Gil recently surprised me with
a trip to Hawaii to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary, which
was in November. As I was busy packing, I noticed him tucking
a train article in his suitcase. I was a little suspicious but
got right back to the task at hand.When we arrived in Hawaii and were planning what we wanted to do, he informed me we needed to rent a car on Sunday. I casually said, "Well it doesn't have to be Sunday, right?" and he said "Oh yes it does ... that's the only day the train runs". Now, I thought I was safe since the train I knew about was on Maui and we were on Oahu; but I should have known that if there is a train to be found, Gil will find it.
Needless to say we rented the car on Sunday and headed for the town of Ewa, near Pearl Harbor. We arrived early so we could check everything out. The first train didn't leave until 1:00, but Gil was so excited he went to check out what was going on and would report back. I took my time getting things together and before I knew it he was back. He said "You're not going to believe this but do you want to go for a motorcar ride"? Well I didn't have to think about that too long. I slammed the car door and we were off. When we arrived, Walter Grey was pouring water into the radiator of an open motorcar. Gil introduced me, Walt finished up, we climbed aboard and we were off.
Now I have been on lots of motorcar
rides (including one in Alaska) but I never thought I would ever
experience what I was feeling at that moment. The weather was
perfect, I was cruising down my very first narrow gauge track
in a motorcar amongst the palm trees and sugar cane fields with
the tropical breeze blowing through my hair. This was fantastic!
I'm riding along just soaking it all in and in the background
I could hear Gil and Walter talking about how "she"
was running, leaning her out and what the mixture was... you know
that kind of stuff, but all I could do was sit there grinning.
I had to be careful though 'cuz I was in an open car and I didn't
want to swallow any bugs.