Hawaii & West Coast, 1992

Well, we've made it through one very long day, and what a start to a holiday it was - a day of trauma and fatigue. Apart from the necessary preparations this story really begins in Sydney on Saturday 13th June, the day before we were due to leave on our family holiday of a lifetime. A lot had to be packed in that day - a soccer game each for the boys, the 50th anniversary celebrations for the school, which included cooking and helping out on a stall by mum, a debate for Joel, as well as his big stage debut: the leading part in the 6G play, "Rinse the Blood off my Toga", in which Joel was to play Flavius.

It was on the way to soccer that mum first noticed two spots behind Joel's right ear. "Oh my God", she said, as the implications began to slowly dawn on her. After summoning Pete for an inspection, they just stared at each other, too shocked to say much. The hurried trip to the doctor which followed revealed that the spots had been there for a week. The parents, too, were reminded that Joel had been ill at 3am a week previously.

The doctor's advice was therefore that, if it was chicken pox, as suspected, then it probably wouldn't get any worse and that it was now of no consequence. We should therefore proceed with our plans. My own gut feeling told me that the doctor was probably wrong, and the following days were to confirm this. However, with the soccer games over, the activities proceeded at the school as planned and a successful day was had. Joel's play was recorded for his grandchildren to watch one day, with the video camera purchased only days earlier by his father.

Saturday evening and Sunday morning came and the preparations and packing finalised. Phil & Donna arrived with Blake, nursing a heavy cold. Joel's face was beginning to look like a teenager's at puberty, and spots were appearing every time mum had a look. However, with the nod from the doctor the previous day, a second opinion really wasn't desired or contemplated.

At the airport by 10:30, our baggage check-in was swift but alas no window seats. The trip across the Tasman took about 2 1/2 hours with a tail wind. The transit lounge in Auckland was superb. The next hop to Honolulu was a fair whack longer - about 9 hours, with the boys this time at a window seat and behaving very well. Joel was beginning to look like a leper.

After a few minor snatches of sleep, we arrived in a wet Honolulu at 5:20am on 14th June (Sunday), when our bodies were telling us it was 12:30am and needing considerably more sleep than we had managed so far.

We went looking for the car rental office & found we had to wait 10-15 minutes for a shuttle bus. We also found another shock. The company had no record of us having paid for collision damage waiver, and this meant forking out an unexpected $67. Joel was by now complaining of chicken pox all through his scalp and other places I'm too polite to mention. As well, we were all very very tired and it was about 7am.

The worst aspect of all of this was that we could not go to our motel and collapse as the room wouldn't be available until about 2. So we had to drag two tired children around for what seemed an eternity.

We pulled out of the Alamo car rental yard in the rain with Pete trying to find how to do up his seat belt, how to lower the steering wheel, how to turn on the wipers and work the air conditioning, as well as how to drive on the right hand side of the road with hazy instructions from his wife. We were understandably a little depressed.

We mooched around Oahu, with Joel constantly complaining of his condition. I was supposed to be navigating but kept losing consciousness. I finally said I couldn't stand it any more and said I could be dumped under a tree and picked up at some later stage. Instead, we made our way to the motel and decided to just wait in the foyer for our room. Pete send off a fax to the travel agent re the insurance.

Joel & I literally fell asleep on the spot while dad and Sean went for a walk. We were finally issued with room 1000 on the 10th floor, a very large comfortable room. After a couple of hours relaxing we walked to the beach where the boys gradually got wetter and wetter until they were submerged. Back for a shower and look for a bite. Nothing spectacular. None of us were thinking clearly & we had Pizza Hut/Taco Bell fare.

Three boys were asleep within seconds of head meeting pillow. Mum took on the task of putting down on paper "The longest and possibly most traumatic day of our lives".Read more