DM's USA 1990 Trip Diary

Day 1 - Sydney to San Francisco

Saturday, 23 June, 1990

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Note: This diary was handwritten in a notebook and not typed up until 2019, some 29 years later. I have added some additional notes during typing, which appear in italics.

This was my first overseas trip by myself. I flew from Sydney to San Francisco on Hawaiian Airlines. Somehow, I was under the impression that the flight would stop once, in Honolulu. As you'll soon see, that assumption turned out to be incorrect.

20:25

Well, you pick up 2MMM [a Sydney FM radio station] on a jet at the airport. But you have to hold the Walkman next to the window.

The row I'm in is strangely empty. [scan diagram]

It's ROW 13!

Ah, no we're moving! My row is still empty. They're showing the safety film. Better fasten my safety belt.

20:54

Ha! Airborne!

You can receive MMM for quite a while up in the air - but the signal faded before the city lights did.

We apparently land in Pago Pago in 4 ½ hours.

20:59

We've been handed our complimentary cheap plastic tubing headsets. The programmes appear dreadful - and the sound quality leaves something to be desired! [These were the technology of the day. Rather than electrical headphones, planes had headphones which were simply plastic tubing that plugged into holes in the seat armrest and led up to your ears like a stethoscope, and the sound was transmitted through the air in the tubing. They were as bad as they sound.]

22:29 AEST; 02:29 Hawaii time (still Saturday)

The flight attendants have just cleared the remains of the first meal. Surprisingly good steak, peas, and pommes noisettes; bread roll, waldorf salad(!), strawberry sponge cake with icing, cream, and a whole half strawberry, biscuits and cheese, and a plastic cup of milk. Well, okay, the peas were lousy.

Unfortunately, I was just dozing off when I was jolted from my stupor with "Chicken or steak?" I actually didn't realise how hungry I was until I started eating. But now I'm really full! Overall: 7 ½ out of 10.

04:52 Hawaii time

We are descending into Tonga (I'm not sure I've caught the name of this place properly. It sounds like Pago Pago or Tonga when the captain speaks.) Nearly two hours just sort of blanked by as I lay across these three seats.

07:35 Hawaii time

The sun has just hit the aeroplane. (Neil wanted to know when that happened.)

We've just taken off from Pago Pago (definitely - I saw the sign in the transit lounge), which is in American Samoa. And it's a small island! I could see the whole thing a few minutes ago and it mustn't be over 5 km long. [In reality the main island of Tutuila is 33 km long by 5 km wide.]

We're now over the Pacific Ocean. The sun has yet to hit the water, but it looks like an ocean already. Huge! There are small puffy white clouds sprinkled below us. I think we're about to be served refreshments again.

We were told to leave our "sweaters" behind when we got to Pago Pago. Were they ever right! It was hot and sticky. And it was 05:00 Hawaii time (03:00 local?). [Actually 04:00 Samoan time.]

Descending in to the place was magic. All of a sudden, out of the inky blackness outside, a fairy tale landscape of twinkling lights rose up toward us. We disembarked into the moist night air and walked across the tarmac to the transit lounge. There we waited for nearly two hours in this dingy little place which looked as though it hadn't been mopped in months. There was one tiny duty-free shop, a set of "rest rooms", a Coke machine, and not quite enough seats. Some people looked half dead with tiredness. One guy was sleeping with an eye-mask over his face.

Transit in Pago Pago
Transit lounge at Pago Pago Airport, American Samoa

Looking out the window now, the clouds are all aglow with the early morning sun. I can't wait for it to hit the water, which still looks a misty grey-blue colour.

On leaving Pago Pago, the plane filled up with Polynesians. I still have one seat next to me empty, but there is a boy in the aisle seat.

Oh, I missed the first movie of the flight. I woke up around 04:00-04:30 and saw a flash of it. I think it must have been Beaches because I saw Bette Midler.

Looks like were flying into a storm front. A line of clouds banked up beneath us. We're just going over it now.

07:59 Hawaii time

The sun has hit the ocean. I can see the long shadows of the line of clouds behind us. There's a rainbow!

Ah, here come the drinks!

09:15 Hawaii time

Post-breakfast. Average eggs, bacon, sausage, muffin, strawberry jam, and canned pear half. 5 out of 10.

The ocean is now bright blue. The same colour as the sky to a high degree of accuracy. I can see whitecaps breaking on the water. Tiny white dots and arcs sprinkled here and there, appearing suddenly then disappearing slowly over a few seconds. During the night I actually saw lights on the water. Fishing boats, probably.

I wonder if two hours sleep will do me through until San Francisco. They should be showing the next movie soon. I didn't catch the name of it in the earlier announcement.

This plane is an L1011 - whatever that is. [A Lockheed L-1011 TriStar.]

13:44 Hawaii time

I'm sitting in flight CO040 at Honolulu, waiting for takeoff. I've just scanned the FM band with my Walkman and found no less than 13 stations! The water here in Honolulu tastes normal. (In Pago Pago it tasted like coconut milk! Seriously!)

Approaching Oahu
Flying over Oahu, on descent into Honolulu Airport

15:26 Hawaii time; 18:26 San Francisco time

Drinks have just been served and "lunch" is coming soon. I can't wait - I'm starving! The captain has said we'll be landing 10 minutes early at San Francisco.

Honolulu was a bundle of fun. I used one of my traveller's cheques to buy five postcards for a dollar. I got back $18.86 from a 20. Took me a second to realise they'd added sales tax. I also bought a $1.95 cloth patch for $2.03. I wandered to a place where I could buy stamps (for the postcards) and quickly filled out two - for Gina and Kim+Debby - and threw them in the mail.

This plane is a good old DC-10. I have seat 28D - in the middle of the middle section. What fun. There's an empty seat on my right and an American guy on my left. A couple more seats right is a fellow Aussie! From Brisbane. Most of the people on the flight are Americans.

Wandering around the Honolulu airport was like walking in a different world. American people, shops selling American newspapers, "candies", and so on. When I asked at an info desk where I could buy some stamps I was told: "Oh, that's ages away. You have to go all the way to the Business Centre. Right down that hall; about four minutes walk."

Four minutes?! From the build-up I was expecting the other side of Oahu. I sent the postcards straight away because I wanted them to have Hawaiian postmarks. I would have sent all five, but I was pretty pressed for time to make it back to the plane before take off. I just hope my baggage made the plane too!

It was warm and a little bit sticky in the airport. You can tell it's a tropical country. A lot of the structure is open-air: railings instead of walls and so on.

Hawaiian Air at Honolulu
My Hawaiian Airlines plane, Honolulu Airport

I had a bit of a runaround getting to this plane from the Hawaiian Airlines one. I had to collect my bag and take it through customs - easy, they just let me walk through - and then go out of the airport and back in to the departure section. Then when I tried to get a boarding pass, the woman at the desk had to ring Hawaiian Airlines and ask what was going on, what with the changed flight and all. But finally I made it! [The diary doesn't say explicitly, but I think that I was scheduled to fly all the way on Hawaiian Airlines, and the last leg from Honolulu to San Francisco was changed to a Continental flight for some reason.]

San Francisco, here I come! Now, where's that lunch?


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