Landed!

At SFO after early arrival from Maui.

Rain On D' Plane

Rain begins to fall on our plane as we board our flight home.

We're In The Chips

At the gate waiting to board our flight home carrying our lunch.

Maui Begets Slothfulness

It's Sunday evening and I haven't written a post to this blog during the last four days.  We've been busy being sloths.  Here's a brief recap on what we've been up to since Tuesday:

Wednesday, July 20
 
Today we took a day off from being tourists and just hung around the condo complex until early evening when we drove five minutes south to Wailea (where most of the upscale hotels on this part of Maui are located) to hear local musician, Willie K, play at a dinner show at Mulligan's On The Blue.  His range was astounding ---- everything from R&B, to Rock & Roll, to Tony Bennett (leaving his heart in San Francisco), to opera.  The dinner choices weren’t that great (we had Chicken Ala King --- when is the last time you saw that on a menu ---- an upscale version of Swanson’s Chicken Pot Pie). 

Thursday, July 21

We managed to get out the door a little earlier, but still late enough that we decided to have lunch in Kihei rather than at Wailuku as originally planned.  We had spent part of the prior weekend in Wailuku, but went back today when the shops were open.

Much to our disappointment, we learned that two bookstores had gone out of business.  However, the record shop, “Requests”, was jammed with hundreds if not thousands of music CDs, so we prowled around there for a while, and picked up a Willie K album. 

Friday, July 22

While reading the local paper, The Maui News, over breakfast on our condo unit’s lanai, we learned that the Kahului Borders Express bookstore was going to close by September,  Worse yet, the independent used book store that I planned to visit up in Lahaina later in that day to look for a novel written by a Hawaiian author closed last week.  Soon Barnes & Noble’s Lahaina outlet will be the only remaining bookstore on the island.

A little after 3 pm we jumped in our rental car and drove 45 minutes or so up to Lahaina.  To kill time before catch an evening performance, we had a muffin and coffee treat at Starbucks inside of the Barnes & Noble store.  Trying to find a mystery novel, or indeed any novel, by a local author proved futile.  The store staff couldn’t point me to one, and although I was able to Google-up (is that a verb?) a fairly long list of Hawaiian mystery novels on my iPhone, the store didn’t care a single one of them.  Finally, I gave up and bought a copy of Thunderhead, an archeological “thriller” set in the Southwest.

We attended ‘Ulalena, a story of Hawaii’s people from ancient to modern times, performed at the Maui Theater.  It’s modern dance, coupled with acrobatics and aerial routines, music, singing, chanting, and drumming, performed on a high-tech set with computer controlled lighting and effects.

Dinner came as part of a package with the show, and we opted to try David Paul’s Island Grill.  By the time we were seated at 8:45, there were a few empty tables, so we were able to enjoy a quiet meal on the patio just across the street from the ocean.  From time to time we could see lighted evening cruise vessels passing just offshore.

Saturday, July 23

We continued our “Half Day In, Half Day Out” routine and headed to Paia for lunch.  Unlike last Thursday, the town was hopping early Saturday afternoon, and we had to park about three blocks up from the main intersection.  We didn’t having Parking Karma, and we didn’t have Fish Lunch Karma, either.

The Paia Fish Market was jammed, so we ambled back uphill on Baldwin Avenue and chowed down on burgers at Cafe Mambo.  In Paia, it’s a funky, hole-in-the-wall place that fits right in with the ‘60’s Hippie feel of the town.  Do you suppose their second location, in the tony Hamptons of Long Island, will be as downscale?

After lunch with drove upcountry to another down-at-the-heels, local-yokel, looking town, Makawao.  Most of the rundown storefronts are filled with tourist shops and art galleries.  On the way we stopped for a quick look at the art hanging in the galleries of the Hui No’eau Visual Arts Center on the former estate of one of members of the Baldwin family which made its fortune from Hawaiian sugar cane.

A few rain drops fell intermittently down in Paia.  Up in Makawao the skies began to open up and a brief rain squall kept us under the overhanging porch of one of the gift stores while water poured into the street off its tin roof.

On the outside, Makawao looks about the same as it did during our last visit, four years ago.  The glass blowing studio is still there as are two of the restaurants where we’ve had lunch.  But inside “Aloha Cowboy” (Upcountry duds for tourists) has replaced a store where I used to shop for Aloha shirts, and one of the nifty gifts shops that used to be in town has disappeared.

Sunday, July 24

We spent a good part of Sunday afternoon touring the Maui Ocean Center, an aquarium that is just a few miles from our condo.  Cindy thought it had improved since our first visit in 2002, while I felt it was looking a little worn down at the heels.  It doesn’t hold a candle to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but does has some interesting exhibits, and a few sharks that swim around in a large tank of open ocean critters while a diver feeds the smaller fish.

