Hafa Adai (which is to Guam what "Aloha" is to Hawaii)

WARNING: This post has great potential to be extremely long. I make no promises to keep it brief, or even interesting. I only promise to write it as I remember it.

A note about space-a flying. As members of the military we are entitled to the perk of space-available flights. We can "catch a hop" to nearly anywhere in the world, or wherever a military plane happens to be going. It is a complicated system, but I'll try to briefly explain (so you can understand the rest of this post). Military members, their dependents and retirees can all use the system. You are divided into categories 1-6, Cat. 1 being the highest, and therefore the most likely to get on the plane. Those on emergency leave are Cat. 1. Retirees are Cat. 6 (at least I think there are 6). For this trip to Guam, we were category 3. There is also a group known as duty passengers - active duty military who are on a "business trip" and for some reason cannot get back to their duty station. They are above Cat. 1 and the first ones taken for any space-a flight. The terminal will post what flights are leaving and how many seats they know to be available. They will then hold "roll call" where they will call out categories and names until they fill the seats. There are absolutely no guarantees that you will be able to get a flight. Not every military flight takes space-a passengers, and even if they say they will they can always change their mind. NOTHING IS GUARANTEED WITH SPACE-A TRAVEL. And now, on to the post.

As I mentioned before, we were planning on a trip to Tokyo. Ed had leave, we had hotels, we had plans. With the approach of Typhoon Sinlaku, we had to reevaluate our game plan. In the end, we decided we didn't want to go to Tokyo Disney in the rain. Ed's squadron was going to evacuate all their planes to Guam to protect them from the storm. Our plan became - get on one of those planes, hang out in Guam for a few days, come back with his squadron. That was the plan. Here's what really happened.

DAY 1 (Thursday): Up at 3:30 a.m. to make roll call. At the terminal by 4:00. It is then that they tell us roll call has been moved to 5:40 a.m. At 5:40 a.m. they announce roll call has been pushed back to 6:10. At 6:10 roll call does begin and we are fairly quickly manifested onto a flight to Guam. We check in our bags, go to a waiting area, then get on a bus to take us to the plane. Ed and I look at each other, smile and both say, "We're on our way to Guam!" At the flight line the bus stops. The driver announces the flights have been delayed "due to weather." He turns around and takes us back to the terminal. We sit in the waiting area for a while until one of the other wives gets a call from her husband (who was going to fly one of the planes out). He says they've been told to go home and put on alert in case they need to evacuate later. In other words, no one is flying out. We go get a nice breakfast, go home for a nap, and then are back at the terminal at 12:30 for another roll call, this time on a C-5. We figured the KC-135s would eventually evacuate, and since we had a hotel reservation for that night we should just go ahead and go. We are again manifested onto that flight and taken to the waiting area.

This is FRED. When I asked Ed why the C-5 was called Fred, he told me I didn't want to know. Now I know why, and I'm telling you, you don't want to know.

We eventually got on the C-5, and after an hour of waiting we finally took off.

I don't know how this happened, but all three girls ended up with Ed (Keira is hiding behind him, fast asleep). They sure love their daddy.

We arrived in Guam later that night. We discovered that no taxis were allowed on the base (but we could walk 2 miles to the base gate and catch one there). There was shuttle that could take us to our hotel (for $20/person), but they weren't answering their phones. We sat in the terminal for a while, trying to figure out what to do. The shuttle eventually showed up, and we found a way to cram 10 people into 7 seats so we could finally go to our hotel and go to bed.

DAY 2 & 3 (Friday and Saturday): We stayed at the Hyatt Regency on Tumon Bay. Beautiful.

And this is how we spent a fabulous few days:

In the hotel's wonderful pools - the girls stayed in the pool as much as possible. They especially loved the water slides.

We had to drag them out, kicking and screaming, to the beautiful beach.

One day we went to the aquarium, which boasted "the longest underwater tunnel in the world." It was really pretty cool (and even better, admission was half price for military). Kimmee and Keira walked through the whole thing going, "Whoa! Did you see that?!" Krista tried to keep up by yelling, "Nemo!" every time she saw a fish.

