NONIE AND BRETT’S BELATED HONEYMOON

EPISODE 1 

We met on the last day of November 1973 in Fort Nelson BC. 

I asked to her marry me on the May long weekend, 1974 at the Liard River Hot Springs in Northern British Columbia.

She said yes. 

Married on Easter Saturday March 29th, 1975 at the Hillcrest United Church. A honeymoon in Hawaii  was planned for Christmas break. Sadly life transpired to delay it starting with the an airline strike cancelling our flights. A brother-in-law worked for Canadian Air and promised he could pull some strings and get us to Hawaii. Defeated by a soupy fog that settled over YVR  for four days cancelling all flights and any chance we had of catching a flight to anywhere warmer than Vancouver. 

No problem, we can go next year. Not to be as we decided to move south in the summer of 1976 where we bought our first house. 

Remained mortgage poor for the next twenty years. 

A few months later, the first of  our two boys was born in July of 1977 putting any type of honeymoon holiday in limbo.

Honeymoon limbo lasted 30 years. Two weeks on the big island of Hawaii in Kailua Kona. 

So find below my thoughts and happenings of that trip written by a much younger and wordier me. 

This blog has been a way for Nonie and I to capture our adventures in retirement for posterity and before Alzheimer's sets in. But a few adventures started  before our retirement so I intend to capture them in future blogs. 

Note to our great, great grandchildren. Our hopes that life allows you the chance for adventure without war, pandemics and climate catastrophes. 

IT WAS A SLOW START TO THE HONEYMOON.  ABOUT 30 YEARS! 

I struggled to get last minute details done at work.  Procrastination came back to haunt me.  I managed to fit in an hour with Mom.  I told her I would be away for a week knowing that it would be two weeks, hoping that her poor short term memory would make it seem only a week.  The toughest thing I do each day is when I walk out the door, after a visit.  Some days the look on her face makes it almost impossible.  This was one of those days.

We hit the road for Kelowna at about 6:30 PM.  I got a bit crabby trying to dismantle a bike we were bringing down to Lynda.  Nonie, as usual got me back on track by reading the instructions, which I ignored and as Frank Sinatra says, “Did it My Way”.  Anyway, we got the damn bike in the car.  Nonie was in a panic to make it to Lynda’s by 8:00 PM.  Thursday night is Survivor so no amount of procrastination was going to get in the way of that.

 A quick stop at the Safeway in Kelowna for a ready to heat pizza that was not half bad.  We made it with minutes to spare and dammit, the cute blond chick got the boot.  We are now down to just a couple of babes but none as photogenic as the blond.  A couple of glasses of a great red wine from Tin Horn Creek (2001 Merlot) and I slept through most of the academy award winning movie, Capote.

Of course this meant that I was awake at about 4:00 AM which is about 1:00 AM Kona time. You will see where I am going with this later.  We spent a lazy morning at Lynda’s and left on the long ride to the airport about 11:00 AM.  

Photo: GISGeography

Arriving to the airport at 11:05am , I ran into a fellow Valley First employee and her significant other, who were on their way to Vancouver for Canucks game.  They had won the trip in a draw.  Sadly, the night before the Canucks blew their only chance to make the playoffs, so this game did not mean a thing.   It was a consensus that the game would probably be a phone in game by the Canuck players and they would probably be booking tee off times right after the game.

It was just a short one hour flight to Vancouver and no problem with the delivery of our rental car.  I booked the car through the internet. I am just young enough to understand how to do stuff like that, but old enough not to completely trust the process.  So I am always amazed when this internet stuff actually works.

We left the airport and in true Nonie and Brett style, found our hotel. The guy at the check-in was a real priss but the room was great. We then traveled to the bottom of Surrey to spend a few hours with Cheryl and her husband Paul.  Two great muffins and a couple of glasses of Paul’s homemade wine along with a goody bag of hot cross buns later, we headed out to dinner with my Aunt Pat.  Paul’s wine will never be a Tin Horn Creek 2001 Merlot but after the first glass, your taste buds are knocked out and they don’t come into play anymore. 

I will always remember one Easter weekend trip to Surrey. I had my wisdom teeth surgically removed by Nonie's dentist in Surrey.  The pain was brutal and I was unable to eat anything that wasn’t blended or pre-chewed.  Nonie and I were just newly weds and she wasn’t pre-chewing anything for me yet.  We were invited to have Easter dinner at Nonie's sister's. I had had no solid food for at least two days.  I got completely wasted on Paul’s wine and in my drunken state chowed down on the turkey. I paid heavily for it the next day with painful gums and one of my most memorable hangovers. Thus the CUB (Crazy Uncle Brett) legend was born.  A legend that  I have continued to embellish over the years.