If you are a certified scuba diver, you can plunk down two-hundred “clams,” don dive gear, and swim with the big, bad fishes.  (Aquarium staff assure visitors that no diver has even been bitten in these “shark-invested waters”).

Monday, July 25

After breakfast, we drove a few miles to the head of Ma’alaea Bay and walked along the boardwalk that runs just upland from the beach and through the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge.  Winter, when the freshwater pond is full and flows into the ocean is the best time to come, but we did see a few Hawaiian Stilts, some herons, and a Northern Cardinal.

On the way back to the condo we made a final stop at “Slave-A-Way” (which Cindy calls “FakeWay”, and which is better known as Safeway) to pick up some bread and a cookie treat.  After lunch on the lanai of our condo, I went down to the front desk to get our boarding passes for tomorrow’s flight printed out, and then we started packing our bags.

We’ll have a “home-cooked” steak dinner in the condo tonight, clean out the refrigerator at breakfast tomorrow, and then head to the airport to catch our 12:52 p.m. flight to SFO.

Upcountry

Today we gave up our morning beach walk time so we could get out the door by mid-morning and travel "Upcountry" away from the teeming masses of locals and tourists at sea level.

Our first stop was at the Surfing Goat Dairy which was founded by a couple who emigrated to Maui from Germany.  The dairy has been in operation for about ten years and milks about a hundred goats of various breeds.  For $10/person you can take a 20-minute guided tour, feed the goats, check out the milking station (which you can see in operation during a special "Evening Chores" tour in mid-afternoon), learn how the fresh and aged cheeses are made, and then sample the products.  My favorite was the fresh cheese with lavender.

The cheese tasting portions were small, so we headed up the flanks of Haleakala to Grandma's Coffee House for a quick lunch before continuing on south for another six miles to the Tedeschi Winery.  After a short tour of the grounds that covered the vineyard and harvest operations, as well as a bit of the history behind the 20,000 acre ranch where the winery is located, we sampled both sparking and still wines made from pineapples (much more abundant than wine grapes on Maui) plus a Chardonnay and Colombard white, and a red made from Syrah and Merlot.

Then it was on to the Alii Kula Lavender Farm for a tour of the farm's extensive gardens followed by a cup of tea and a lavender scone. Our final stop was at the Curtis Wilson Cost Gallery in the Kula Lodge.  Cost's father was an artist in Carmel and taught Curtis landscape painting techniques.

Up on the mountain it was probably ten degrees cooler than down in Kahului and Kihei today, and a few raindrops fell on us during the winery tour and the drive back to our condo.

Shop! Shop! Shop!

After our morning beach walk and breakfast we sat down and planned some tourist activities and evening entertainment for the week.

We grabbed a quick lunch at Maui Tacos, then spent the better part of an hour learning about the history of sugar cane plantations on Maui at a little museum across the road from the island's one remaining commercial sugar came plant.

Then it was off to Kahului on an Economic Stimulus Outing to Maui's second favorite store (after Costco): Savers. The place carries mostly clothing, but also used books, housewares and other assorted "stuff" it buys from the Big Brothers and Big Sisters non-profits.

It was no joy there, so it was back to Kihei for stops at Maui Clothing Outlet (good selection of Aloha shirts, but few bargains) and Hilo Hattie's (where Cindy bought a Hawaiian-style dress).

Maui's "Chicago"

Volunteer actors? Fifteen dollar ticket price? This show is going to be bad, right?

Wrong! Today's matinee performance of "Chicago" at the historic Iao Theater in Wailuku was beyond amazing and on par with plays we have seen at Ashland's Oregon Shakespeare Festival where often are in mid-summer.





Lia Krieg and Casey Elizabeth Murphy were the show's super-stars in the roles of accused murderesses Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart, and the entire talented cast made a top-notch rendering of this sometimes risqué musical.

"Chicago" continues through July 31st, then "The Garden of BE" premiers on September 23. But the company (mauionstage.com) performs throughout the year, so the next time you are on Maui, take advantage of this great entertainment value.

Stepping Back in Time

After lounging around the condo Saturday morning, we split a spinach-bacon wrap during a quick lunch at the Kihei Caffe after running a few errands "uptown," then drove a few miles north past the sugar cane plantations to the sleepy little town of Wailku.  In Kihei, Everybody and His Brudder was out and about; in Wailuku, Everybody and his Brudder was taking a nap or had left town.

