The Renaissance Inn at LAX has become a bit of a standard for us. It is not too far from the airport, the Avis car hire lot is across the road, breakfast is good. The rooms are clean, what more do you need.
We hired a car for the morning in LA and drove over the see some friends in Altadena, before going on to the LA Botanic Gardens. It was a relaxed morning but I must confess I was clock watching a bit, we could not miss the flight to KOA.
-
- Aloe suzannae
-
- Palm Seeds
-
- Aloe suzannae
Towards 1pm I was starting to get jumpy, I know our flight was not till 5:15 pm but we still had to get from the Botanic Garden to the airport, drop off the car, get the luggage get to the terminal and check-in.
We said our good-byes and headed back to the airport this time the GPS took us via the northern freeways to link onto 405 south to the airport. Once we had returned the car and got back to the hotel to pick up the luggage, I had a major panic and I thought I had managed to lose my passport. However 15 minutes running back to the car rental and searching the car, the passport was found where it should have been in my backpack!!!
So it was time to put the luggage on the shuttle and head to the airport. By the time we were all checked in and through security we had time for a sandwich to eat and it was time to head to our gate for boarding.
Gate 46B was very busy with lots of people who all looked like they were going the Kona for the same reason I was. There were a lot of people standing around the gate area, but we were soon called to board in group 1.
Arriving in Kona, you knew you were somewhere very different, no jet bridge, a walk across the tarmac to the very open terminal, the open-air baggage carousel, we had arrived. It was not the moment of truth, had the bike made the trip. To be honest, it was my biggest fear in the whole trip, was that my bike makes it to Kona.
The bike was there, along with a whole load of others which had just come off the same plane.
Once we had our luggage I called Chris from Nirvana Travel to say we had arrived and that we had our luggage. He arrived in 5 minutes and we were all put in his van and taken to our hotel.
When we arrived at the hotel we got the best surprise of the whole trip. We had partial ocean view rooms. We had not booked those rooms but from our rooms, we could see the seafront and Ali’i Drive.
Before bed, we went for a walk along Ali’i drive and then visited the ABC convenience store to get some water. We had arrived we were in Kona
Our Holidays 