As it was hot and sunny for our entire trip to the Big Island, there’s not a lot a person can report but what is very memorable for me are the hilarious people from the trip.  The very first person to provide entertainment was the front desk ‘clerk’ at the Kona Islander Hotel.  I say clerk guardedly as she explained to anyone in earshot she didn’t work for the hotel so she certainly couldn’t help any of us.

Turns out the Kona Islander is all privately-owned condos so if your owner is negligent, too bad for you.  This happened to us, as we’d asked for two beds but had to bunk in one, though it was a king so it was fine, and was worse for another group from Oregon who arrived to a pillow smeared in blood, get outta here if you think you’re getting another one.

But the hotel had a lovely pool and beautiful grounds, plus it was just one night, and then we had a really nice condo for the next nine nights.  Once settled in we headed for a national park where we’d heard we could see turtles, so went into the ranger-staffed little office and said to the disinterested employee, “Are there turtles here?”

He very helpfully replied “No, not here.  Ya have ta go down to the bay to see ‘em.”  We thanked him and left and then spent quite a bit of time rehearsing funny replies such as “Really?  We thought they’d be right here on this desk.”

Several days later we ran into a clerk at the Outlet store who couldn’t understand that Marie had bought and paid for three items, and that I was trying to pay for one single item.  She kept trying to extract $20.97 from me and I kept pointing to the tag saying I refuse to pay more than the $10.00 this tag is indicating.

She remained stymied until Marie brilliantly suggested “Why don’t you just void that and start over?”  She did, and after that it worked, but a customer behind us who witnessed the whole thing gathered up her purchases and moved to a different till. I guess she didn’t want that kind of a battle with a cashier.

We were as stupid as some of the people we met, as on the second day I said let’s go to Hilo, and we proceeded to head south instead of north.  Several hours later we did manage to find our way there and had a nice serenade from a guitar-playing couple on the street who gave away CD’s of their music.

The last ridiculous person was as we were getting onto the plane. A woman in first class said to Marie “You can’t bring that onto the plane.”  Marie then calmly explained the lower suitcase went into the overhead bin and the smaller bag fit under the seat in front of her.  I said to Marie how good of you to explain to her how carry-on works.  The woman must be exhausted at the end of each day with so many strangers doing so much wrong all the time.

Prior to this incident I’d almost been denied boarding as the government’s ArriveCan app wouldn’t formulate a barcode for me, so despite being vaccinated and having a negative PCR test, I nearly had to book a later flight home.  Fortunately my hysteria moved a Westjet employee who had a good amount of common sense as she said just get on the plane.  Thank God for people with a heart plus a brain.