Pilot

Has anyone ever watched the first episode of a TV series on Netflix and noticed that the first episode was titled “Pilot” and thought that’s just what the name of the first episode was? Later to realize that the next series you watched also had a first episode called “Pilot” and thought, “Ha! That’s ironic, these two TV series have the same title for their first episodes!” Then three or four more series later you suddenly realize, ‘Wait a minute…why does everyone name their first episode “Pilot?” Is that, like, a really trendy episode title right now, is everyone just copying each other? Is this some sort of inside joke? Why aren’t these episodes actually about pilots or airplanes or flying?’ Only to Google it and realize that a “Pilot” episode is just what they call the trial episode that launches a series? No, just me? Everyone else already knew that? Cool, glad we are on the same page!

Recently, my husband got news from his work that they got a new client in Hawaii, and wanted to send him to work with them for a while. Two blown minds and five packed bags later, we were on our way to live in Honolulu, Hawaii for at least three months!!! *Insert first two lines of Bohemian Rhapsody here*

Now, I am not a huge fan of flying, which may seem slightly ironic considering my love for travel, but thankfully it usually doesn’t stop me. Who wants to let their fears get in the way of what they want to do and what they love, right!?! I am also hugely blessed to have a husband who is so patient and reassuring, and who holds my hand during lots of turbulence!

We arrived at the airport pretty excited and ready to start our journey! We flew American Airlines, and were surprised and delighted at the friendliness of the service. I am pretty sure we developed inside jokes with every airport worker along the way, from our baggage checker who teased us at how accurately we tried to distribute the weight in all of our bags, to a security guard who had fun comparing the current bearded Danny to his bare-faced ID picture, to a bag checker who couldn’t help asking why we had to bring so many laptops with us to Hawaii. Before we knew it, we were on our plane and ready for take-off!

I am not going to lie. The flight started off sort of terrifying.

As we were ascending in the air, we started hearing this really strange noise coming from somewhere on the side of the plane right next to us. As we got higher, and even as we started to level out, the noise continued. After a few minutes it seemed like other people in our row were hearing it too. Our section started to become filled with questions of, “Do you hear that? What is that noise? Could it be the air pressure stabilizing? Should we be concerned? What is going on?” We may have had a classic Star Wars, “I have a bad feeling about this” moment, but we weren’t about to sit around worrying about it. Danny called a flight attendant over and explained the concern, to which the flight attendant replied, “Oh wow, I have never heard a sound like that before…I am going to go check it out.”

…

Many a prayer later it turns out it was a speaker located in the side of the plane going haywire and all it took was rebooting the entertainment system to fix it. Praise Jesus!

After the system rebooting (and Danny commenting on the boot sequence), we were pretty impressed with the wide selection of free movies and entertainment on the little screens in front of our seats. We watched Murder on the Orient Express (which was fantastic), Daddy’s Home 2, and A Few Good Men. Only later did we realize that they also had every Star Wars movie available. Could have had a marathon. Oh well!

What was probably even more entertaining, were the two little old ladies sitting directly in the seats in front of us. They were apparently two sisters, in their 90’s, traveling to Hawaii together. Now, each person has to select a language for their entertainment system before they can watch anything, and as Danny and I are selecting ours, we hear one of the ladies in front of us exclaim in her rich southern accent, “I prefer the English language!” We laughed so hard. I hope I grow up to be just like them.

After that, other than some “moderate turbulence” (whatever that means; an understatement in my opinion), the rest of the flight was pretty pleasant. In retrospect, we should have brought more snacks. Although, we did end up ordering a pretty delicious cheese tray, and the flight attendant did seem to favor us and kept bringing us extra drinks, probably because we notified him about that noise earlier.

About 7 hours and 3,000 miles later, we looked out our window to see our destination below! Needless to say, we took a few pictures.

     

This is our “Pilot.” And yes, it’s actually about airplanes and flying!