Day 142 -- August 20, 2003 -- Wednesday

The final segment of the trip began today. The flight to Hawaii left Atlanta at 12:30 pm EDT, and I arrived in Honolulu at 5:30 Hawaiian Daylight Time (6 hour time change from Atlanta). I'll leave Hawaii on August 25, and get back to Atlanta on the 26th.

11 hours from Atlanta to Honolulu via Houston. Bozzie Jane took me to the airport. I used a bunch of points to fly First Class for free on Continental. I met several nice people at the airport. Vernon and Charles helped me with my luggage. Efrem and Pat were kind enough to scan me after my Rockport Walkers set off the metal detector (seems Rockports have steel in the soles). And I met Bart, Milan, and Shital. Bart and Milan own the Milan Grand Plaza Restaurant in Buckhead in Atlanta, and I told them Boz and I will come eat dinner with them when I return from Hawaii.

I sat next to a nice pharmacist from San Antonio on my first flight -- Joe. The flights were uneventful until a couple of hours out of Honolulu when the flight attendant on the PA system asked a lady to ring her flight attendant call button. The lady across the aisle to my right rang her call button. Then three flight attendants came over and brought a small wrapped gift box to her. As the man next to her dropped to one knee, I realized I was sitting right next to a very romantic wedding proposal. After the squealing and hugging and kissing, I passed them some beads, my card, and my best wishes. Cathy and Steve. Delightful couple! Cathy's originally from California and Steve from Chicago. They met ONLINE! They emailed extensively before they ever talked, and then they had long phone conversations before they ever met. Their first face-to-face meeting was at a Starbucks, and the rest is history. Cathy has a beautiful ring on her finger, a sparkle in her eyes, and they are very excited. It was fun to see!

The meals on the flight were quite good. The flight attendants were very efficient, but zero personality. In my opinion, American Airlines has by far the best flight attendants. Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines also have personable people who make it more enjoyable to fly.

I drove around Honolulu in a glow-in-the-dark-yellow Mustang Convertible. Figured I might as well end the trip in style and with the best tan available. The Marriott Waikiki Beach Resort is on the far end of town from the airport, so I got a nice look at Honolulu as I drove to the hotel.

I received over 200 Sobig-F virus emails. It took hours for them to download, and I was deleting them as fast as they come in. How sad it is that there are warped people in the world who have nothing better to do than to cost the rest of us money and waste our time with garbage like this.

Leilani and Sharleen at the Marriott Waikiki were so nice when I checked in. They've given me several leads on pie, and Leilani was kind enough to upgrade me to a much nicer room. Beads.

The Marriott Waikiki Beach is a big hotel -- third largest in Hawaii. It had a $60 million renovation last year, so it is extremely nice. Waikiki Beach is just across the street. It's warm here -- 90-degrees today and 79-degrees tonight. I always forget that there is no air-conditioning in the lobbies here.

I ordered Puaa' Pie from Room Service. It's an ice cream pie -- a combination of brownie topped with Macadamia Nut Ice Cream with whipped cream on top. Very good. I received a phone call and an email from the Food Editor with the Honolulu Star Bulletin, so it looks like I will be meeting her to eat some pie and give an interview.

Hawaii is very close to both the International Dateline and the Equator. There are six main islands. California is 2,500 miles away. Beach, rainforests, volcanoes, and thousands of different species. Nowhere in the world is there as much diversity in so small a space.

There was a big smile on my face as we landed in Honolulu. I feel quite a sense of accomplishment to have visited all 50 states in this trip that started 142 days ago.

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we've been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we've seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this web site. Other pages of interest include the running report of "vital statistics" on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you'd like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest and the full itinerary is shown.