Our first stop was the Bailey House Museum, on the site of the 19th century Wailuku Female Seminary, a boarding school for local girls.  The two-story main building where the principal lived houses a three-room exhibit area with native Hawaiian artifacts, and landscape paintings of the area by Edward Bailey, the teacher and principal after whom the place is name.  The dining hall-now the gift shop-is the only other building remaining from that era; the other, abode buildings, weathered away over time.

The surrounding grounds are landscaped with several plants and trees, some endemic (ones that evolved on Hawaii), indigenous (those that arrived by wind, sea, or by "hitchhiking" on birds), others brought in by Polynesians who came to the islands in double-hulled canoes nearly two-thousand years ago, as well as "exotic" species that normally would not be found here.   A long fishing canoe made from a single koa log on the Big Island at the turn of the 19th century rests under the protective eves of a building on the edge of the gardens.

We picked up a map of Wailuku's historic district that runs about a block downhill from the museum, then another block or so along South High Street.  There is a weird mix of architectural styles here:  Stone buildings like the 1908 Courthouse and the Wailuku Union Church, Mediterranean Revivial-Hawaiian Style with colorful Spanish/Mexican tile work as at the Public Library, and the wooden, tall-spired Ka'ahumanu Church that looks like it was shipped in from New England in a big box and then re-assembled in Wailuku.

After finishing our leisurely stroll through the Historic District, we had a brief "meet-up" with our friends Bill and Bonnie Prucha who had been working at the outrigger canoe races down at the nearby Kahului Harbor.  After we came up with a plan to rendezvous for tomorrow's play at the Iao Theater in Wailuku, they led us back toward Kahului and the Iron Maehara Stadium where we'd take in the evening baseball game between the local, Na Koa Ikaika Maui team, and the Scorpions from Yuma.

Baseball, Maui Style

Tonight we're going to see Maui's professional baseball team, Na Koa Ikaika Maui, play the Scorpions from Yuma, managed by former A's and Yankee's player, Jose Canseco.

The bad bugs from the desert had a come-from-behind 7-6 victory over the locals last night. But the big story in today's Maui News Sports section was about the Little League state championship.

Take Me Out to The Balgame

The Bugs got squashed, big time.

Former Major Leaguer, Jose Canseco, player-manager for the Yuma Scorpions saw his team get its butt kicked by the Na Koa Ikaika Maui team, 15-4.  And his twin brother, Ozzie (in the photo at left), who coaches third base, got his butt kicked off  the field for arguing a called out at home plate.  Jose himself had an undistinguished performance, going 0-5 at the plate, striking out three times, and then hitting two batters and giving up four runs on four hits when he took his turn on the mound.

All of this drama played out at Iron Maehara Stadium on the boundary between Wailuki and Kahului.  Over a thousand fans, including Cindy and I, turned out for the Saturday evening game played on a field of fair size (340' to left, 400' to center, and 360' to right), but with far less seating than one would probably find at a Cactus League venue.

We opted for "V.I.P" seating which meant we were sitting on plastic patio chairs at a folding table like ones that might be used for a reception in the social hall of a small church, in a cordoned off grassy area about five yards behind the left field fence and just to the outfield side of third base.  We probably would have had a better overall view of the action up in the bleachers, if we hadn't sprung for an extra $4 for the $13 "Seats for Swells" down on the lawn.  And if we had brought the beach chairs for the condo and sat just few feet back, we probably could have seen the game for a pittance or maybe nothing at all.

But we Very Important Persons had one big advantage over the hoi polloi  - we didn't have to fetch our own food and beer.  The downside is that we were sitting right in the line of fire from foul balls and in a persistent wind that gusted to about 20 mph as it pushed a bank of clouds up against the windward side of West Maui.

After a scoreless first inning, the Scorpions quickly jumped out to a two-run lead in the second.  But the local boys tied the game at the bottom of the inning.  The Valley Isle's pitcher seemed to want to give away the game, and his poor "stuff" let Yuma pound in two more runs in the top of the third.

But the Bugs from The Desert would not score again.  Solo and three-run homers by Na Koa in the bottom of the third gave them a 6-4 lead and they never looked back.

The intervals between innings were filled with contests for local kids:  T-ball hitting, a foot race down the third-base line and back, and eating a hot dog faster than the competition.

Although we had light jackets on, we would have needed blue jeans and fleece tops to keep us from freezing to the plastic chairs by the end of the game.  Even a deep-fried Twinkie and a cup of hot cocoa didn't warm us up for long.