Dinner with my aunt was the usual gossip fest about her kids and a lot of people I didn't know.  We met at the Sheraton Hotel in Surrey. The restaurant had a very sad and pretentious menu for such a large hotel. Nonie had to wait a little bit longer for her pasta dish as the waiter dropped it on the way to our table. He delivered our food but didn't mention the dropped dish.  We waited quite a while for Nonie’s food to arrive before we were informed of the problem.  Nonie had ordered a pasta and chicken dish with a fancy title. I had a taste and it was pretty bland.  I think they put all the taste into the title and forgot the seasoning.  Nonie surprised me, when she was honest with the waiter when he came and inquired as to how she enjoyed the meal, most of which was still on her plate.  He immediately reported the problem to the Chef, who immediately bribed Nonie with a fabulous free dessert.  Two and one half hours later we were back at our hotel watching TV. At least Nonie was.  Once again, that evil wine put me to sleep watching CSI. 

 6 HOURS TO PARIDISE AND IT HAS A WALMART

We woke the next day to typical Vancouver weather, wet, not only wet but a very, very, very cold wind.  We left the hotel about 10:00 AM and headed off to MEC, Mountain Equipment Coop.  MEC is a place that can kick start your travel dreams to exotic places. It has all the latest outdoor gear, clothes and stuff that you would need. Nonie had a gift certificate from Christmas that she was dying to use. 

We arrived with no lost time.  Travels in Cuba had given us some awesome directional skills. We learned quickly how to travel around rural Cuba with very poor or nonexistent  signage. This was done intentionally out of concern that the US would invade and they did not want to make it easy for the invading soldiers to get around.  Cubans who own cars and are traveling with empty seats must stop at proscribed locations and take on passengers. We did this several times and it greatly assisted us in finding where we wanted to go and not where we wanted to go. Another blog. 

With directional signage, we could find the North Pole in a snow storm or at least the MEC on East Broadway although with one small detour through VGH.  MEC has clothes that seem to suit Nonie’s fashion sense.  It is one of the few places where she constantly pulls me over to look at some fancy “dry in a second” travel pants, or a shirt that folds up into the size of a crouton.  We found the perfect head lamps along and some replacement tips for our hiking poles. 

With a few more hours to kill before our flight, we headed to “picturesque and quaint” Steveston Village.  I had read about the place in one of those advertising booklets that are disguised as a travel magazines.  It has maps that will always lead you a mall or souvenir shop but never give you enough detail to go anywhere else. We quickly found our way to the Village. I don’t know if I will ever need a map again. What should have been a nice leisurely stroll through the “picturesque and quaint” village of Steveston turned into a power walk, always on the lookout for places to warm up. The wind was gusty, cold and we were already dressed for Hawaii.  

Photo: Tripadvisor

Unaided by maps, we got rid of our rental car and into the airport with three hours to get through security and customs. I have been dying to try these new self check-in kiosks. It was very easy to use and in less than three minutes had boarding passes for Nonie and I.  The tricky part was checking our luggage.  It took visits to three different Air Canada wickets before we found the right spot. We would have definitely dropped us into last place on the Amazing Race.  The Americans have a full time customs set up in the airport allowing you to clear customs in Vancouver. It does mean having to schlep your luggage through customs at this end rather than at the other.  No strip searches today.

The plane left on time.  I am marking that as a memorable moment as our luck lately has not been great with on time departures and arrivals.  A whiney baby had us concerned, but all in all a pretty good flight.  The meal (chicken or chicken) was okay along with the $5.00 bottle of French wine Nonie and I shared. French wine on Air Canada. What’s up with that?  The plane’s environment was very dry which played havoc with Nonie’s sinuses.  She started to develop some respiratory problems earlier in the terminal when we sat by an open door from the smoking area.  We didn’t notice it was open till she started sneezing and coughing. We were glad for the high humidity when we arrive in Kona six hours later.  

It was dark when we arrived, about 11:00 PM BC time and 8:00 PM Kona time.  I had booked a flower lei for Nonie which was to be delivered when we arrived.  They did not show up. I thought it might be a problem due to our late arrival and the fact that they had not confirmed my booking before we left.  

We had to take a short van ride to the rental car place and once again, the internet did not let me down.  The paper work was done in a few minutes and we had rented a Jeep Wrangler.  The jeep seemed like a great idea in Canada, but here ?????.  It is not a comfortable vehicle with zero trunk space.  We may exchange it later in the week for something else.  We will take it on a few excursions and see how we make out.

No difficulty in finding our condominium.  Well, maybe just one small detour, but it was so small, hardly worth mentioning.

The condo was as advertised. It has a great city/ocean view, clean and well maintained.  I had read a number of horror stories when I was researching a place to rent.   Places that did not live up to their advertising.  Dirty with cockroaches, so I was a bit concerned.  

We are on the sixth floor overlooking a beautiful, old Catholic church with the ocean in the background a not a cockroach in sight.  

We quickly dumped our bags as Nonie wanted to make a trip to Wal-Mart.   We had passed it on the way in from the airport so we were sure we could find it again. I didn’t think it would be open, but Nonie was pretty confident that it would be open and of course it was open. Why do I doubt her?   Wal-Marts are the same everywhere. Except for the palm trees, this could have been Peachtree Square in Penticton.  We stocked up on a few items for breakfast the next day.  Two friendly Hawaiian check-out women were quite impressed by Nonie’s cloth grocery bags. We were in bed by 12:00 AM, Kona time, 3:00 AM, BC time.