Hawaii 2006, Part 1
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Part 2
Monday, Dec. 4
A travel day
Neither of us has had enough sleep. We’ve both been up since about 2:30 a.m. (Mountain time) and it shows. The commuter flight to Salt Lake was cramped and the four-hour layover kind of dragged on, although we were aware that we were far more comfortable in the Crown Room than we would have been sitting in the terminal all that time.
It was only when we boarded the big jet that it really hit us that we were going on vacation, our first together in nearly four years. Still, it was a really long flight, and by the time we got the car, got both signatures on the contract (a bit of a movie) and got to the hotel, it was 6:30 Hawaii time, 16 hours since we’d left the house.
Lovely Maui Prince
On previous trips to Maui, we’ve stayed in this town named Kihei on the southern shore of the eastern part of the island. This trip, we’re a few miles south, near the end of the driveable road, in Makena.
I remember going to the beach here years ago and thinking it was lovely. It’s a beautiful place, a little more high-end with great beaches and a lot of golf courses and nice little shops in one shopping area. (It’s not anywhere near as congested nor commercial as, say, Lahaina, or even Kihei.)
The hotel is beautiful, the lobby open on the inside to a large, beautifully-landscaped courtyard with waterfalls, a big koi pond, beautiful flowers, and trees and plants that must have had about a million birds in them. (We got there just around dusk and they all seemed to be singing—maybe celebrating our arrival?—at the same time!)
The service is friendly and cruise-ship attentive. They’ve got free valet parking, a fridge with bottles of water restocked every day, feather pillows, a DVD player in the room and a nice, large layout in the room. There’s an inner door with slats and if you open the doors to the patio (lanai) and close the screens, you get a nice ocean breeze through the room. And the views, which we really couldn’t see well until the following morning, are spectacular.
Non-smoking Hawaii
This is very cool. About three weeks ago, a law went into effect that prohibits cigarette smoke pretty much everywhere here. Our first meal was down in the hotel lounge—We each had a burger, Jerry’s made of Taro, the same stuff they use to make poi and, in burger form, very tasty!—and there wasn’t a whiff of smoke anywhere!
Not only are the hotel rooms non-smoking, but even the lanai has a non-smoking sign on the table!
An early night
Trying to watch a little TV and wind down after a long day, I could not keep my eyes open. We were both asleep by 9:30.
Tuesday, Dec. 5
Welcome to Hawaii
We awoke about ten hours later to this view, a delicious tropical breeze, and more birds all singing at once. And, we were hungry as all get out, which was convenient...
Not your usual breakfast buffet
I’m not generally impressed by breakfast buffets but this one is exceptional. Starting with the fresh guava juice and winding up with a couple mini waffles with macadamia nuts, toasted coconut, strawberries and coconut syrup (with whipped cream, of course), this is the kind of eating you have to save for vacations.
They also had an omelet bar, loads of breads and danish and streudels and cakes, meats, hash browns with parmesan, blintzes with vanilla cream, fresh fruit, cereals, a bunch of Japanese stuff, and other things I didn’t even see until we were ready to leave (and way too full anyhow).
We’re eating in this open-air restaurant and there are several different kinds of birds flying around, landing on the backs of chairs, unoccupied tables, even on abandoned plates in the bus trays! There was this one little guy, a gorgeous cardinal who swiped a banana chip off the granola bar! I got a picture of him eating it on the seat of one of the chairs. (He even looks like he’s got a bandit mask!)
And I must say that eating breakfast under swaying palm trees and listening to “Let it Snow” and other Christmas-time music is a lot of fun, if not a bit disorienting!
We spent the next hour or so exploring the grounds of the hotel, looking at the beautiful plants and flowers.
I’m always blown away by the variety of living things on these islands, and got some nice shots (finally figured out the macro setting on my little Nikon S4—not bad for a point-and-shoot). I think the flowers above are anthuriums. I’ll check when I get back online. (I signed up for ethernet service, not realizing that it was an additional fee to get on with wireless.)
Don’t leave stuff on the plane...
This only seems to happen when I haven’t had enough sleep. I discovered Monday night that I had left my knitting on the plane. We checked the seat backs and overhead bins two or three times but neglected to scan the floor. (Evidently the plastic bag this scarf was in got kicked far enough forward that we simply didn’t notice, and frankly, I didn’t even realize I had left it behind until I went for it when Heroes came on.)
Now the airport on Maui is a small one but getting ahold of anyone who might have been able to help me ended up being an increasingly aggravating circus. It was only on my third trip there that I actually got to speak to anyone who might have known if the bag had been found. (It hadn’t.)
Evidently, there are two different lost and founds (one for the airport where I was sent back to the airline counter) and one for Delta, plus the counter itself (which didn’t open until 6 pm, although no one in Atlanta seemed to know that) where the bag could’ve gone, and that is IF it didn’t get thrown out, stolen or sent on to the next destination.
So I filled out some paperwork and let it go. (I have only lost a couple of things on flights in all these years of flying but I have never had any success getting them back, even when they had my name and phone number on them.) I went to Ben Franklin, the only place on the island, as far as I can tell, that carries this sort of thing, and replaced the needles and got a little more yarn. (I was told that people don’t come to Hawaii to knit, which I thought was a little presumptuous, frankly. But we decided to not do our usual running around this time, and knitting is just what this body and mind need right now!)
King Kamehameha Golf Club, Frank Lloyd Wright style
Jerry had done some research and discovered that there is a building on Maui that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Since we had to keep going back to the airport, we decided to visit this building, which took a bit of searching. (Apparently people don’t come to Hawaii to look at Frank Lloyd Wright buildings either, as it was hard to find people, even at the excursion desks, who were familiar with this place!)
