T Minus 34 1/2 - Puppy Plane Plans

I intended to relax before work but the first thing I saw when I woke up were emails from The Hubby that required my attention. It meant I needed to make more phone calls. The Hubby presented options and, after spending some time thinking about it, I decided to go down the road that meant more work for me.

We originally contracted with a company based in California to transport the puppies from Vegas to the island. They assured us door-to-door service, meaning they would pick up the puppies from our home in Vegas - at that time, we planned to still be in the house through October - and take them to the airport, put them on an appropriate plane and get them through the Dept. of Ag inspection process once on the island, finally delivering them across the island to our home in Hawaii.

They wanted a large sum of money for this service, which I felt comfortable paying. After initial calls to the airlines to determine how to fly the dogs to Hawaii, the process seemed especially intimidating and paying someone more experienced with the process seemed the right move. Situations change. Ours did and we needed a new solution.

When paying someone the amount of money the transport company planned to charge us, one expects a certain level of service and communication. We explained to them that we needed to arrange the pet's import permits to be in the Midwest no later than September 15. The company basically shrugged us off. When asked for assistance with the permitting process, they referred us to the Dept of Ag web site. The Hubby researched everything on his own.

We needed flight information in order for the Dept of Ag to issue the permits. We pressed the transport company for information about flights and were told nothing other than "some air cargo flight such as United 336." They refused to book anything until a week before the dogs fly but they assured us there would be no problems.

Fast forward to yesterday when I took the phone call from James at the United cargo offices here on the island. I referred James to The Hubby and, after they talked, The Hubby presented my phone call options to me. United 336's schedule took it from Cleveland, OH to Salt Lake City, UT on the day our pups meant to be on that flight. James told The Hubby that once we had flight info, we needed to contact the Dept of Ag and request changes to the permits we held for our pups.

The Hubby told me I could call the transport company, demand that they book the flight for the pups and provide the flight numbers to us, and then call the Dept of Ag to amend the permits. He suggested a different solution though, calling James at United and booking the pups myself. Having heard not one word from the transport company since mid-July, and having zero faith that they would be able to get me what I needed in time for me to get updated permits to The Hubby in less than one week - after Sept 15, The Hubby has no mailing address until he gets to the island - I reluctantly decided to call James.

James, though unable to book the flights himself, talked me through the process. I then spent the next three hours on the phone with airlines and the Dept of Ag. My efforts paid off tremendously! First, the pups arrive on the island a full day early. The original plan saw us turning over the pups the night of Oct 11 and the transport company first driving them to Los Angeles before flying them to us the next day. Instead, The Hubby delivers the pups to the United cargo desk in Vegas on Oct 10 where their adventure takes them on a flight to San Francisco where they get to overnight in a kennel that handles these situations for the airline on a daily basis before finally flying to Maui on Oct 11.

Finding airplanes that are big enough to hold two 700-series crates isn't as easy as you'd think. Just finding a plane with a cargo door big enough to fit a single 700-series crate through proved difficult. Few, if any, cargo flights from Vegas to Maui have large cargo doors. That's why the pups get to overnight in San Francisco. I'm super excited I get to see them a day early! I need to order dog food from Amazon so it will be here when they get here, and I need to pick up a couple of food bowls.

So, my countdown today stands at 34½. 34 days before I see my pups, 35 days before I see The Hubby. When I take my rental Chevy Suburban back to the airport the morning of Oct 12, I take the shuttle to the airport where I pick up The Hubby and we ride Da Bus back to Lahaina. I told the boss lady I needed to do some schedule wrangling come mid-October and she said she had no problem with that. Just over one month to go!

With the flights booked for the pups, I called the Dept of Ag to check on changing their permits. James told us that, though rare, the Dept of Ag holds the power to impound pets for quarantine if the travel arrangements fail to match what is on the permits. Tell Dept of Ag your pets arrive on Oct 12, United 336, at 1pm but instead they show up on United 1191, 8pm, and you risk watching Dept of Ag flex their muscles and force you to quarantine your pets in Honolulu - a whole different island, even! - at your expense. I wasn't taking that risk.

It turned out the Dept of Ag not only made the changes to the permits, they informed us we could fly the pups with the permits The Hubby already has in hand and to just inform the United clerk in Vegas that we have a verbal OK from the Dept of Ag to use our new arrangements. The extremely helpful James at the United desk here in Maui told us to have the Vegas cargo people call him directly if they had any questions and that he would sort it out for us.

I felt exhausted after dealing with all of the new travel plans but I still needed to go to work. Time to catch Da Bus! I thought catching the bus at the Cannery seemed a good idea because it would give me a chance to pop in Safeway and pick up some pineapple to eat during my shift. Unfortunately, Safeway ran out of precut pineapple so I settled on a bag of pretzels.

I shared the bus stop with an older local man and a foreign woman. The older gentleman sat on the bench, leaning forward on a very ornate and beautifully carved cane, a genuine smile playing across his face. He gave off the aura of someone very happy with his life. The foreign lady seemed to be the very antithesis to that, worrisome and fretting non-stop. When the bus failed to appear quick enough for her liking, she instead found a cab to take her wherever it was she needed to be so quickly.

Her cab ride likely went a bit more smoothly than my bus ride though. First, I failed to find a seat when I boarded the packed bus. The, a traffic jam - a traffic jam? in Lahaina? - snarled traffic badly enough that the bus inched forward at a snails pace. I called the boss lady to tell her I was on the bus but that the bus wasn't moving so I might be late. Of course, by the time the bus finally reached Ka'anapali, I missed the trolley I normally rode from Whalers Village to the Hyatt.

I started walking. I arrived at the gallery an exhausted, overheated mess. The boss lady gave me a few moments to collect myself and cool off before she headed home. My shift dragged slowly. I made only two sales, both small, the entire night. I learned that a pending sale of mine closed Wednesday while I wasn't here, though, so the commission from that sale will be on my next paycheck. I breezed through the closing paperwork and found myself outside before my ride home arrived to pick me up.

Climbing the steps to the condo, I felt relief that a long day was coming to an end. Today's fat mail consisted of our checks for our new checking account. The Hubby surprised me by ordering somewhat whimsical checks. They fit our new island life well though, covered in slippahs as they are - so stinking cute!

Now for a couple episodes of Supernatural and some much needed sleep.

Aloha!