However, if they ever get to play with Tiny when he is full of energy they will understand how much of a terror he is. (No seriously. As I’m trying to type this Tiny is trying to bite my arm because it is going over his head and he don’t like it. EXCUSE ME PUNK! NO ONE SAID LAY DOWN ON DADDY! LoL)
So eventually finally the flight over to Seattle arrives and WTF?! we are flying on a two-propeller crop duster LOL FUUUUUU!!!!! At least it was only an hour flight. We both just knocked the fuck out during that flight. So I don’t remember shit from it. Well except for a huge cramp in my shoulder from the odd way I fell asleep on Julia’s shoulder LOL. SO! We make it to Seattle, holy shit wtf? Do all airports on the west coast not want people to use their terminals to charge their shit while they wait for their flights? Ok Bellingham had a plug on the far end of the whole terminal but seriously hows a guys supposed to keep himself busy on a plane if every device he got is dead LOL. Anyways, we waited for the plane about an hour then we’re finally on our way to LAX. That was a good flight though as we basically just didn’t give a damn any more and just kept going through it. Lunch was a dish of fruits, cheese and crackers and another dish of some chicken pasta. It wasn’t to bad actually, just disappointed I had to pay for it LOL. At least on Hawaiian a sandwich is included with your flight. Oh wells.
ALRIGHT!! FINALLY MAKE IT TO CALIFORNIA! WOOOOOO!!!!!! So now what? Well initially I was going to have my aunty help us get to Matson at least to help us get the car but she got sick. I hope she is better by now. GET WELL AUNTY!!! Anyways, so instead I pre-booked a car from Alamo while we were in Bellingham. So we went and got our luggage from baggage claim and tossed it all on a shuttle bus to the Alamo depot. Ok what is the deal with all the car rental places being so damn far away from the main terminals? Like wtf? We get all the way to Inglewood before we even see Alamo. So anyways, finally over there and find a HHR for all of our boxes and luggage. It was a game of Tetris but we sure as hell got everything to fit. One thing though, we tried bringing some asian seasonings with us and well the Sesame Oil bottle exploded. Practically got all over the inside of one bag. So now the car smells like it. Now we are ready for our journey into California. Step one was to get the car from Matson. Step two make it just in time to move-in to our new apartment. Heh oh the things we really didn’t plan for.
Lets start with step one shall we? We landed at LAX about 2:30pm got to Alamo at about 2:45 pm and finally started going at about 3pm. We get “Sheila” going to take us en-route to Matson to pick-up the car. (If you don’t know “Sheila” you really should click on her name to educate yourself.) So as we start going, we realize “SHIT! Matson is in Long Beach?!” Now we really need to hurry. Get to the freeway and FFFFFUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we are stuck in LA traffic. FUCK! I look around frantically trying to find a faster route on this stupid freeway of doom. OH LOOK CARPOOL LANE!! LETS DO IT!!! Yeah that was not a good idea. Ok so people of Hawaii, lend me your ear! The carpool lane isn’t the same as the carpool lane in Hawaii! Literally in less than 30mins of driving on the freeway I’m already getting pulled over by the police. Apparently there are these double-solid yellow lines for the carpool lane and you can’t cross them until the lane opens up with solid white dashed lines.
The police officer got to the window and says, “What you didn’t see the double-solid yellow lines?”
I reply, “No what lines?” I pull out my Hawaii drivers license and I straight up told him “We just landed and have no idea about the lines.”
He asked, “What? You don’t have double solid yellow lines in Hawaii?” He pointed over to the lines and I notice that they are dividing up the carpool lane from the rest of the lanes of traffic.
“Not for our carpool lanes. We just go in and out as we please.”
Pissed he said, “Man I’m just striking out today. Well don’t do it again.” Not sure what he meant by striking out but what ever.
I asked, “Well can you explain how this works so I don’t do something wrong again?” He continued to explain about the lane and let us go.
