Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Linda Burton posting from Honolulu, Hawaii – “What was your most fun thing?” granddaughter Kayla asked. We are sitting at Gate 20 in the Honolulu airport, wearing long sleeves now; dressed for Seattle’s cooler temps that will surely shock our senses as soon as we get off the plane. It’s the last moments of our stay in Honolulu, and we’re reminiscing. “Everything was fun,” I answered. “When I could see through my hair blowing in my face.” “Well that was just one day then,” Kayla said, “when we were towelheads in our room!” That brought giggles from both of us, yep, those tropical breezes are part of the attraction in Honolulu, moderating the sun and the warm morning rains. So what was the most fun thing? “I liked the Aquarium today,” Kayla threw in. “And going into Diamond Head.” “You liked the Trolley Driver,“ I said. “Because he kept telling you how cute you are!” It’s true, he’d let her get off the Trolley for pictures, and wait till she was done before resuming the Tour. “She’s so cute,” he’d say when she got back on. “Did you get what you wanted, little one?” She tipped him big, with money out of her own pocket. So Honolulu, what was the most fun?

Kayla had fun in the Belly Ball. It was actually called a Water Ball, a huge zippered clear plastic inflatable floating on a small pool of water in the International Market Place by our hotel. We passed it by several times and finally walked over one afternoon  just for that. Shoes off, step through the opening, air pumped in, zip it up, roll up the platform and into the pool. Kayla ran inside the ball, and jumped, and lay laughing as her balloon was bumped by the next one. “What was it like inside?” I asked when she finally chose to get out. “It smelled like feet,” was the answer.

“It was fun meeting my new friend Monica,” Kayla said. “She was really nice. And she opened up the Senate Chambers just for us.” Monica was Director of Visitor Services at the capitol, and she got the Chamber doors unlocked and took us inside to see, explaining the symbolism of the design, and the procedures used during Session. “Either English or the Hawaiian language may be spoken,” she explained, “since both are official languages in Hawaii.” Monica also told us how to spot a real Hawaiian. “We don’t call those ‘flip-flops’” she said, pointing to Kayla’s shoes. “We call them ‘slippers.’” “Remember trying to get pictures together out in front of the capitol?” I added. “That was a day of wind in our face!” “That was fun,” Kayla said. “Remember all the skyscrapers around the capitol? You told me to look for people wearing business suits, but we didn’t see a one.” “Business dress is very casual here,” I nodded. “We never saw anyone wearing a dark suit and a tie.”

The wind wasn’t blowing the day we rolled a suitcase full of dirty clothes down the street to a public laundromat since our fancy boutique hotel didn’t have laundry facilities. Somebody was dozing on dryers at the back of the room while I guarded Kayla as she wrote out her postcards at the front. And it wasn’t fun waiting outside on the sidewalk for our ride when we had a tour scheduled. I didn’t like not having our own wheels to get around. “No, that wasn’t fun, but the tours were, especially the submarine,” Kayla reminded me. “I loved that!”

“And I loved the ranch,” she continued. “I’ll always remember riding up the mountain on that little cart where we could see Chinaman’s Hat out there in the ocean. I got lots of pictures there. I got your picture GMom. I wanted to ride horses but we didn’t have time. I loved our balcony and looking out at the ocean every morning and shooing away the pigeons, even the one that marched into our room. That was funny. And I loved our hotel lobby and getting chocolate milk at the little grocery store in there. I loved the banyan trees, I never saw a tree like that before! I loved Diamond Head! I’ve been inside a crater now!”

Did we have fun? The announcement blared that it was time to board; we gathered up our wheelie bags and cool-weather sweaters and headed towards our plane. Goodbye Honolulu. Your crazy, noisy, windy city was very different from our normal day-to-day, and being with my happy granddaughter was most assuredly…fun.