Month: July 2025

07/13/2025 – Beach Bums, and then – WHAT???

Well, without a car, there is only so much to do.  We decided to just meander around Honolulu and Waikiki Beach, rather than trying to find a tour or using one of those apps to borrow a local’s private car.  We bummed around the beaches and watched people playing beach volleyball and pickle ball.  We also added a couple of new birds to our life list, including Kathy’s favorite – the red-crested cardinal.  After getting our desired steps, we looked for a nice place to eat lunch, then we went back to the hotel to rest up a bit.  After another walk, we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant.  There are a lot of Japanese restaurants and many things are written in Japanese.  We also hear a lot of people speaking Japanese.  We think Hawaii is a very popular vacation spot for the people of Japan.

Soooo, Kathy went to check us in online for our flight tomorrow to American Samoa.  Yes, AMERICAN Samoa.  Yet, Hawaiian Airlines wanted us to upload photos of our passports.  Why would US Citizens need to upload passports to enter American Samoa, a US territory???  We did not think we needed to bring our passports on this trip and so we had opted to keep them safe at home.  After a moment of haze, we started looking online into whether US citizens need to show passports to enter American Samoa.  Most sites said they do, but there was an exception where you only needed to show a certified birth certificate.  Like, we carry those around like spare change.  The Department of Legal Affairs website for American Samoa also said that we could show “A valid U.S. passport, travel document, or a certified birth certificate with ID.”  What, exactly, is a travel document according to them was the question. Dave quickly sent an email to the DLA to ask.  It was too late in the day to get an answer, but our flight did not leave until 4:30 pm tomorrow.  Let’s just get a good night’s sleep and worry about it tomorrow.  Yeah, right!

07/14/25 – Let us in!

The next morning, we ate breakfast and then started calling the American Samoa Office in Honolulu.  Their website said they opened at 8:30 am.  Called at 8:30 am; no answer.  Called at 8:45 am; no answer, left a message.  Called at 9 am, 9:15 am, 9:30 am.  No answer, no returned calls, no returned emails.  We looked at many options:  1) cancel our flights, hotel, and rental car in American Samoa and stay in Hawaii a few more days, 2) cancel everything in Samoa and fly back home early, 3) fly somewhere else, 4) have someone back home overnight our passports to us in Honolulu, 5) go down to the American Samoa Office in Honolulu in person and throw ourselves at their mercy.  Option 5 it was, and Dave was chosen as the sacrificial lamb.  Kathy stayed behind to gather our belongings and check out if necessary, or book another few nights if that was what we wanted to do.  She was certain at that point that we were never going to get to the National Park of American Samoa.  This would have been twice in the last 5 years that we have been at an airport with tickets to the island, only to be denied entry.

At 9:30, Dave booked a Lyft ride.  The Lyft driver dropped him off 3 miles from the Office, in a rundown area of town.  Dave asked where the Office was located.  The Lyft driver said he did not know, that he just drove to the location entered in his system, and that he had to leave for another fare.  Dave was stunned because he did not input an address, but inputted the “American Samoa Office in Honolulu” and the app entered the address.  Grrr.  Dave tried to get another Lyft ride.  The app would not accept the payment method he used earlier.  He tried correcting it multiple times.  Tick, tick, tick went the clock heading towards 4:30.  Dave tried using Uber.  No luck.  Dave finally got the Lyft app to accept the payment.  Yea!  The Lyft driver went to the wrong pickup location and left after 3 minutes.  Boo!  Tick, tick, tick…  Dave tried again and, finally! Success.  The Lyft driver dropped him off at the correct building (about an hour after he was supposed to arrive with the first Lyft driver.)

He entered the building and found the right office on the 10^th floor.  He went inside, and found no one there.  He heard voices inside an office and stood near the window.  Finally, the people inside noticed Dave and stopped yakking.  Dave explained the situation, and they went about rectifying the situation.  Dave needed to show them both New York Driver’s licenses, both Global Entry Cards, and send them photos of both passports, as wellas our flight information.  One hundred dollars later, Dave had emails that both applications for an “OK To Board” had been received!  Woo hoo!!  Dave booked a Lyft for Kathy to get to the airport and started walking the one mile there himself.  Dave was partway there, when he received a call from the DLA stating that they had just received our “OK To Board” forms and he needed to return to pick them up.  He finally met up with Kathy at the airport with hours to spare and the forms needed.  Phew!

