Reaping the Rewards

This past Monday and Tuesday I spent my days on the Big Island--Hawaii. I was assigned to an underclass portrait session, along with three other women, on another island. The travel arrangements were to arrive at the Honolulu airport at 4 o'clock in order to board the plane by 6. Well, folks, that wasn't 4 o'clock PM, it was 4 o'clock AM . Good grief, that meant I had to get up by 3--ugh.

Well, this time I managed to finally find the parking area at the airport. During the past two winters here on Oahu, I haven't once been able to find the entrance to the parking area--so whenever I pick someone up from the airport, I basically get there as late as possible and circle around and around until I see them standing at the curb. It's more convenient that way, anyway--no dragging the luggage to the parking area, no trying to remember where the car is parked , no wandering around the garage aimlessly, hoping others don't see the look of exasperation and frustration on your face and hoping against hope that you can find your person, get back to the car and get out of the gate within the "complimentary" 1/2 hour, and no paying the outrageous parking fees when you don't escape within the "complimentary" time frame.

So...We met at the gate only to wait an interminable length of time to get all the pieces of equipment checked and then we arrived at our gate with not a second to spare and not a drop of caffeinated drink in our hands.

Upon arrival at the Kona airport, we had to retrieve the 16 pieces of equipment, load it onto our rolling carts, drag it outside (which wasn't far since almost the entire airport is outdoors) and then wait for our team member to arrive with the rental van. Next we had to load all the equipment into the van, scurry for the supermarket to get some breakfast food and continue on to the school.

The rest went like this:
*gobble some of the food we had just purchased before arriving at the school
*find the school and figure out where to unload
*unload all the equipment which now numbered 18 pieces including the two
camera bags we used as carry-on luggage
*put all the equipment on the rolling carts
*haul it all into the multi-purpose room we were assigned to use
*unload it all off the carts and begin to set up the camera sets
*watch the clock and hope we could set up within the allotted time
*breathe a sigh of relief for getting set up only minutes before the first class arrived
*check the class lists--get the name cards ready--brief the parent helpers
*scurry to the rest room to avoid a trip later when we would be really busy
*groan inwardly when we realized that we were scheduled for 15 min. per class,
which, in many cases, meant 1/2 second per child, for the next 5 (yes, that's FIVE ) hours.

Then the news that made me groan inwardly--we had to break both camera sets down, pack it all up, load it all back into the van--even though we would be returning to the very same spot the next morning. Reason: the room could not be secured with locks.

I was very relieved to hear the other three team members say they were beyond tired and hurting as I was. The consolation of that is: all three of them are younger than my oldest child, in other words, they're all young enough to be my children and one of them is young enough to be a grandchild, OMGosh, that is plain scary!!!

Anyway, the following images are of the condo where we were lucky enough to stay, basically "reaping the reward of our hard work". I managed to muster up enough energy to take some photos and go for a short walk to get some additional photos of the area around our condo.

So now that I've probably bored all of you with this tome, here are the photos.

One of the team members standing in an area of black lava rock.