Ten Days of Little Celebrations – December 2015

Happy "Winter" Holidays!

I enjoy the big celebrations of the year....but the little celebrations that happen daily are the ones that keep me going all year long. Here are my top 10 for December 2015….and – no surprise – they all are some aspect of the trip to Hawaii!

Some of the places I’ve already posted about:

• Akaka State Park
• Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden
• Lava Tree State Park
• Maunakea
• Chain of Craters Road

Others are still posts in development:

• A helicopter ride to see waterfalls and volcanoes
• Green Sand Beach
• Maunaiki trail in the Ka’u Desert

And then there are non-place related celebrations:

• Purple sweet potato pie (pretty and tasty at the Kona Pub and Brewery)
• That our luggage arrived with us on the flight home (even though we had to change airlines in the middle of our flights)

Airports and Airplanes in Winter

Our trip to Tucson a few weeks ago had all the pluses and minuses of flying in the winter. It was snowing when we drove the airport….and continued on as our flight time approached. Our plane arrived at the gate with snow patterning the airflow over the body of the plane. We were delayed by an hour boarding the plane and then had to be de-iced which added a little more time on the ground in Baltimore.

Fortunately we did not miss our connecting flight in Little Rock to continue on to Las Vegas and then Tucson so our trek to Tucson was just a little bit delayed. I was prepared for delays with plenty of reading material and healthy food (fruit, veggies, protein bar, nuts). If we’d been delayed much in Las Vegas, I would have taken the opportunity to charge my electronics in the airport. Comfortable clothes - with layers - is important too. I appreciated that I had been able to get my coat in my checked luggage so I was not lugging very much through the airport between planes. Is there anything unique about those things for winter? Maybe not. I supposed I’ve just had more lengthy delays in winter and so I think about them more when I fly during the winter months.

A joy of the flight back from Tucson to Baltimore was the view from the window between Tucson and San Diego in the early morning - a lovely sunrise! And in January it happens late enough that it is easy to be awake to see it.