Saturday, 28 January 2017 (Part I)
At Sea — Pacific Ocean
We had a great day in Honolulu. But before I write the story of our day, I want to share some reminiscences I wrote in my journal on a quiet sea day getting to Hawaii.
We’ve been to Honolulu before — twice as a matter of fact. Both times for a weekend visit. Just for a weekend? Yup — just for a weekend.
This was back in 1984 and 1985. At the time, we were living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Mui was serving in the US Air Force, assigned to Hill AFB (now Joint Base Hill).
One of the advantages we enjoyed was hopping on a Utah Air National Guard air refueling jet when there was space available. These planes would fly out to Honolulu for training. The 7.5-hour flights were essentially free — I think we paid $10pp … and in return got a Swanson’s Square Meal on the way back. During the flight, we would take turns going down into the fueling boom compartment to see the islands from the air.
From the boom compartment of the KC-135 air refueling jet as we take off from Honolulu.
By the way, that’s me in the bottom right photo of the boom compartment.
Note how I taped the two photos in the top half of the collage to form a
panorama … the good old days before digital photography took over.
On one occasion, we sat in webbed-bench-seats — think WWII paratrooper jump-seats. These seats ran along the perimeter of the cargo bay, with pallets taking up the center of the big bay. It would be freezing cold and we’d be wearing so many layers that one would be excused for thinking that we were headed to the Arctic and not to Hawaii. The warm, humid air that greeted us in Honolulu felt oh so good when we landed at Hickam!
The second time, we got real aircraft seats — the commanding general was flying that mission, because they were expecting the Governor of Utah to hitch a ride. We benefited from the comfortable first class airline seats! And it was warmer in the cabin, too.
We would arrive Friday around midnight and leave for the return flight to the mainland Sunday afternoon, giving us almost two full days to see the sights. The first time, we stayed at one of the Outrigger hotels, but the second time we stayed at Hale Koa, a military resort in Waikiki.
To make the most of our limited time, we would rent a car to explore Oahu. We visited places like the Iolani Palace; the Punchbowl … aka the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific; the Diamond Head State Monument (which may have been a national park back then); the USS Arizona Memorial; the USS Bowfin; the Dole Pineapple Plantation; the beach made famous in the movie, “From Here to Eternity” … and many more of the beautiful, natural landmarks around the island.
Such wonderful memories. Next up … returning to Honolulu 30+ years later to make more memories.
© 2015-2017 — All rights reserved by Erin Erkun.
I'm so enjoying following the progress of your journey & enjoyed the nostalgia in this post as well. We too have visited Hawaii multiple time, but it always calls us back for more.
ReplyDeleteWhile I appreciate your taped together photos, I'd be interested to know what digital photography program you've used on your other posts to display your pictures. It's been terrific! I especially like seeing your smiling faces interposed on the gorgeous scenery.
Safe travels!
Lexi, I hope you come back to read the answer to your comment here as I did not see an email in your Blogger profile ... I'll also mention the information you are looking for at the bottom of the next blog post. I use Lightroom to process the photos I take with the Fuji X-T10 (I shoot RAW). Anything that comes from our two smartphones also goes through Lightroom. The "smiling faces interposed on the scenery" are with Mui's Samsung Galaxy S5, which has a dual camera feature ... it's like taking a selfie, but easier. For collages I use Picasa (not sure if it is still available for download) and Photoscape. I upload my processed photos to SmugMug galleries via Lightroom and use links from there to insert into the blog ... I like the quality better. Hope this answers your question.
DeleteI keep meaning to ask you a related question as well...how do you make your collages? I loved loved loved hearing your story about visiting Honolulu. My goodness, we were all such children back in the 80's. Innocent faces somehow, not just younger, but something shifts I think. I have looked through your slide show, with lots of old blasts from the past, but this was fun to have the stories as well.
ReplyDeleteYes, young and innocent ... and with such energy that we thought nothing of taking such a long flight for just a weekend ... LOL. The collages in this post were all with Picasa. But I also use something called Photoscape (those are the ones with the more flowy-like shapes in the collage). My go-to app for collages on the iPhone is PhotoGrid.
DeleteGadfrey, we were all so young back then (and cute, too)! Nice to have those old pics to post as you reminisce.
ReplyDeleteI use Picasa for all my photo needs, but apparently it doesn't "do" panoramas. Therefore, my question to you is how you get the panorama shots to line up, etc.?
I don't use software to line up the panorama shots, Nickie. Both my iPhone and my X-T10 have panorama feautires built in, so I just sweep the camera and voila.
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