Our money was paid for Hawaiian Holiday. We were getting ready for the countdown! Dulcie said the day before departure, "I think if I could I would back out!". I think she was voicing something each one of us had felt at one time or another. We all wanted to go and we were looking forward to the adventure, but there was the unknown and we didn't know what to expect. Buck had just undergone 40 cobalt treatments for prostate cancer. Vicki's sister, Fidelia, had just been to Duke for heart failure and they discovered she had a cancerous growth. Buren had had trouble all spring with his feet and at times could hardly walk. Dulcie, Jan, and I had been healthy, but at age 69+, I didn't know what to expect. At least all were able to start and our bags were packed. On the morning of May 8th, 1984 at 5:30 AM, Buck and Dulcie Jones, Buren and Vicki Shinn, and Mavis and Jan Turner joined Caroline and Jewel in the van and started for the Charlotte airport. To say the least, it was a heavily loaded van for all of us had about twice as many clothes as we would need.
Amusing things would happen. At he airport we got in the wrong lane for departing planes. Jewell got out and tried to raise the exit arm that was supposed to raise automatically. We finally got to the right place and then couldn't get the van's back door open. Luckily a porter helped with that. We soon found some of the other tour members and finally our tour leaders - Wayne and Shirley Mullis. We immediately felt we were going to be in good hands, for they were a personable couple whose three month old grandson and his mother had come to see them off. They had on red coats and each of us had a badge, so we could keep together (there were 31 in all). We all had to find a restroom before we left - that would be the story of our life for the rest of the trip - always find or keep a restroom in sight.
At last I took my motion sickness pill and we were boarding a United DC10 for Chicago. Soon we were being served breakfast and all of us were hungry. The menu was orange juice, egg-cheese omelet, sausages, a muffin, and coffee. The stewardess asked for those that had been married the longest, and Buren and Vicki had been married for 48 years, so they won the bottle of champagne. Before we knew it, we were landing at O'hare Airport in Chicago. The temperature there was 42 degrees and it had been about 65 in Charlotte. We didn't have to walk far to the loading gate for the next flight, but we had about two hours wait. Jan and I were glad to say we had been in Illinois. He had to look up Willie's grandson's, (Charles Gaitors) telephone number. (Willie Edwards was a tractor driver and mechanic who had worked for the family for years). We didn't try to call, but Jan would tell Willie.
In Chicago we boarded a 747 Jumbo Jet. It was the biggest plane I had ever seen. We were sitting in a row of ten seats, which made for a cramped ride for eight hours. Buren and Vicki were lucky to get next to the first class compartment and they got to see how the other half lives! We were all trying to see the snow on the mountains as we passed over the Rockies. Soon they were serving dinner, with a choice of entrees: Roast beef, fried chicken, or lasagna. Served with this we had salad, rice, carrots, apple pie and drinks.
There was a movie as we flew over the ocean. We didn't rent the three dollar headphones, but it didn't seem we could stay awake to watch anyway, for it had been a long day. Before we reached Honolulu, Hawaii, we were served another snack - a ham sandwich and a block of chocolate. It was like having a little surprise every time the stewardess came around. As we approached Honolulu, we were all craning our necks to see the islands. Before we landed they came around with a hot washcloth for each of us. It was refreshing to wipe our hands and face. The distance covered from Chicago to Honolulu was 4243 miles!
A nice looking Polynesian couple were ready with the fresh flower leis to put around our necks and to take our pictures. We waited for a Wiki-Wiki - ("Hurry-Hurry" in the native language) to take us to the Aloha Inter-Island Airport. This was sort of an open air airport. We got on this plane which took us to the big island of Hawaii - Kona Airport. A bus picked us up and carried us to Kona Surf Hotel for our first night in Hawaii.
We tried to stay awake to explore our surroundings but it was hard. There was a free hula concert and we went to that for a little while, but we finally decided we had to have some sleep, so we went to our rooms and went to bed.
Dulcie and Buck were up at daybreak and walking around the motel. This Kona-Surf hotel was built out on volcanic rock, almost jutting out over the ocean. There were walks and flowers growing everywhere. We had a balcony that overlooked three tennis courts and a swimming pool, and beyond that was a golf course. The hotel was a little distance from the town of Kona and not much else was around. Across the road and on the mountain were condominiums. They looked as if they were built on volcanic lava also.
The first order of the day was a breakfast to welcome us to the island and to see again our hostess, "Wathee", a plump polynesian girl who had met us at the Kona Airport. We first had to learn "Aloha" and the hand sign for "hang loose". We were told some of the things we could do in Kona for the rest of the day. A ride in the glass bottom boats seemed to be the most enticing, but before departing we had breakfast, consisting of half a pineapple, an omelet with spinach, ham, a roll, and coffee.
Soon a bus came to pick us up and we went for the glass bottom boat ride. In this we could see through the clear water to a reef below. A snorkeler went down to feed the fish and quite a few fish came for food. As we go out beyond the barrier reef, the water was deep blue and we couldn't see anything because of the depth. A Polynesian girl and two boys put on a hula dance and played the guitar and sang. They conscripted two of our group - Wayne Mullis and Rev. Jones - and dressed them in grass skirts and had them follow in the hula gestures. By the time we got back to shore some of us were almost seasick. We still hadn't gotten our land legs from the air trip and the waves rocked the boat as they pounded the rock. We were glad to get back on land. We could have had a dinner cruise on a large boat, but our stomach wouldn't stand for that. Our bus driver on the trip back to the hotel was a young girl with her hair braided down her back. She maneuvered the bus skillfully on the narrow road. We found that most of the roads are not wide - land is too precious to use for highways. There was only one freeway in all the islands and that was near Honolulu.
