As I've mentioned before, getting there is not half the fun. Travel is tiring. For this trip, for some reason, we flew out of San Diego instead of LAX. I don't remember why - it was probably just the best deal I could find when I went to make the reservation
Our flight left in the early afternoon, so we were able to get up at a reasonable hour, and drive down to San Diego without rushing. On the way, I played some Hawaiian music to set the mood.
One thing I've noticed about air travel is that an increasing number of airports now have pet relieving areas, so you don't have to leave the airport - and come back through security - to take your dog out. I took Trooper to the pet relief room at the San Diego airport, and was amused at the decor:
We had a short layover in San Francisco, and then a 5+ hour flight to Maui. On the flight, I noticed that, since we were flying westward, we were, in effect, "chasing the sunset." We didn't quite catch up with it - even jet planes don't fly as fast as the earth turns - but we did stretch it out. I saw an impressive sunset from the plane window, and tried to take a picture of it:
It was much more impressive in real life.
Bringing a dog into Hawaii isn't easy. The islands are free of rabies, and they're determined to keep them that way. Dogs brought over from the mainland have to spend time in quarantine. The quarantine is waived for service dogs, but you have to go through a lot of paperwork and health inspections. Not only do you have to get a health exam before you leave, and bring the health certificate and rabies vaccination certificate with you, but you also have to have the dog examined when you arrive. If you're flying in to Honolulu, that's no problem - they have an animal inspection facility at the airport. But if you're flying in to one of the other islands, you have to have a local vet come meet you at the airport
Lots of hassle, but you do what you have to do. Fortunately, the vet was right there at the gate to meet us, and we were on our way in short order. We picked up our rental car, and drove to the resort.
Courtesy of Google Maps, let's take a look at where we were:
The red dot on the north shore of the island shows the location of the airport. The underlined word "Ka'anapali" on the west shore shows the location of our resort - The Westin Ka'anapali Ocean Resort Villas. So we still had about a forty minute drive before we got to the resort. We got checked in, and promptly went to bed.