We arrived in America Samoa at 9:10 pm local time, got through immigration and customs, and picked up our rental car by 10:10 pm.  Great!  But there were some more problems to overcome!  Our cell phones, from which we can text and access the internet free in over 220 countries, are useless in AMERICAN Samoa!!  Well, okay, not useless, but we cannot receive data and each text is 50 cents.  No worries, that’s why we bring a Garmin GPS with us.  What?  Our GPS does not work in AMERICAN Samoa either??  Arggh!  We had seen a driver for our hotel at the airport, so we drove back to the airport to ask him where the hotel was located.  Of course, he was gone by the time we arrived back at the airport.  In fact, the airport was pretty empty except for a cop who was talking with someone in a vehicle ahead of us.  Dave stopped and tried to figure out how to get to the hotel from a map he had picked up at the airport.  Gee whiz, you would think that a country that has such poor cell service and no GPS service would have better maps.  The cop told Dave to keep moving.  Kathy asked her how to get to our hotel.  She started giving us directions, then finally said, “Pull up in front of that vehicle and wait for me.  You can follow me to your hotel.”  Wow!  The people of American Samoa are some of the nicest and most helpful people we have seen.  This has held true throughout our entire visit.

07/15/2025 – Ah, paradise!

Today, we had three missions:  1) Get our CI’s (Certificate of Identifications) from the Attorney General’s Office so that we can get back on the plane ride home, 2) mail birthday cards to Dave’s sister-in-law Judy and his brother Jim (postmarked from Pago Pago!), and 3) find the visitor center for the National Park of American Samoa.  We found the AG’s Office with only a little difficulty.  However, they said we had to go back to the other end of town and get our CI’s from the Executive Office Building.  We were close to the US Post Office, so we mailed the cards before turning around and finding the EOB.  We found the EOB, filled out the application and paid the $200 fee.  But, they said, we had to go back to the other end of town to get photos for our CI’s.  Back in the vehicle, we found Tedy’s and paid the 14 bucks to get the photos.  Then, back to the other end of town to get the finalized CI’s.  Success!  We have now ticked off two of our three missions!  And, most importantly, we will be able to leave the island on Thursday as scheduled.  While doing all of our walking around town, we saw something fly overhead.  We recognized it as a fruit bat!  They are really cool bats and are so large, we expect Bela Lugosi to appear any moment!  The national park visitor center was, of course, at the other end of town.  We headed there and found a nice little VC with a very friendly and helpful person who gave us great advice on what to do in the park.  Kathy noticed that that they sold many gifts featuring fruit bats.  The lady explained to us that the preservation of fruit bats was the impetus for establishing the National Park of American Samoa.  Apparently, they were being hunted to extinction prior to the establishment (apparently, for food!)

Finally time to relax and just enjoy some of the area attractions. This included taking a nice hike in the park where we saw many birds and several bats.  The hike had some beautiful views of the rocky coastline.  We then drove a bit more along the park and found a tree with several bats roosting in it.  That was a treat!  After a while, it was time to retreat to our hotel room and rest up before dinner.

O7/12/2025 –  I…had…a car…waiting…

Leaving our lodging early in the morning to refuel our rental car and head to the airport was a great way to start the day, especially since the car had air-conditioning.  Our intended flight had changed just a few days earlier to an hour earlier than previously scheduled.  This suited us fine; we were promised air-conditioning at our new hotel in Oahu.  We got to the airport an hour early and were prepared to wait.  At these airports, there are no security checks (other than checking ID) and there is no screening of luggage, either checked bags or carry-ons.  Dave even had a water bottle with water in it!  They started calling our names about 35 minutes before our scheduled flight.  Apparently, all 8 of us on the flight were ready, so we took off early!  The 30 minute flight from Molokai to Honolulu on the island of Oahu was nice and easy.  Due to all the schedule changes, we made it there about 1.5 hours earlier than expected.  Even that was not enough for Ace Rentals, with whom we had booked a car with back in February.  We had received a text message at noon yesterday from Ace stating that they were looking forward to welcoming us soon and they gave us a number to call when we arrived.  We called that number and they said, Oops!  They have no cars available for us!  Wait, what?!?!  We told them that we had reserved a car back in February.  They said they understood, but they made a mistake and have no cars available.  We asked what our options were.  They said they would call other rental agencies and see if they have a car for us.  They called back and said that Thifty had a vehicle, but they had no sedans left.  I asked if Ace would pony up the difference in the cost and they said no.  I asked if they would send a car to pick us up.  They said they only do that for people who rent cars from them!  Can you imagine??  This reminded Dave of an old Seinfeld episode where Jerry tells the rental car agent, “You know how to take a reservation, but you don’t know how to hold a reservation. And that’s really the most important part.”  We took a bus to the Thrifty rental counter, and there were at least 50 people in line.  We would have to wait, who knows how long, just to see if they still had a vehicle available and how much it would cost.  We decided maybe we didn’t need a car that badly and just took a Lyft to our hotel.  A nice down day bumming around Waikiki didn’t sound all that bad.  Plus, this hotel has air conditioning!  We could stay here for the full 48 hours!