The second night at Kona, we were a little more alert. After a good supper in the hotel dining room, we went to see the hula show. This was a very good show with several men who played the guitar and danced. There were girls who did the hula and kept time with split canes and gourds.
The next morning, we packed our bags and were ready to leave the hotel for a bus tour of the island. Our Polynesian bus driver's name was "Boogie", and he kept us laughing most of the day, as well as informing us about the islands. We saw no large houses, but there were many older houses as we drove along the coast. Many of the farms seemed small. About a third of the island was farmed by people of Japanese ancestry. We saw the Kona coffee trees, as well as banana, mango, and coconut trees. Many of these were in people's yards. We finally came to a macadamia nut orchard and stopped and picked some of the nuts. We saw Julie Andrews' 600 acre macadamia nut farm as well as a cattle ranch owned by Jimmy Stewart.
As our bus climbed further into the mountains, we saw sugarcane fields on a big scale. There were over 1700 acres of Papaya trees on the island. There were still active volcanos on the island - the latest eruption was in April of 1984. We couldn't get close enough to see the actual volcano, but we could see the rock that had hardened as the lava flowed from the crater.
After a day of sightseeing, we came back to Hilo. As we drove through the town, we saw flag poles in front of many of the houses with fish kite-flags waving. This town has many Japanese and this was the week of the Boy. They flew as many kite-flags as they had sons. We drove past and saw beautiful rainbow falls at the edge of town. Finally our driver delivered us to an open-air airport, where we boarded an Aloha Airlines plane and flew into Lihue Airport on the island of Kanai.
We stayed in the beautiful Kanai Surf Hotel, which had a pretty beach and a little lake just below our balcony. This hotel was built in a long line, and every ten rooms down the hall there was a turn. We felt we would never get to our rooms. There was a shopping center and the Outrigger eating place. We spent a lot of time looking in the shop. Since we had a day of leisure, we took a free bus ride into town, where we went to see Hilo Hattie's Mu-Mu factory. They cater to tourists and gave us a lei made of Koa seed and served us punch. We were disappointed with the prices. Jan got himself a huge "slush" at the eating place on the bay. We were on the same uptown bus as some of the tourists from the huge ship that was docked in the bay. Many of them were from the mainland too. They lived on the sip as they toured the island. I met one lady who was from Florida.
We were interested in a unique car-bus that was parked at the hotel. After we were back home, we saw this featured in the broadcast: "Real People". The eating places were open and birds flew in and ate crumbs from the floor. The buffet dinners and breakfasts were very good. ($13.50 for dinner and $7.50 for breakfast). I enjoyed Passion Fruit juice for the first time, as well as papayas.
The second day here we were off again for a bus tour. Our friendly bus driver was named Dean. He said he had just finished college at the university of Hawaii. He had gone on a basketball scholarship, and was a tall, nice looking young man. He said his parents were Portuguese and had come to the island to work on the Robinson Pineapple Plantation. He was at home as he drove us past the town where he had always lived. He told us about the hurricane that had done a lot of damage on this island. We first stopped at the rock where water spurts up through the rocks as the waves come in. We passed fields of sugarcane and he told us how this was irrigated from the rainfall higher up in the mountains. It seems that baseball is big on the island, as we saw children playing baseball or softball in almost every town. The soil was very red and reminded us of the red clay of North Carolina. As we ascended the mountain, we could see for miles as we looked out over Waimea Canyon. Our driver knew a place we could get a delicious lemon chiffon pie, so that's where we had lunch. This was a family type restaurant, but the food was good. There were flowers in every nook and corner.
We visited an orchid farm, but were a little disappointed in this. What we saw was more or less a nursery where orchids were sold. The beautiful red Anthirim pants growing in the shade of the coconut palms were more impressive. They are shipped all over the world from here. We saw a "Gold tree" that was full of gold-yellow blossoms, as well as a "Dead-Rat" tree, which got its name because the foliage looked like dead rats hanging by their tails. In the afternoon, we rode up the Wailua River in a flat bottomed boat. As we rode, we were entertained by a hula dancer and three singer/guitar players. We even had to join in and try the hula. We got out of the boat and walked up into this lush cavern which is known as the Fern Grotto. Ferns grow six feet or more from the ceiling of the cave. As we stood in the grotto, the singers sang the Hawaiian Wedding Song. After getting back on the bus, we drove on a mountain above the river where we saw another beautiful waterfall and could see where we had ridden on the boat. We arrived back at Lihue Airport and said goodbye to Dean. He had entertained us with his tales and comments.
We flew from Lilue to Honolulu. We stayed at the Hawaiian Regent Hotel, which was twenty floors tall. Each of us seemed to be on a different floor. Dulcie and Buck were on the seventeenth, Jan and I on the fourteenth, and Buren and Vicki on the twelfth. As we walked in the lobby, this seemed a very strange place. There was a high school prom or something going on, and we saw young couples dressed in tuxedos and evening dresses everywhere. Mr. Mullis had lectured us that we were in a big city and must be careful. We were frightened to get on the elevator and go to our scattered rooms. We found we really had plush rooms and ours looked out from the balcony to Wakakki Beach.
[note: the letter/note ends here in the middle of a page. I'm not sure if Mom was tired of writting about it, or the rest is lost somewhere - Joe Turner]