Kona Day 1 - Trouble With Travels

I used to travel for a living, up to 60% of the time, dealing with insane Shanghai taxi drivers, treating thirteen hour flights like an average commute, and late-night New Delhi scammers.  I've been very lucky to only rarely lose my bags (I'm knocking on the table top as I write this, and I hope you are too). So I figured a trip to Kona, Hawaii, one of the fifty United States, but an island nonetheless, would be a piece of cake.  Well, getting there was. Even though I picked a somewhat budget fare that sent me to Honolulu, then island hopping to Maui before I actually landed in Kona, it was tiring, but not a killer.  When I saw my team's paddle bag come off the belt, I exhaled a sigh of relief.  It was in a snowboard bag, which was bad enough, but at least they arrived. I'd heard stories of teams traveling overseas to races and either receiving shattered paddles or not receiving them at all!  At least we got ours. What would we do without them?  Several of us had even bought paddles specifically for this race! But where was my bag? Long story short, after asking, walking, filling out forms, and waiting for a different airline to arrive, it rolled itself out. Another sigh of relief (my uniforms + two other teammate's uni's were in there, along with Camelbacks, etc).  But finally, it was the case of the disappearing rental car reservation. Again, I used to do this ALL the time. I made the reservation online and left the confirmation email in my inbox so I could easily refer to it when I landed. Sometimes I'd put the company and confirmation number in my calendar as a backup. But why should I this time?  I'd never needed to do it before! But when come time to take the shuttle, I couldn't find it.  Looked everywhere - other accounts, trash, all possible folders, but nothing.  That, along with a dying phone battery (thanks, Apple) made it that much more difficult.  I tried one company (dragging 2 teammates with, whom I'd promised rides to -- bless their patience!), a miss.  Dead phone, so I tethered myself to an electrical outlet and started searching the interweb for companies I COULD have rented from, calling their 1-800 numbers, but no joy. After maybe forty-five minutes of this, I decided to bite the bullet and just make a reservation where I could. Ugh. Quite the day.  But it is beautiful here, the scenery, the paddlers, the community. A great feeling. More on that tomorrow.