Hawaii to Illinois

Here I am. Back again in Hawaii. It's taken me quite a bit of time to get over the jet lag malaise that hit me on our return. My pilot cousin told me to expect 1 day of recuperation for every hour of time zone separation. It's 5 hours between Hawaii and Illinois. It took a bit more than 5 days to get back to normal. It didn't affect Art much at all.

Anyway, as I said... here I am. I'll be recording our stay on the mainland here just because my memory is failing and this is my way to remember what happened.

Lately, it seems that every time we're about to leave home for a trip... something happens.

Last year, when we were leaving for Tokyo to meet our daughter, son and their families for the first time since the pandemic started, mom fell on her head. 

Thank goodness my brother was able to handle the ER visit and keep us updated.

This time, my brother ended up with double vision and couldn't drive us to the airport. (He and my sister-in-law were taking over mom's care while we were gone.) I planned on Uber, but our wonderful friend, Dave jumped in and volunteered to drive us instead. We did the United on-line check in again which was very convenient and the Bag Drop Shortcut was great too!

It was fun to see Diamond Head from the air. This isn't a view you often see of Diamond Head. I got this information from Wikipedia:

Diamond Head is a volcanic tuff cone on the Hawaiian island of Oʻahu. It is known to Hawaiians as Lēʻahi, which is most likely derived from lae (browridge, promontory) plus ʻahi (tuna) because the shape of the ridgeline resembles the shape of a tuna's dorsal fin. Its English name was given by British sailors in the 19th century, who named it for the calcite crystals on the adjacent beach.

We left the island of Oahu with clear, sunny skies and very warm temperatures.

And arrived at O'Hare airport (on time 😄) to rain and cold. But it was lovely to be back. The welcoming banner with a photo of the Chicago River made us smile.

Tiffany came to pick us up and take us home through the pouring rain.

One of our dear relatives sent us this photo of the Honolulu Zoo parking lot that was flooded with a sudden downpour a day later. It would rain almost continuously while we were gone!
And me? I was now cold! I'd forgotten how changeable Midwest spring weather can be. Granted Tif was not cold. It took a while for Art and me to get acclimated to the cooler temperatures.
But gosh... It was sure nice to be back again.