Last Few Days of Samoa

I've had several requests for an updated, so here's what I can do for now:

Most of my family went to Samoa for 10 days. The majority of the trip was GREAT. However, the last 2 days were...... well, I'll let you decide for yourself. After I rant for a little bit, I'll post all the gorgeous pictures and talk about all the really fun things we saw and did. This is a really long post, and I promise less detail and more pictures next time. It is a pretty funny story, though, if you have the time.

Our last day in American Samoa started out OK. We got up, ate breakfast, and checked out of 2 of the hotel rooms. (We left one opened to hold all the bags, since our flight wasn't leaving until 11:00 that night) Then we all decided to go to the National Park on the other side of the island. I was apprehensive about this because I wasn't feeling well (foreign food always does that) and there were NO bathrooms to speak of until we get all the way back to the hotel. So I wasn't trilled about going. I went anyway because Tyler said I would regret it if I didn't.

We started our drive around the island and pulled off on the side of the road to take some pictures of the gorgeous scenery. Being the huge dork that I am, I saw something made out of concrete that I wanted to show Tyler. Like I said, I'm a dork. Anyway, I walked over to this thing, and stepped up onto it. As I was explaining something silly about it to Tyler, I stepped off of it. This thing was about 6 inches high. Now biggy, right? Yeah. The next thing I remember, I'm deciding whether or not to let my head slam against the ground. I did not succeed in convincing myself that I could stop the force of gravity. Within a second or two, I could feel the palm of my left hand, and most of my left foot light on fire. Tyler looked down at my like, "Oh crap, what do I do?" He looked at the cuts on my hand and foot and ran back to the car to find medicine or something. This concrete "thing" that I was so excited about was in front of the car, which means my whole family got to witness my embarrassing miss-step. Not wanting to make a scene, I immediately jumped up and hobbled back to the car where I told everyone it was no big deal and tried to hide the massive stream of tears (some from pain, but mostly from extreme embarrassment that I can't walk on my own 2 feet after 28 years of practice). My mom, Tyler, and my dad worked to sterilize and bandage my cuts the best they could. Thank goodness my mom carries a first aid-kit around with her. I'll have to remember that in the future. I sat in the front seat and cried like a baby until the next stop. When I went to step out of the car for more pictures, I realized that I hadn't just cut my foot, I'd twisted something. Luckily it wasn't my ankle, but I couldn't step down flat on my foot, so I limped around on half my heel and my big toe for the rest of the day.

On our way home, my dad was driving the rental car around the windy mountain roads, complete with cliffs on both sides (one side straight up, the other side straight down). All of a sudden, Tara (who was in the front seat, and is 5 months pregnant, by the way) started saying, dad, Dad, DAD, DAD!!!!!! Too late. He had been looking off to the left and we had run off the road, into the mountain. Woops. We worked our way out of the mountain side, as the neighbors are coming out to see the damage we've caused to their property. The right mirror of the car was shattered and had fallen off, and the front right corner of the car had hit a large rock, denting a couple panels pretty good. The wheel well cover had come mostly off, and was hanging funny. As we looked around, he actually hit in the best place possible. There were large rocks in front of and behind where we went off the road. Where we hit was mostly a grassy (now muddy) hill. Things really could have been a lot worse. Dad offered the people who lived there some money, but they wouldn't take it (Samoa is known as the "friendly isles" and they were more concerned with our safety, luckily). So we were back on our way. We had to stop and pick up the wheel well cover after it fell off (Shawn had tucked it back in). Dad had purchased the insurance (a VERY wise choice in hind-site) so we were OK, but the rental company was NOT happy with us. :)

Shortly after returning to the hotel, we headed for the airport the check in bags. The lines to check in at the Pago Pago airport are notoriously horrendous, and they did not disappoint. We were there HOURS in advance, I'm talking like 6 hours (maybe more) in advance of our flight time. We were the first in line, but not by long. The people at the counter didn't show up for a few hours after we got in line, and they didn't turn the fans on until then. Samoa is the hottest place I have ever been in my life. The humidity is like death. While the boys waited with the bags, they let the girls sit in a somewhat windy area, so we were relatively comfortable. They, on the other hand, were sweating like dogs. My dad laid his arms on the counter the talk to the lady at the desk, and when he lifted them up (seconds later) is was like someone had poured a glass of water on the counter. No joke. There were only 2 people working the counter, and 5 TSA workers standing behind them doing NOTHING. There were HUNDREDS of people in line. Great use of resources. Anyway, when it was our turn to check in, we checked in for about an hour. Seriously. There were only 7 of us. It was ridiculous. Tyler and I were last because our bags were going all the way to Utah. My passport wasn't good enough because the last name is still Moody, so I stepped up and handed her my license, as requested. She promptly dropped the license into the hole under her computer. I could see the license on the shelf below, but in order to retrieve it, she pulled the shelf out, dropping the license further down. She looked for about a minute, then gave up. She would not let me behind the counter to look because I would be "breaching security". Seriously? She kept asking me, "why do you need it?" Um, HELLO!! She kept saying I had my BYU ID (which I had given her with the license as extra ID) and that should be good enough. Yeah RIGHT I was going to leave my drivers license in a foreign country, and go home without a truly valid form of ID, no way to drive, AND pay for a new one out of my pocket?!?! She told me to come back in 2 hours and she would have it then. I couldn't do anything else, she gave me no choice, so we walked to McDonald's for dinner. It was pitch black, there are no sidewalks, the roads are gravelly, and the restaurant is about a mile away. Remember, I'm limping this whole time (stupid foot). We hung out there for an hour or two, then walked back to the airport. I went right up to the counter and the lady ignored me. Don't you just LOVE when they do that? So I made myself known and she said they hadn't fount it yet, come back in 45 minutes. So I did. At this point she said I had to wait for the WHOLE line to be gone. This would have taken a few more hours. By this time, they're allowing people through customs and into the indoor waiting area. A customs lady walks by and says, "we're closing immigration soon, you'd better get going," and I panicked a little. My dad told her that they'd lost my license and we had to wait, and she said, "that's ridiculous, lets go fix that right now." She stood there until they found the license. Like I thought, it was RIGHT there and the lady just wasn't looking. If she'd just let me LOOK over the counter, I could have found the dumb thing.

