One of the changes with our trip this year is that we decided to fly non-stop both ways. This is particularly a challenge on the return flight as it necessitates a 'red-eye' through the night. Normally we make a stop and spend the night somewhere in California. This time we decided to push through the full distance! This means we will remove the 'daily' distinction and treat it as one long day!
The nice thing about this is that we left in the afternoon. Our flight was at 3:30.......and +/- 10 hours later we were in Boston around 6 AM. We got a late check out at the hotel and had the morning to goof off. We got up around 8:00 and had coffee on the balcony, then headed down for a swim in the ocean (and for me the hot tub!) and then headed back to get organized and have a slow breakfast. The only interruption was a series of emails, followed by phone calls, regarding some questions on one of my projects that the team felt 'could not wait.' In fairness, the person that initially called probably did not know we were on vacation. Anyway, after going at a leisurely pace we had to pick up the speed and head out a little after 1:00.
We stopped to fill the rental car with gas and had no traffic problems at all getting to the airport. It seemed to be a quiet day everywhere, including security, and we got to the gate about an hour before the flight. All went well, except the food was a bit weird on the flight.....and ultimately we did not really sleep. The lie-back seats were ok, but we just weren't tired. Writing this around 5:30 Thursday night, I can tell you the 'exhaustion' is really starting to hit. Fiske III was nice and came over with some groceries and we had lunch here. I ended up having 4 hours of ZOOM calls during the day that were inescapable......and rather tiring.
The worst thing had to be arriving at Logan with light snow and a temperature of 34 degrees. As unpleasant as that was, I guess it put an exclamation mark on how much we enjoyed 8 days of sun in Hawaii! Ironically, the only time it rained was as we approached the rental car drop off at the airport.......shedding a tear for our departure, haha!