After settling in to our room (which we upgraded to a club suite for a stunning $4 USD for both days!), we walked down to the local church for Saturday evening mass.  The church was nice, it was pretty full, the priest gave a lovely sermon on loving God and loving our neighbors, and…. we were definitely in the top 5% age bracket at this mass!  It is the first time we have ever felt like we were among the oldest at a church service.  It was refreshing to see so many of the younger generations attending mass.

Afterwards, we headed to an outdoor mall-type area for dinner, picked up dessert, and headed back to the hotel to soak up the AC.

07/10/2025 – Island hopping

The adventures of flying can always have its own little twist and this one did too. Our flight to Molokai was leaving at 10:30 am.  We got to the airport with plenty of time, returned our rental car, and walked to the terminal.  Oops, wrong terminal.  We had to keep walking to get to the inter-island terminal.  We arrived there quite early and waited outdoors (there is no “indoors” at this terminal).  We watched as several crates of live chickens were getting ready to be flown to Molokai with us. Why we are not sure as chickens seem to be everywhere, why crate some more in?  At 10:30, they announced that the flight was full – all 9 of us were ready for the flight.  The pilot walked us to the plane and told us which seat to sit in (in order to balance the load in the plane, we all had to be weighed along with our carryon bags.)  We never went through security, or were even issued boarding passes.   The 20 minute flight was beautiful as we saw both Maui and Molokai from the air, as well as the tiny spit of ocean between them. The view included the shoreline, the craggy mountain side, and the waterfalls that seem to abound in the rain forests of Hawaii.

We landed and picked up our next rental car. Disembarking was as easy as boarding; they walked us off the plane and out the door. No muss, no fuss.   Our lodging was only a 15 minute drive away, so we soon headed off, hoping to find air-conditioning.  We checked in early and settled into our room with no air-conditioning, but lots of fans.  It was much bigger that our room in Maui.  It was near the ocean and had a nice pool, too.  But with no air conditioning, poor Kathy will get no sleep here either.

Our main objective in going to Molokai was to see Kaluapapa National Historic Park.  KALU is an old leper colony that was made into a park.  Unfortunately, you can only get to the park on a tour and at the moment, there are no tour operators offering tours to the park.  We did find an overlook that looks down on the peninsula, so we drove there.  The overlook was in a pretty area with some trails.  It started misting rain just as we arrived.  As we made our way down the trail to the overlook, the rain got harder and harder and the wind whipped up strong and stronger.  At one point, as Forest Gump would say, it was raining sideways!  We think that is the NPS’s way of saying, “You have gone far enough into the park.  Turn around NOW!”  We did.  As we headed back to the parking lot, the rain and wind died down enough that we walked along another trail that lead to some ancient petroglyphs.  There is also a rock formation that looks like a phallic symbol and is used as a fertility omen.  It is said that if you leave a food offering and spend the night there, you will return home pregnant.  Dave warned Kathy not to drop any foodstuffs there!

We made it back to town and bought groceries enough to last us 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches and 2 dinners.  Some home cooked meals that somehow still cost a fortune. Arriving back at our room, we ate a nice dinner in the lanai and lounged around the beach and pool.  In the evening we watched the first few episodes of the old shows Cheers and Taxi on the TV in the room.  Ah, good old comedies!

07/11/2025 – Hawaiian history and a very short hike

We arose the next morning eager for our next adventure and our only scheduled tour of the trip. Fortifying ourselves, we ate breakfast in our room, and started heading towards the meeting place for a cultural hike to a waterfalls at Halawa Valley.  We met the guide who first gave us some lessons in Hawaiian culture.  We weren’t enamored at the condescending tone and parochial view he espoused, but we did learn a bit.  He also warned us that the rain they had received in the last few days had caused the two stream crossings to be a bit more technical.  After a short walk, we came to the first stream crossing.  It was thigh deep and rocky.  Discretion being the better part of valor (and not relishing getting on the plane tomorrow morning with soaked shoes), we thanked the guide for his time and left the group to head back to our car.  We instead opted to extend our time in the area by walking to a nearby cove and watching the waves coming in.  Rounding out the not so adventurous day we headed back to our room for lunch. We continued our adventures there, when Kathy burnt her grilled cheese and set off the fire alarms. Made for a noisy and fun moment before setting down to “chill” a bit in the hot weather.