September 14th

First day of vacation! After the months of planning it's finally here.

We woke up at 4:45AM and the car service was right on time for our trip to JFK. Everything seemed to be in order at the house, double and triple checked that we had all our paperwork, said goodbye to Van my kitty and we were on our way.

No traffic to speak of at that hour on a Saturday morning so our trip was a breeze.

Hawaiian Airlines flight showed as "on time" so we checked our bags and made our way through the TSA checkpoint. We sat at our gate and ate some breakfast sandwiches that I made before we left.

Flight boarded on time and we pushed back from the gate at just after 10AM. JFK to HNL is a long haul and the fact that we were flanked by screaming babies did not make this a great flight. I had hopes that these babies would sleep but to my surprise two of them managed to scream and cry for the entire ten hour flight!

We passed the time watching movies and playing trivia games on my tablet. The flight was very smooth the entire trip. The Hawaiian airlines flight attendants were excellent.

We finally touched down in HNL and caught our first Hawaiian breezes when we hopped the shuttle bus to the Hawaiian Air inter-island terminal.  The 90 minute layover seemed like an eternity. Soon we were boarding our 20 minute flight to Lihue.

We landed in Lihue at 5:15PM. Our checked bags appeared on the luggage belt and we boarded the Budget shuttle bus. Loaded our rental car and began the drive down to Poipu. So far considering how far we had come and how many things could have gone wrong, I thought we were doing pretty well.

As always the drive through the tree tunnel with the sunlight coming through the tree tops was amazing. The directions to the house we were staying in were spot on and we pulled into the driveway at 6:18pm, I thought about stopping at Big Save in Koloa for groceries but didn't want to shop with all our luggage in the car so we went straight to the house. Took out the directions from the owner, enter the lock box code and it doesn't open?
Curious. I tried again, failed again.
OK, no big deal I'll just phone the owner. His literature said that he is always available on check-in days in case the guests have any issues. Dial the number and get voice-mail, odd I think but I leave a message explaining the situation and wait for a response. We can see into the second floor windows, lights and ceiling fans are running, it's paining us to be so close but yet so far from truly starting our vacation.

In the meantime were are trying every four digit number combination we can think of and the lock box is just laughing at us with each failed attempt. As our 8:00PM dinner reservation at Josselin's looms I leave another voice mail for the owner explaining that we will be at Josselin's and I made sure he had both our cell phone numbers.
We strolled over to Josselin's. It's just a short walk from the house so we inquired at the restaurant to see if anyone there knew the owner of our house, someone did but they were also unable to make contact.

At this point we have been awake for about 24 hours and my girlfriend needed to take out her contact lenses. We had some really nice food at Josselin's but the experience was tainted by the fact that we had no place to stay.
During dinner we discussed our options. This stay was already paid in full so we continued to hold out hope that the owner would contact us but if he didn't our options were, sleep out by the pool, sleep in the car, find a hotel room for the night, break into the room.
After dinner and still no word from the owner we decided to try and get into the house. I can report that my lock picking ability was found to be less than stellar. Now it's just past 10PM.
We dial up a locksmith in Lihue. He says he can come out and try to pick the lock. At this point we were so tired we asked him to come out.
The locksmith arrives and tries in vain to get the lock box open then gets to work on the door to the house. The lock is a pretty good one and after about an hour of he and I working together we still failed to get the door open. We came close a time or two but the lock held each time.
My girlfriend comes over to tell us that she has gotten the lock box open!!
Thank god, I think to myself.

Our temporary moment of triumph is dashed when there are no keys in the lock box just empty keychains!

At this point I am mentally drained as the locksmith explains our only option is to have him drill out the lock.
This is serious as we are talking property damage now. Still I have paid for this and have proof. After a little soul searching and assurance from the locksmith that he can replace the lock with the same key and lock manufacturer I give the go ahead.
This lock was even tough to drillout but the locksmith got it and the front door finally opened.

Once we settled the bill with the locksmith it was after midnight and we were more zombie than human so it was off to bed.
Our vacation had finally started and not how I had planned it, once again proof that planning is priceless but plans are useless.

off to bed...