Kalaupapa Peninsula Lookout and Returning Home
Morning on my final day in Hawai'i has come. We have our final delicious meal provided by the cooks at the Hui. After breakfast, we have our final porch sharing. Dewitt, Rikki and Jack each talked for a little bit and then each of us classmates got the chance to, or rather were expected to, say a little about how the week was for us. There were some deep, inspirational comments... a few laughs, and a few tears shed. Everyone seemed to have had a great time and we had all become a very close "family". After our porch sharing, we all starting splitting off, either getting ready to leave or actually leaving for the airport.
One classmate, who had rented a car for the week, and I didn't 
fly out until 7:00, so we had all day to kill. We were told that Kalaupapa Lookout was just up the road from the Hui and a place we, as a class, just didn't have time to go. We headed up to see it. It was kind of neat for our final (unofficial) photo shoot on Moloka'i to be taking pictures of the same peninsula as our first (official) photo shoot, except much closer. We wandered down through the trees taking our time since we had several hours before we had to actually be anywhere. The trunks of the trees here were really soft and there was also a lot of interesting looking moss on many of the fallen trees. Eventually we made our way back to the start of the trail and headed in the opposite direction on another trail to Phallic Rock.
Doing all of this only took up about an hour and half. We decided to go driving and stopped by the airport just to check in and make sure everything was on schedule, even though it was 7 hours early. We got there just before several of our classmates were leaving - 10 of the 14 of us were at the airport at that time. Everything was on schedule, we stayed and talked for about 15 minutes then headed out to explore some more. We went in the opposite direction of the airport from where we had been most of the week. We ended up in Maunaloa, a really small village that had a grocery store and a gift shop. 
We looked through the gift shop then headed back to the areas we knew better to get some lunch.
We ended up at Moloka'i Pizza Cafe, a place we had driven past several times throughout the week. I had a pineapple & bacon pizza that was pretty good... but sure missed the Hui's meals already. After lunch, we drove around Kaunakakai and just looked at the houses and scenery in town. We then headed to Kamalo Wharf again. The tide was much lower this time. I didn't go out too far on the rocks this time because as I got out where there was water on both sides, the wind was really blowing hard. As we left, we decided to head back to the airport. On the way, we saw another spot or two along the road that we stopped at to take a few more pictures. The final picture I took on Moloka'i 
was about a mile away from the airport. A cool red dirt road going through a bunch of old trees.
We got back to the airport around 5:00, a couple hours before our flights out. While we were waiting, we found another Coffees of Hawaii at the airport and we each had another Mocha Mama... delicious. :) The airport serviced three airlines. I thought it was interesting that the only airline that actually had security screening was the one I was on. Of course, all three were just island hoppers and I had to go through all the screening again when I got to Honolulu. Also while I was waiting at the Moloka'i airport, I talked with a couple of people who were heading to Alaska. One was from Alaska and had come to visit her friend in Hawaii, and now her Hawaii friend was going back to Alaska with her for a while. I thought it would be a big change going from Hawaii to Alaska in November. However, I boarded the plain in Moloka'i with the temperature in the 70s and got off in Omaha with temperatures in the 20s.
The trip home was the first time I have ever actually had problems flying.... I've been pretty lucky. My flight out of Moloka'i left within 5 minutes of when it was supposed to. The Honolulu airport was a lot easier to navigate than when I came since I now understood how it worked. I just hopped on the shuttle bus and was where I needed to be and through security in no time. I had well over an hour to wait. We boarded on time and started taxiing to take off and that's when the problems started. The plane lost all electrical power. We had to wait to be towed back to the terminal for it to be worked on. They finally started unloading everyone. I was sitting in the very last row. When they got the plane about 3/4 unloaded, they got it fixed so I never actually had to get off. We were about an hour and half late leaving.
We touched down on the runway in Denver at 10:05, my plane for Omaha was scheduled to leave at 10:07 - so much for making that flight. I went to get another flight. I guess they just try to get you out of the airport as quickly as possible because they wanted to put me on a flight to Chicago at 11:45 and from there to Omaha, getting me in about 6:30. I asked if there were any seats available on the flight directly to Omaha at 2:07 which would get me in about 4:30. There was, so I got tickets for that plane instead. By about 1:00, the flight had been delayed until 2:49, then later it was delayed until 4:03, then it was back to 3:23 and then 3:47. We finally left the runway just minutes after 4:00 and I got in to Omaha at 6:32, 6 hours after I was supposed to. I'm glad it happened on the way home instead of the way out since I wasn't pressed for time to get home. A couple hours drive home, and I was home by 9:00, sharing stories of my escape to Moloka'i Hawai'i with my family.
Just an interesting note that I realized while writing this blog.... I couldn't find a hawaiian word that that had two consonants in a row. Sure hope scrabble games on Hawaii have more vowels than most. :)
Thank you for escaping with me to Moloka'i Hawai'i... I hope you enjoyed your escape. Return to the Main Page.
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