Patience is a virtue when it comes to space-a travel. On the 6th day of being in Hawaii we knew there was a military jet heading back to Travis...we would have to be at the Passenger Terminal by roll call at 0600, so we got up early J went to get breakfast and take the rental car back while I got everyone up and packed up for the when the taxi showed up...all of this for a roll call we didn't any of the 10 seats available...so we sat at the terminal all day for a flight to McConnell, KS (we figured it was stateside and that we could rent a car from there and drive it back to CA cheaper then flying commercially home). But as the day went on the flight got delayed until 0100 the next day (day 7). So at 1800 we packed up all of stuff and hiked it a mile to a room for some shut eye. We were back for that 0100 roll call, and got 3 of the 5 seats, so we turned them down and made some retires very happy (they are lower on the list and sometimes wait weeks to get on a plane). However, there were more jets heading back to the mainland that day and so we stayed at the terminal once again. 0700 rolled around and it was for an air medevac kc135 with 12 seats on it, fingers crossed once again. We weren't called, seriously...this could not be happening...on the way out these planes had 20-50 seats available and flying back all the planes had maybe 10-15. Well after some discussion between the people running the show, they figured out the new guy wasn't doing roll call correctly. As explained in another post there are categories for who can fly space-a. We fell into cat3, active duty on leave. Well there are sub-categories as well...if J would be gone and I asked and received a special commanders approval I could fly space-a, still as a cat3, but not as high of a priority when with J. Understand?? I know it is all confusing, but in the end we were called and some wives traveling alone got bumped...sorry, but dude my kids need to get home and not live at the pax terminal anymore!
Hickam does have a USO in the pax terminal that is open from 0600-2300...which is nice, but would love to have it open all the time, but I can understand...some of those retires seem to live there until they catch a flight...can't make the place too nice or they may never leave (:
M passing the time playing his DS. They have a small restaurant that serves breakfast and lunch, a Hertz rental, and a mini shoppette.
Playing in the USO nursery...they have a special sign compelling people to stay out unless you have children. As J demonstrates how nice it might be to just live in pax terminal (free wifi, free coffee, free cookies, showers, FOX News on all the time--lol).
In all we spent around 24 hours in the passenger terminal either trying to get home or waiting for our plane to board. We enjoyed our time on the kc135, but were lucky enough to again have those sleeping bags, it.was.cold! We were also lucky to be awarded with real seats and not jump seats like some of the others traveling back with us, they did not look as comfortable as the c17 jump seats we rode out in. The boys slept about 3.5 hours on the 5.5 hours ride back, and were once again real troopers.
So for those reading this and are wondering why we spent so much time at the pax terminal, why didn't we leave, well we had no place to go and no car to go in. Part of showing up for roll call is that you are agreeing that you have no outstanding business left to do, once called you proceed to the check in baggage and receive your boarding pass. The first day the afternoon plane was delayed, if we would have known that sooner we would have left and got more shut eye before heading back again. You are really taking a gamble traveling space-a, if you don't have that much time to do it and don't want to fork over money for extra nights at a hotel or for travel costs back home, I wouldn't do it.
