Lost 2014: Day 6

Day 6!  Another early wake-up call to catch the bus for our half-day LOST tour.  I arrived at the pick-up location around 7:30AM after woofing down my remaining kettle corn and granola bars.

Early morning view from the hotel.

This day our bus won the lottery because we had Tom as our guide.  Tom was our guide for my full-day LOST tour back in 2011 with Hawaiian Escapades, and he's great.  Knowledgeable, funny, and knows when to say something useful and when to just let the tourists enjoy the sights.  Along with the usual suspects we also had LOST 2014 organizer Kelley aboard our bus that day.  She had slipped on the rocks at Waimea Falls on Sunday and wasn't sure if she would make it, but fortunately she felt well enough to join the tour.

Bus for our half-day tour!  (Photo: Kelley)

With Tom as our guide.  (Photo: Ian)

With only a few hours to work with our time was focused on two locations:  Kualoa Ranch and the Byodo-In temple.  Both are fabulous must-see stops for any LOST fan, and I'll cover them in separate posts.

After the tour a group of us headed to Cheeseburger In Paradise for drinks and a quick lunch.  (Ironically, this restaurant serves a very mediocre cheeseburger.  Lulu's is much better.)  Afterward we crossed the road to the beach to take part in the official LOST 2014 photograph.  Corralling 250+ people onto the hot sand under the blazing sun is no small feat, but somehow we managed it!

After the photo a few of us went over to re-watch the LOST pilot at Alice's hotel room.  It was, after all, Monday the 22nd of September, ten years to the day that LOST debuted on ABC.  That episode is as good today as it was then, a nearly perfect introduction.  (If I had to quibble it would be the hokey "climbing the hillside" scene, and the fake-looking CGI trees in the scene where the survivors hear the Smoke Monster for the first time.)

Setting up to watch the LOST pilot.  (Photo: Alice)

After the screening it was back to Lulu's for a few adult beverages.

Adult beverage #16.

After a quick cleanup it was back to the Hilton for the official LOST 10th anniversary party, already in full swing when I arrived.  The setup was impressive -- a large room with perhaps 25 round tables, ringed around the edge with food and drink and tables displaying some of the items to be auctioned off for charity at the end of the evening.

LOST 10-year anniversary party!

Yums.  (Photo: Ian)

Cake by Numbers.  (Photo: Ian)

After everyone had a chance to eat, Kelley and Jo welcomed the crowd and played a few videos on the big screen.  One of the videos featured many of the attendees who had sent in photos of themselves holding "thank you" signs, in appreciation of Kelley's hard work over the previous year to make the LOST 2014 event a reality.  We were also treated to three videos from the LOST cast: one from Daniel Roebuck (Dr. Arzt), one from Malcolm David Kelley (Walt), and one from Evangeline Lilly (Kate) from the set of Ant-man.

Presentation time.  (Photo: Ian)

Following the presentations we had time to circulate around the room and enter bids for the many amazing auction items.  I probably bid on a dozen or so goodies, but unfortunately was outbid on each and every one!

Entering auction bids.  (Photo: Ian)

The MacCutcheon twins.  (Photo: Ian)

With Amy.  (Photo: Amy)

At one point in the evening someone really got the party started with some Dharma beer and Apollo bars.

Although the Cancer Gets LOST onsite auction was intended to be a relatively low-key precursor to the big online auction held a few days later, some of the items proved to be massively popular.  A custom Dharma van, a custom packaged Desmond action figure that Bonnie Craft and Scott Adams had teamed up to create, a replica of Jacob's wine bottle, and a replica bottle of MacCutcheon's all fetched very high bids.  As I recall more than $10K was raised that evening for the American Cancer Society.

Following the event a group of us got together for dinner at the Hilton restaurant.  For some this is where we said good-bye.  For others, although the official LOST 2014 events had ended, we still had one more day of adventure in store.

Post-party meal.  (Photo: Chris)