On February 11, 2010, we were supposed to get a little bit of snow mixed with rain in the morning, and by nightfall an accumulation of 2 or 3 inches in the grassy areas. Then the temperature changed 5 degrees and, by the time I got up, it was snowing heavily, the park was covered in snow, and it didn't stop until the middle of the night. When it was all over we had 12.5 inches at DFW and had broken every existing record since they started keeping records 111 years ago. In the picture on the left you can see the dogs and their people out playing in Lee Park while the snow continues to fall.
All day long the snow got thicker and heavier and just kept on coming. The snowflakes were huge and fluffy, and absolutely beautiful. I guess all this doesn't sound too unusual to people who live where you have snow on a regular basis. But this is Dallas, and we have never seen this, at least not in the last century. People were out playing all day in the park, and up until about 11pm.
The sun was out on the morning of the 12th, and the snow was bright and beautiful. I had to be at the airport at 10am, so I was a bit concerned about the roads. It had dropped down below freezing overnight, so there could be icing. It turned out that I had nothing to worry about. The main roadways were ice free, and there was very little traffic, since most schools and businesses were either closed, or had delayed start times.
I was glad that I was at home and got to enjoy the beauty of the snow, very glad that I wasn't at the airport during all the chaos there, and even more glad that I was leaving for Honolulu. This is the best time to get out of town.
Many of our passengers had been stuck at DFW overnight, and many flights didn't make it to DFW that morning with their connecting passengers. That meant that we had a very light load and all the tired people we did have onboard were able to stretch out, relax, get some sleep, and enjoy the flight. We arrived ontime to some beautiful weather. The shot at the left is Waikiki beach from the lobby balcony of our hotel. Quite a change from the scene we left behind in Texas.
Several of my crewmembers and I decided to have dinner and drinks at the Top of Waikiki, a revolving restaurant near our hotel with a great view of the city and beach. Another crewmember had told about their delicious Kobe filet mignon served on a hot rock. The steak is charred rare, then you slice the meat atop the rock and cook it to your preference. It was everything I had hoped for.....tender, juicy and delicious. Check out photos of this entree, and see details of this great restaurant at this site http://www.topofwaikiki.com/. The views were gorgeous, especially of the Royal Hawaiian and the beach in front of it.
The next morning a friend and I took the trolley to an open air market at the base of Diamond Head. The ride was short, and the sightseeing along the way was enjoyable. http://kapiolani.hawaii.edu/object/farmersmarket.html
This is a true farmers market, and features only Hawaiin grown and produced foods. You can wander among the stalls, have breakfast, sample products and learn how they are grown, and enjoy all the gorgeous flowers.
We enjoyed the samples of a lot of great local produce. My friend bought a beautiful orchid to take home. These are specially packaged without soil and can be brought back to the mainland.
I bought some local honey, and a lilikoi (passion fruit, which is my new favorite hawaiian flavor) barbeque sauce. I also purchased a green tomato pie, which was advertised as being better than apple pie. It was a draw, in my opinion. Just as good as apple pie. How come I never heard of this in Texas? I'll bet we make them here, since we do everything else with green tomatoes.
I walked along the beach for a while, before I returned to my room to rest a bit before working the all-nighter home. I soaked up the sun and I will try to take some of the warmth back with me to wintry Dallas.
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