Day 1 – Travel Day

Travel Day. We had driven up from Indianapolis yesterday afternoon so that the “kids” could stay at my parent’s house while we were gone.
We woke up today around 2:30 AM CDT so that we could get to the airport in time for our 5:30AM flight. Unfortunately, we discovered that Milwaukee’s airport is not open 24 hours a day and that there was no one at the ticket counter until about 4:15AM so we sat around for 25 minutes waiting for them to show up. No problems with our flight from MKE to ORD (O’Hare, Chicago). Our next flight was scheduled for 8:00AM from ORD to PDX (Portland). From this point on it is easier to try to look at times.
8:00AM CDT – Board plane in Chicago
9:30AM CDT – Get off the plane due to engine problems after sitting on the tarmac for an hour and the gate for 30 minutes.
10:00AM CDT – Board second plane in Chicago
11:00AM CDT – Finally actually leave Chicago for Portland, realizing that there is no way that we are going to make our flight in Portland for Honolulu.
1:30PM PDT (-2 hrs CDT) – Arrive in Portland, are handed new tickets to San Francisco then on to Honolulu.
1:31PM PDT – Board plane to San Francisco.
4:00PM PDT – Flight from San Francisco to Honolulu leaves on time.
7:00PM HST (-5 hrs CDT) – Arrive in Honolulu
9:00PM HST – Arrive at condo on east side of Oahu.
Final Tally – 5 airplanes, 5 airports, 4 flights, 25 hrs awake, 2 times seeing about every hour of the day, but we still made it and we actually only lost about 3 hours of time.
The house that we stayed at is on the windward (east) side of island and it was directly under the Ko’olau Mountain Range. There was a wonderful stream that you could hear from the room and it was absolutely pitch black.
Although we were supposed to change airlines in Portland, United took care of getting us through to Honolulu. Yes, it was their fault that we weren't going to make our flight, but I was really impressed with thier service that day.