Damn was that a close one. I had no idea about the lane though I just jumped right in and out to try and get through traffic. Now with that delay we decided to call Matson to figure out how late they were open til. Call, call, call, automated messaging, wrong numbers, everything going bad on contacting them. At this point it is about 3:30pm, still stuck in traffic, still getting no where fast and getting no answers. Finally about 3:45pm we get someone on the phone and we ask about their hours; 4pm closing time… FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So basically I been stuck in traffic for about an hour for NOTHING! AHHHHHH!!! Now before you start saying, “Why didn’t you just catch the plane to Long Beach?” I was told that the Matson facility was in LA. I didn’t know it would be some long distance drive to get to Long Beach and get to our car. I figured it would be close enough to get to. So scratch that idea of getting the car. So we decided FUCK IT, LETS MOVE ON TO STEP TWO!
Step two, move-in to new apartment YAY! Ok, two hours to get to Victorville, California. We can do this, I know we can. WRONG!!! FUUUUUUU!!!! Remember that traffic I was talking about? Yeah just as bad going the other way. All we had to do is make it there by 6pm. Well when 6PM rolled around guess what? We had just made it to I15… another parking lot. So instead of dealing with that crap, we pulled over at an AM/PM to think for a little while. We both decided to just stay at a Hotel in Victorville so that we could at least get to the town we are moving to and check it out a little. Was that a god send. A place to just fall a sleep for a little while and reset.
Heh sleep… Yeah right. We finally get to Victorville. It is about 8PM by this point. We were pretty hungry so after we dropped off some stuff in the hotel and relaxed a little we then did some exploring around town. Found our apartment complex, closed of course and eager to just move in. Found food, I got my self a chicken sandwich from Burger King. Chicken, shouldn’t be to bad for my acid reflux. WRONG! Anything fast food apparently wants to kill me. Took a shower and stayed up for a good portion of the night tossing and turning. So I went for a walk outside in the freezing cold. Holy shit, 38 degrees that night? I shot the picture above with my dSLR. Talk about having another panic attack at the same time. My camera wouldn’t auto-focus. I was freaking out! I wasn’t ready to just pass out yet so I did just keep walking around. Finally tired of the cold I pop back into the room and try to relax. My dSLR was bothering me though. I needed to know what was wrong. I popped out the battery and slapped it back in, fine. That’s all it needed. Oh wells, finally to tired to give a shit any more I passed out.
So just look at that there… That was basically one day for me. Throughout all of that I had one hour of sleep and a lot of fucking driving HAHAHA. I’m just glad I made it in one piece to the hotel. Now lets move on to day two and the reversal of steps. Step one Move-In to new apartment. Step two get the car.
We tidy up the hotel and check out at about 9:30am. I slept like a mother fucking champ so I’m feeling hella good now. Turn Sheila back on and have her navigate us to our apartment. Yeah I know we found it the night before but everything looks different from night and day. We get there, fill out a ton of paper work, get our keys and finally have our new apartment YAY! Take all of our bags and boxes and shove them into the apartment and head out for step two get the car. At this point it is about 12pm and there is NO TRAFFIC!!! OMFG! We took about an hour and a half to get there. Got a little lost trying to figure out where it was exactly in this industrial looking area but we got it. Left at about 2pm and were on our way. Now here’s the fun part. We now have two cars, the rental and her car. How do we caravan with only one working Sheila. Yes I know I could have used my phone and her phone except, her phone the GPS navigation works. My phone the GPS chip is shit. (Good job Samsung). So what do we do? Swap phones and I lead the way. Sheila gets me a good starting route and I get stuck in an exit lane going down some road. Good thing is? It’ll still lead me to Long Beach airport. So fuck it. Realizing I just pulled into a town I figured, great time to put gas in her car and the rental so I don’t have to pay an inflated price for gas. Head down and get lost a bit trying to find the LB airport but I finally get the car dropped off and we are done with everything that needed to get done YESTERDAY!!!
We celebrate by getting lunch close by at Spires and finally head the hell back home… in Traffic. So in short all I have been doing the past few days is FLYING AND DRIVING!!!! I’m so glad to be just laying on my back relaxing typing this. I’ll have another blog later talking about today and the things we did but until then my hands hurt from typing all of this.
Aloha!
CharlieBoy808
