Hawaii

Talking to Golden Horse has brought back memories of my Hawaiian vacation in the 70's. My first husband was a realtor with one of the big realty companies of Indiana and they had a competition each year to win a free trip. The competition was to sell $1million of real estate each year. That's not much by today's standards, but this was the 70's and only a few realtors were able to achieve this goal. We lived in Carmel, IN at the time and that's when Carmel was the big boom town of the state, if not the whole US. This particular year the free trip was to Hawaii because that's where the National Real Estate Convention was held that year. (Each year it's held in a different place.) We were lucky because our best friend Dick worked for the same realtor and he also won the trip. Yea! Dick and Micky would be going with us. We flew over on a 747 and it seemed like THE longest flight.

(Just a note: the entire 7 days that all 4 of us were there, we suffered jet lag BIG TIME and it didn't seem to bother anyone else from Indiana we were up by 6:00 am and ready for bed by 9:00 pm. We tried, we really tried to break that schedule but couldn't.)

There were other couples from the same realty company that were along on the trip plus the plane was packed with realtors from different companies. I think the entire flight took 12 hrs. with a brief stop over in San Francisco. When we arrived at our hotel we were really tired, but walking through the lobby we saw a bar that was partially opened to the outside. So before we took our suitcases up, we decided to stop in and have a mai tai. The waiter said they would not serve more then 2 mai tai's in one sitting. No problem. We just wanted to try one before going to our room. An hour later, after 1 mai tai each, we could barely stand, let alone walk. Pretty much had to hold on to one another to get to the elevator. I don't know if it was the sea air, the long flight, the excitement of being in Hawaii or what, but I don't think any of us had another mai tai for several days. Our hotel was right across the street from Waikiki Beach, so the next day we spent at the beach and doing a little shopping that was right next to our hotel and took in a movie in which we all promptly fell asleep.
This was our first mistake:
We waited until 2 days after we arrived before we decided to rent a car. The men took off right after breakfast and us girls stayed pool side. The men didn't return until early afternoon with a little good news and a little bad news. The bad news was...there was a real estate convention with about 20,000 realtors in town! There were no more rental cars! They had to go all the way into Honolulu where they finally found a dune buggy for rent. Yes, we drove around in a dune buggy for a week. I've got pictures! The good news was we had a dune buggy! How fun would this be to tool around the island with such a fun car. Oh yeah. The next day we went sightseeing. Just took off driving and stopped for anything we saw that looked interesting. Took pictures and were on our way again. We weren't gone too long when we came to this lookout point high above the ocean. I think it was near Diamondhead, at least we were headed in that direction. Little did we know at the time that we wouldn't make it as far as Diamondhead that day. We parked at the lookout, beside a bunch of other cars and made our way to the edge. It was breathtaking. We stayed there quite awhile just taking it all in and taking pictures, too. Finally we headed back to our dune buggy, when we realized .......
we had made our 2nd big mistake.
Our purses had been stolen! If you know anything about dune buggys, you gotta know the doors don't open (at least not on this one) you have to climb over and there is no top and no side or back windows, only bars. So of course our purses were stolen! Somehow we got the police to come out, finally, and after we told them our story, their first words were, "more stupid tourists", which made Micky mad. She didn't care about the money, she wanted her kids pictures back! I didn't much care about the money either, I had travelers checks and very little cash, but I felt so shocked and violated that someone would actually steal our purses. We were all SO naive. We had to go to ..... you guessed it: Hawaii 5-O to fill out a police report.

The next day we just wanted to go to a beach with no crowds. We drove for quite awhile and found a beach with beach house and only a few cars parked in the lot. Us girls already had on our suits, so we headed to the ocean, the men went in to change. Micky and I sat right at the edge of the water with just our feet and legs in. There was a guy several yards from us setting up a tripod right at the edge of the water. It was so nice to just sit and relax after our harrowing experience from the day before. When out of nowhere this huge wave came up and towered over us then crashed to the ground right on top of us, smashing us to the sand. I had never seen a wave go big (9'-10') come up right to the edge before crashing. The undertow was tremendous and drug us into the ocean for several feet. Finally we gained control and were able to stand (barely) and make our way to shore, coughing and sputtering, our suits were weighted down with sand. The guy with the tripod? He was ok, but the tripod was destroyed. Speechless, Micky and I retreated back to some picnic tables and waited for the guys. We saw one more of those waves come in before the guys showed up and we could see the enormous amount of sand in those waves and realized we were lucky to be alive. When they came out, they were all smiling and ready to go for a swim. Dick yelled out that he saw this sign over by the cars that said this beach was for locals only. No tourist allowed. Then before we could say anything they head right to the edge of the water almost exactly where we had been sitting and we yelled out for them to not sit there that the waves were too big. Dick just said all the waves in Hawaii are big and they were laughing and talking as the next wave crashed to shore. When we could once again see them out in the water they were yelling for a towel. A towel? It seems the wave had ripped the swim trunks right off my husband. We had made our.....
3rd mistake, going to a beach for locals only.

The next night our company's famed leader, who was staying in a suite at the top of the Rainbow Towers right on Waikiki Beach had invited all of us (about 30) to his suite for a cocktail party. We had spent the day at another windy beach and watched surfers all day. To say that our hair was full of sand and windblown was an understatement. We were sunburned, windburned and sand encrusted. We lost track of time and were late getting back to our hotel. We still had to bathe, wash hair, dress in long formal gowns, and call a taxi or limo to take us to the Rainbow Towers. Back then it was a very plush and ritzy place. Which brings us to our.....
4th mistake...getting back too late to reserve a taxi or limo. Did we forget that there are 20,000 realtors on Oahu? There were no available taxi's or limos. We had to take the buggy.
Have you ever tried to climb into or out of a dune buggy in a long gown and high heels? Well it ain't a pretty sight! The most embarrassing thing was being in line with all the limos and fancy cars and having to climb out of that buggy so the valet could park it for you. We made it to the party stayed a short while and then had to leave because it was past our bedtime!!!

One night we were just strolling down the sidewalk in the Waikiki area along with hundreds of other tourists and I just happened to glance out of the corner of my eye and thought I recognized someone. I did a double take and sure enough it was my dad. He was doing the same thing to me and we caught each others eye. It was too weird for words, because I had not seen my dad in probably 5-6 years and then to run into him in Hawaii. Too weird. He was on his honeymoon with wife #5.
The rest of the vacation consisted mostly of shopping, pool side and the beach across the street.

Forgot to mention that about 3 days after our purses were stolen, Hawaii 5-0 called to say they had our purses sans money of course. Seems the thief had stuck our purses in a mail box. Micky's pictures were intact. She was happy.

For me, Hawaii was quite an adventure, and I wouldn't have done it any other way, mistakes and all.