According to Einstein's theory of General Relativity, space and time are the same thing. We are always traveling through this medium, spacetime, at the speed of light. If we imagine time to be another dimension of space, then our 3D-space velocity is the portion of that speed-of-light velocity that is contained within the spatial dimensions - the greater our 3D velocity, the slower we're moving through the time dimension. If we are motionless within the spatial dimensions, all of our velocity is allocated to the time dimension.

By this analysis, our trip home (with its high 3D-space-velocity) put us further back in time than we would have been if we'd stayed put. Probably not very much, as we were traveling nowhere near light speed. Maybe a few bazillionths of a second.

Much more noticable was the distortion of "biological time", a combination of being awake for over 24 consecutive hours and flying against the course of the sun.

We awoke shortly before 7AM on Friday morning, went through all of our normal activities and packed up all of our stuff. We said goodbye to our hostess and at about 10:15 we were off to the Kona Airport. We figured that it would probably take us about 3 hours to get to the Kona airport, and we wanted to allow some leeway for time to return the rent-a-car and unforseen delays along the way.

Of course, we were overly conservative and got there very early - about quarter-to-one when we arrived at Hertz. We had to go through a USDA checkpoint for our checked baggage, this was something new for us.

All flights from Hawaii to the mainland must have baggage scanned by the USDA. I'm still not entirely sure why (it would seem that, with all of the problems that have been caused by the import of non-native species into Hawaii, they would be more concerned with checking you on entry). From what I can see on this web site, it looks like the goal is the same - trying to prevent Hawaiian life-forms from having a potentially devastating effect on mainland ecosystems.

The USDA checkpoint was painless. We went to check our bags, at which point I remembered that I had again forgotten to stow my pen-knife in my checked bag. I asked the counter-girl whether pen-knives were still verboten in carry-on (someone had told me otherwise). She said that they were, so I slipped my pen-knife into my checked bag. I noticed I had my lighter in my pocket, so I asked her about that as well. It turns out that lighters are forbidden in both carry-on and checked baggage. I regretted not having placed it in my checked bag earlier - I unwittingly brought it on board in my checked bags the last two flights and nothing came of it, even though my bags had been searched the first time.

I ended up tossing the lighter in the little TSA offering-plate before going through security. It was just a cheap disposable lighter, but the principle of the thing bothers me.

Our flights all went smoothly. First leg was to Honolulu via a Hawaiian Airline plane. Next was the big one - eight hours to Chicago. Then four hours of layover in Chicago from 6AM to 10AM. We were getting a little nervous before that last flight - they had announced that the flight was overbooked and were looking for 4 volunteers to get bumped, and it didn't look like anybody was volunteering. I figured they would have to proceed to involuntary bumping at some point, and I didn't think that we could be the victims of such bumping since we already had seat assignments but at this point we had already both been awake for 21 hours. We were both exhausted and just wanted to get home as soon as possible, and we were so close.

As it turns out, we didn't get bumped. We heard some business-looking types discussing having had close scrapes with getting on board, so we suspect that the final arrangements for the flight were not voluntary.

Our original seats on this flight were separate - the plane's seating was an aisle of single-seats along the left side and an aisle of double seats on the right side. Jenny and I had two single seats about four rows apart. Shortly after we got onboard, I noticed two men who appeared not to know each other sitting in the pair of seats one row back. I quickly asked if they would both be interested in swapping for a pair of single seats - seemed like a pretty sweet trade, I would have taken it. They were both agreeable, so Jenny and I got to sit together on our final leg.

As we were descending towards Stewart, I said a little prayer to Ganesha, the Hindu god of success (the "remover of obstacles") for a successful landing and baggage retrieval. Not that I'm a big believer in Hindu (or any other) gods, but I figured it couldn't hurt.

We landed safely and, after a lengthy period of watching the luggage belt with bated breath, reclaimed our bags! Thank you, Ganesha!

It was about 50 degrees, gray skies and raining outside. Typical New York winter weather. Our Jeep was still right where we had left it and we drove home. We got within about a half a mile of our house and there was a fireman diverting traffic (we had seen two ambulances passing with their lights on up the road, so this was most probably due to a traffic accident). Oh the frustration! So near and yet so far away! I should have included the car drive in my prayer to Ganesha.

We had to go around into Nelsonville and turn back up 301 to get to our road. I didn't want to take a chance with not being able to go north on rt 9 at the intersection, so I turned into the back entrance of Jaycox. And then we were home! Boy did that feel good! In spite of feeling too edgy to sleep, we both fell asleep almost immediately. We woke up six hours later, got some dinner, watched a Buffy episode (we've been watching the entire series on DVD, and had missed doing so for the past three weeks) and went to bed again.

This morning, when I unpacked, I discovered a notice from the TSA telling me that matches were forbidden in checked bags and found that the box of matches I had tried to bring back from "Mom's Cigar Shop" in Hawi had been confiscated. Glad I don't have to fly again in the foreseeable future.

So now I can finally update (and finish) this blog. All told, this was a wonderful experience for both of us. We hope that you have enjoyed reading about it and seeing some of the pictures!

Aloha and Mahalo...