We’ve certainly seen enough of his architecture to recognize the building (which isn’t exactly typical Hawaiian) on sight, and to find familiar elements in the lines, glass, and various details. It was a wonderful building and we seemed to be the only ones there except for a few workers. (Even though it is a members-only golf club, no one questioned our being there, and we felt welcome to explore and photograph the place.) A really nice diversion and something we’d never done before.
The rest of the day
We drove up past Kaanapali, not all the way to the end of the driveable road, but well past the point where the houses and hotels thinned out considerably. The road narrowed and started feeling very similar to the road to Hana. We turned around after a while and stopped in Lahaina for a bit before returning to the airport again.
We ended up hanging out in Borders in Kahului for a bit, which is where I left Jerry when I made my final run to the airport, and then headed back down to Kihei for some Thai food for dinner. (We ended up back at a place we’d been to on previous trips and had another fantastic meal.)
Came back to the hotel and went to watch a little TV but once again, by 9:30, we were both out!
Wednesday, Dec. 6
Just hanging out
It’s entirely possible that the remainder of this blog will be something like “ate, slept, swam, ate, knitted, ate... whatever” as we’re really fairly set on doing as little as possible this trip. Jerry and I have done a lot of the Maui “things” like whale watching, the submarine ride, biking down Haleakala at sunrise (Jerry rode, I drove), driving the road to Hana (actually I did this with Laura when she and I were here in 2003; Jerry has never expressed an interest in this drive) and visits to many of the shops and towns around the island.
I think what we both need is some beach time and some rest and we seem to be in the perfect place for both.
Floating away...
We spent the afternoon on the beach, either in the water or in the cabana we rented to hang out in. It ended up getting a bit cloudy and windy so we didn’t actually need the shelter as much as I anticipated. Still, it was a nice place to just hang out with a book once I was ready to dry off, and watch Jerry looking for fish for the next hour or so.
I spent a little time at the pool before coming back up to the room. We’re both out on the lanai now, quiet, watching the wind on the water and in the palm trees. There is a couple getting married down on the beach (right by the rocks in the 2nd picture on this page) and the birds are being their usual raucous selves!
Thursday, Dec. 7
Charley’s for breakfast
There’s this town we like to visit on the north shore of Maui called Paia. A few months ago, we saw a show on the food network that featured a restaurant, Charley’s, that served these enormous whole wheat macadamia nut pancakes, so we decided to head up to Paia to check it out. (Charley’s was named for the owners Great Dane. Evidently there have been several since the original.)
The food was great and two or three bites of the pancake (which is about 3/4" thick and actually hangs over the full-size plate) was plenty, especially after a great veggie scramble. (They were really light on the nuts but big on flavor, as pancakes generally go, with a good bit of cinnamon, almost like a big, soft cookie!)
We walked around town for a while in this strange, misty rain, stopped in a few shops, and decided to go a little farther down the road to Ho’okepa Lookout, this beach that’s popular and nearly always bustling with surfers. By the time we got up there, there were only two people in the water (a little to the left of these rocks).
The waves were a good 10 to 15 feet high, and there was a strong wind and really big swells. One guy we met said he had planned to go out after work but the surf was “too messy.” We stayed and watched the waves for about a half hour. Hard to believe that it’s the same ocean that’s so flat and calm, relatively speaking, here in Makena where we’re staying, on the south side of the island.
There’s another site of big waves on the north shore, even more treacherous, called “Jaws.” We wanted to check it out but couldn’t find the turnoff. Still, it gave us a chance to explore a bit more of the infamous Road to Hana (though it’s still relative wide and fast—25 to 30 mph—at this point) before we turned around and headed back to Paia.
Hanging Loose
We noticed a strange thing whenever we were driving and we
let someone cut in front of us. It looked like people were sticking their little finger out at us until we realized that they were making the sign for “hang loose” in surfer-speak. Evidently it also passes for “thank you,” at least in traffic. (The Aloha Insider Web site advises: “Don’t be shocked if someone flips you the “Hang Loose” sign. It is a friendly gesture.”) And on the street as well, as demonstrated by a couple of kids in Paia who agreed to have their picture taken (to eventually be included in my pre-seminar slide show).
Aloha Beads
A few years ago, Jerry bought a Red Dirt tee shirt he’s pretty much worn out. (It has a neat map of Hawaii on it, and was dyed a rust-brown in the local red dirt. Over the years, it has really faded). He wanted to check out a store that had these shirts for sale which just happened to be right next to a bead store which just happened to have the best selection of pearls I’ve ever seen (which just happened to be 30% off).
The beads pictured are about 25% of what they had on display.
The store was small, crowded and busy and the person there just handed me a step-stool and a bunch of bags and let me have at it. Luckily, I know my way around a bead store and had a good time putting my (relatively restrained) order together. I know the salesperson was happy I didn’t need much help. She offered to take my picture as we were leaving, so I have an extra souvenir from the place.
Evening approaches
It’s 4:00 and I’m back up on the lanai. Jerry decided to go down for a swim. In about an hour, the crazy-loud bird chorus begins. The birds, I found out, are mynah birds. They gather in the courtyard of this hotel at dusk and in the morning as well and make tons of noise! If you want to read more about them, I found a blog by someone named Kris who lives in Kona and is awakened every day by these birds squawking or walking around on her metal roof. She’s also got a picture of a mynah bird on her page, though it takes a while for the page to load.
So that’s about it for today. We’ll probably have our leftover Thai for dinner and maybe watch some TV. More tomorrow.
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