Each of the Hawaiian islands are unique and special places, and they are a long way from bustling Arlington. This is just a preliminary take on what I expect to be a memorable excursion.

First notes: Travel out of Dulles on Wednesday morning is a plus. Try it, if you can. The crowd is thin, and the TSA people were positively genial with the short lines, thanking everyone personally for being part of the traveling public. It was kind of strange, considering the usual hostility. The folks at Dulles are proud of how they do business there. There is also no alternative to having the TSA-Pre certification to take some of the hassle out of the travel experience.

I splurged a bunch of frequent flier miles to upgrade to Business Class on United, based on the length of time airborne. It is, sadly, about what coach used to be back in the day, and the ‘First Class’ treatment isn’t. The Flight Attendants are very busy and were working hard on both flight segments. I am still trying to get my brain around the whole personal in-flight entertainment deal, which is hit or miss. Some planes just leave you to your own devices with internet access, which is great if it works and not so great if it doesn’t, as I found on the trip back from Las Vegas last month. There is still a place in this wired world for an ordinary book.

In business class, there was a working charging dock in the base of the seat, which was a real plus on a trip that long, though I did have a total of four fully-charged devices, just in case. There is no wifi over the eastern Pacific, so you have to watch what they want to show you when they want to show it to you, even though you have to bring your own headset.

​Drinks for the captive traveling public are way too expensive at both IAD and SFO awaiting for departure, or in between flights, but it is worth it to be early and have time to kill. At SFO, Joe-from-Newark who stood next to me balked at the total for two Gray Goose martinis, which was north of $40.

But airport bars are still a great place to meet interesting characters. For example, I also had a chance to meet the redoubtable Bongo Love, a Boulder, CO, artist and chainsaw sculptor originally from Bulawayo (Salisbury), Zimbabwe, from whence he was returning after a two month excursion of performance art and family reunion. We had enough time at the bar that a potential book deal about his experiences is in the works with Socotra LLC. Travel does broaden one, doesn’t it?

(Noted sculptor and performance artist Bongo Love, a potential member of the Socotra House stable of literary giants).

​Once we got to cruising altitude and had some slightly under-done chicken, the square pattern of the fields of the east transitioned to the circular irrigation of the Great Plains, and the foothills of the Front Range. Our flight path from IAD to SFO went directly over the Rockies of Colorado which had excellent snow pack, which will lessen the chance of wildfire this summer, a very good bit of visual confirmation:

Later, continuing our stately areal course west, we passed abeam the site of the bizarre science experiment in ‘renewable’ energy at Tonapah, AZ. The circular mirror-array concentrates the sun’s ray on a boiler on a tall central tower, and is supposed to produce all sorts of free power, except for the Federal subsidies that keep the lights on. The beams are also known for incinerating migratory birds and producing brilliant dazzle that can harm the eyesight of pilots. I am pleased to report that I was not blinded, nor was the aircraft directly targeted that I was aware of. I cannot testify to how the birds were doing down below from that altitude:

(The Tonopah solar complex from 36,000 feet. It is a tiny circle in the desert from up there).
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There is not much to see leaving SFO to MidPac, though I did get a distant glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge, and after one trash novel and two strange movies, I failed to get a decent airborne shot of Pearl Harbor as we circled around to line up for final approach. Both United crews had B-minus landings, the second of which had what I think was an all-female crew. That is not a gender-based comment. Regardless of the chromosomal composition of the crew on the flight deck, I am concerned that Boeing (and particularly Airbus) systems are so automated that their pilots don’t really fly their jets except on take off and landing. I have no idea what that bodes for the efficacy of emergency action in flight.

Otherwise, I can safely report that the the skies are pretty friendly and the ride up H3 to Kailua was smooth in the rainy darkness and the air, when we could have the windows down on the big Explorer, was warm, moist and rich. My son’s crib is a nice little two-bedroom apartment within walking distance of town, and goes for $2,700 a month- not bad with his military allowance for quarters, but part of the problem my old company has in attracting quality junior and mid-grade analysts for contract work on the island.

We had a nightcap, and I staggered off to bed in his spare room. Predictably, my body rose at eight o’clock, DC time, which was a little after two. I lay in the darkness with the farm wafting cool humid air over me, read for a bit, and then dropped off again to the most vivid dream in living memory. It featured two car crashes of moderate intensity, a demonstration of precision driving in my police cruiser, an interaction with Law Enforcement subsequent to that, followed by a long procession afoot with a wide cast of guest appearances by friends and colleagues, and ending at long last with the winter Book Group, which for some reason was held in the summer garden of a magnificent home in Bel Aire.

I know where most of the pieces of the dream came from, and it is still as vivid late in the Hawaiian morning as it was when my son got up to drive to work. There is something in the air on the North Shore that is conducive to dreams.

I will have more on actually being in Hawaii, once I get out in it later today. Birthday dinner at Buzz’s Original Steakhouse tomorrow, among other activities, and a guest column from my pal Boats on the aging process to celebrate.

Aloha!

Vic

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com