Ahhh, sweet victory.

Ah hour or so later, we walked out on to the tarmac and climbed up into the plane. Once we were all boarded, and sweating like dogs, they decided to tell us about all the problems they were having. Did you know what if they load a plane and pull away from the gate, they are "on-time" even if they sit on the tarmac for HOURS?! Funny trick, FAA. After about 2 hours of blah blah blah, we're leaving soon, we finally took off. By this time it's past 1:00 am. The next morning we landed, and customs was SUCH a joke. They marched us all over the entire airport (remember, I'm limping), up escalators, down escalators, through hallways made of plywood and all this junk, to sit ant wait for our bags in the special customs baggage carousel. The carousel broke 3 times (maybe more while I was in the bathroom), so by the time we collected our 1 stupid bag that my dad convinced us to check instead of carry-on, the plane had left 10 minutes ago. When we left the customs area the get new tickets, they didn't even look through our bags. Seriously? Why the HECK couldn't they just go on our next plane?!?!?! I HATE FLYING!!

So we walk out of customs and we're lost. There are NO signs anywhere. We stumble around and finally follow someone with a Hawaiian Airlines uniform to the right terminal. The people at the counter were super rude and basically told us that all the flights were sold out (such freaking BS- EVERY FLIGHT?!? HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!) so we had to spend the night in Vegas. Lovely. I actually talked to one person about it, who gave us half our tickets, then told us we had to wait two hours to get the other half of our tickets, and walked away. I waited about an hour, then asked someone why it would take that long. They said it wouldn't. I said great! She asked who was helping me and I told her the lady was gone- so she told me I had to get back in line and start over. They're lucky I didn't start shooting at this point. They still only gave us our tickets from Honolulu to Vegas, and not from Vegas to Salt Lake, or any info on the hotel they were putting us up in. They said someone would help us when we landed in Vegas. NEVER believe them! Don't walk away until they've given you EVERYTHING!

While waiting for our next flight, we went home with my mom. She unwrapped my foot for me to help me re-bandage it. When she took the wrap off, my whole foot was bright green and blue. I KNEW IT HURT!!!

Back to the airport and almost on our way. We were in line to board the plane, and they called our names to come to the counter. The lady at the counter said, "I was instructed to give you this number," and nothing else. She scribbled a 1-800 number and a ripped off strip of paper and that was all she was going to say. ...OK... We ask her what it's for and she looks at us like we're stupid and we should know. Come to find out, that was the number for the hotel in Vegas. The flight to Vegas was relatively uneventful.

When we landed, it was about 11:00 pm, Vegas time. As we stepped off the plane, hoping to find a Hawaiian Employee to help us, we realized that the ENTIRE terminal was deserted. We went back on the plane, and they couldn't help us. off to baggage-claim we go. We had to go down stairs, and there was on escalator going up, one escalator not moving, and one stair case. At this point, I'm balling, saying to Tyler, "Can't we just get ONE break?!" I hobbled down the stairs, and there were no employees at the ticket counter either. We headed for the other terminal, hoping our next flight was on Delta and met yet another extra-disgruntled airline employee. She informed us that our bag would most likely NOT make it to Salt Lake tomorrow, but she did give us our tickets for the flight the next morning. She told us that we needed to be back at the airport by 4:00 am to catch our 6:20 flight because security was horrendous. She must have been really bitter, because she TOTALLY lied....

We went outside to wait for the shuttle to the hotel. Tyler called the guy, probably 5 times. We waited outside (freezing) for about an hour. When he finally showed up, we realized the hotel was only 10 minutes from the airport. WHAT had this guys been doing?!? We got to the hotel and checked in. The room seemed pretty nice, so we got ready for bed. By this time, it was about 1:00 am and we had to be back at the airport by 4:00 so we REALLY needed some sleep. We were all ready to hunker down when we realized the AC was broken. Great. Extra great. Needless to say, we were ready to go by 4:00.

When we got to Salt Lake, we had no bag. We'd expected this by now. After all, I'm cursed. So we headed home, bag-less, and VERY tired.

I'm not complaining, I'm just saying, it was a REALLY sucky last couple of days...

But life is good now. I'm icing and elevating my foot, and I can ALMOST walk without limping. Yeah!!