Day 160 - Flightseeing to Kona

As we had to leave the apartment at 11 AM and the flight was scheduled for the afternoon, we did a short stop at a mall to browse through a "Macy's" department store which is almost a must for every USA stay. In the end we even found a smoothie shop. At the airport then, we missed the opportunity to fly with an earlier flight, because two of us were looking for a snack bar that was signposted, but that we did not find.

The check-in counters at the Commuter Terminal were decorated so cute with twinkling stuff... The Commuter Terminal is a special terminal for island flights only. There is no security screening, and you have to be weighted with your cabin baggage in order to calculate the right loading balance for the little planes. Since many people found it embarrassing to be weighted in public (guess why), our airline just asked for our weight and then assigned us to rows 1 (we girls) and 2 (our parents). Of course row 1 was the best because the plane had no cockpit door and you could watch the pilots doing their job, and see through the cockpit windows. The cockpit instruments looked like in "Flight Simulator" which I appreciated. My first flight without flight attendant. With only twelve passengers, the plane is really too small to walk around and serve drinks. Anyway, we were lucky that the weather was good, it was just like a flightseeing!

 

After picking up our rental car in Kona, we went to the Kona Safeway to buy our groceries for the next days - our rental house is quite remote and we didn't want to drive an hour to the supermarket again. After being loaded not only with our checked bags and carry on bags, but also with food for a week, it was dark and we drove another hour to our home for the next week - a Round House! On the way we were delighted by many houses that were over and over decorated with lights and funny inflatable figures. Americans really love to decorate for Christmas.