In this picture Kimberlee is also proudly showing off her McDonald's Happy Meal toys. I don't know why, but McDonald's definitely tastes better in America. We also had to venture to Blimpie (mmmm), Outback, and tried Planet Hollywood for the first time - so not impressed.

DAY 4: We enjoyed a leisurely morning of swimming and packing up, then took the shuttle back to the base terminal. Typhoon Sinlaku had majorly changed course and completely missed Okinawa. The KC-135s did not evacuate to Guam. After a couple hours waiting it was plain to see there would be no flight home for us that day. We rented a car and drove for quite some time to stay at Navy Lodging...which also allowed us to see a lot of the island.

Waiting, waiting, endless waiting.

DAY 5 (Monday): Back to the terminal. We are in and out of there all day, waiting through roll calls, or being told someone is in fact not taking space-a's. There will be one last roll call at 4:30 p.m., and it looks like our chances of getting on the plane are good. Ed turns in the keys to the rental car. The girls remain sane by playing in the Family Lounge Playroom.

They begin roll call a little late. After a while we begin to notice that Cat. 4s and Cat. 5s are being called. Ed goes to the desk and is told that even though he talked to someone at the desk 3 times during the day, they never bothered to mark him as present for roll call. "And sorry, there's nothing we can do." Never mind that no one has been manifested yet, they've only had their names called. Ed is seeing red. Swear words are running through my mind. They call retirees, but our family can't make it on the plane. The flight is closed, but we hang around - mostly because we are defeated, but also to see if a miracle occurs and they open up more seats. The pilots come on the radio and announce they won't be taking any space-a's. Everyone in the terminal is back to sqaure one. Ed has to call the shuttle again to drive him to the airport to get another rental car. We drive back to Navy Lodging and finally collapse into bed around midnight.

DAY 6 (Tuesday): Last chance day, since Ed's leave is up on Wednesday. We get back to the terminal and are told they will be having roll call shortly for a KC-135 from Ed's squadron. Ed gets in touch with the pilot and asks him to open up enough seats. He says he'll see what he can do. Next thing we know, they are announcing there will be no space-a's for the flight. Ed calls the pilot back, says please very nicely, and we wait. In the end they could only open up 10 seats...which would have been plenty, except for the 10 duty passengers who needed to get back to Kadena. We are trumped, and we have to give up. Ed calls the travel agency on base, finds the cheapest commercial flights he can (cheap is a relative term when you have 5 tickets to buy), and gets us a hotel for the night. Thankfully, this time we kept our rental car and can easily get to where we need to go. We spend the last night at the Pacific Islands Club, playing in the pools, eating Jamaican food (yummy), and making sure our family vacation ends on a happy note.

The girls had a blast until Keira fell off her mat on the water slide (she wouldn't let go of me the rest of the night), and Kimmee threw up as soon as she got out of the pool. We went to bed listening to the loudest thunderstorm I've ever heard.

DAY 7 (Wednesday): Up bright and early and to the airport. We had a hard time convincing the girls that we were really getting on a plane today. Kimmee wants to go back to school, Keira has missed her friends, and Krista could use a full night's sleep in her own bed. We have to put Kimmee in the umbrella stroller because she's sick. Keira gets jealous and screams all the way through the Fukuoka Airport. Krista marches along like she's the queen of the world. All the Japanese businessmen stare at the weird Americans as we very loudly make our way from one terminal to the next. We land in Okinawa - home again, home again, jiggity jig - and are greeted to pouring rain and raging wind - the worst weather Okinawa had in the last week. The irony is not lost on us. Superwoman Angie saves us again by picking us up and taking us home.

Ed commented last night as we were looking through pictures that what we will remember from this trip is the first few days. It really was wonderful being together as a family and having yet another adventure. All the other stuff is already becoming hazy. We are richer in wisdom and poorer in dollars. We learned a lot about space-a travel, and will probably even do it again. Just not to Guam. And yes Dad, Guam is beautiful this time of year.