By the end of the fifth inning at 9 pm both starting pitchers were gone, and the glacial pace of the game, caused by lousy pitching and the large number of base hits (28 at the end) and runs scored (15 total), meant the game probably would have gone on until midnight.  So we packed it in and headed back to the condo when the home team's lead was 8-4, figuring we could read the recap in the Sunday paper.

Maui Moonshine

Clouds obscuring Haleakala threatened to block the view of the Full Moon on our second night on Maui. But by the time that we finished our chicken salad dinner made by raiding the refrigerator in our condo for food left behind by the last guests, the sky had begun to clear and dazzling moonshine lit up the remaining clouds.

Shopping Til They're Dropping

Dick is The World's Lousiest Shopper On the Road.  Except in Hawaii.

Hunting for the best Hawaiian (or "Aloha") shirts is always on the top of Dick's "Must-Do" list when we visit Hawaii.  One of his favorite stores, Jaggers, is just down the block from the Paia Fish Market.  So after stuffing our bellies with fish and french fries, he spent a half hour or so trying on shirts (buying one) and chatting with the nice folks who run the place.  (Click here for the video).

Then if was off to Kahului to shop in Maui's busiest store, Costco, and then back to Kihei to hit Safeway, and re-stock the larder at our condo.

Staying Above High Tide

One of the best things about staying at Mana Kai is beach access - take the elevator to the lobby, walk south, and you are on the broad, brown sandy edge of the Pacific.

So on our first, full day in Paradise, we fell out of bed about 7:15 a.m., brushed our teeth, threw on some duds, slathered our pasty-white skin with sunblock, donned our broad-brimmed sun hats, and headed out the door.

There isn't much of a breeze on the beach at 8 a.m. and the flat water makes for a smooth ride to nearby Molokini for those who want to dive and snorkel, or the boat loads of fisherman hanging offshore.

(Click here for video taken during our beach walk).

Live! From Maui!

One of the coolest things that Dick can do with his iPhone is to "broadcast" live, streaming video to this trip blog (and also to his Tales Told From The Road blog) whenever he has an Internet connection. Click on "Menu" (which appears in the video screen when you move your mouse over it) to select the video you want to watch. (If the video player window doesn't appear in this e-mail, just click on this link, or go to the "Live Video from Maui" page at the top of the blog, or the the smaller video player on the right-hand side of the blog.

Something's Fishy in Paia

You can get great, fresh fish for lunch and dinner all over Maui.  One option is to subject the dollars in your wallet to a shark-like feeding frenzy at one of the higher end restaurants on the island.

But friends turned us on to the Paia Fish Market, a funky, Hole-In-The-Wall-The-Toilets-Are-Outside-And-Around-The-Corner joint where, just like McDonalds's, after a meal you leave with change jingling in your pocket.  The restaurant is located east of the Maui's largest town, Kahului, along The Road to Hana.

We were starving by the time we arrived in Paia about 2 pm.  Luckily for us, we had Paia Parking Lot Karma and snagged one of the only open spaces, saving us a long walk to lunch.  It was Fish Tacos for Cindy, and Mahi Fish & Chips (washed down with a locally brewed Maui Big Swell IPA) for Dick.  Free Wi-Fi allowed Dick to broadcast live, streaming video to the blog during lunch. (Click here to view that video).

Moon Over Maui

As we relaxed on the lanai of our borrowed condo in Kihei, clouds drifted across the sea and butted up against the upper reaches of Haleakala.  The sun was sinking in the west, turning the clouds various shades of pink.  Then the full moon slowly rose from behind the clouds and began its ascent into the night sky.

Being too lazy to drive anywhere, we simply took the elevator to the ground floor of the condo complex and had a fine dinner of Ono, one of the most popular fish dishes served up by Hawaiian restaurants.

Arrived!

We made it! Flight arrived a bit early with our bags aboard. Brand new Nissan Altima rental car. Weather perfect.

Getting Closer

About an hour left until we land. No land outside the window. I'm bored, so is my iPhone.

TV Land in The Sky

A little over halfway to Maui, Watching the "new and improved" version of "Hawaii 5-0.". Not as good as the original starring Jack Lord, Dano.

Lunch in The Air

Time to eat! What'll you have, chicken or sea bass?

Fine Literature Not

Met "trashy airplane mystery novel" writer Sheldon Siegel a week ago. Cruising along at 34,000 feet reading his first book, "Special Circumstances" although First Class isn't exactly "trashy."

Flying Up Front

Sitting in First Class drinking champagne as passengers board.

Pitiful, Pitiful

In the Red Carpet Club at SFO. Where'd they get the "food"? Maybe from unsold "Buy Onboard" snack boxes.

Off to SFO!

On the Marin Airporter and ready to leave for SFO!

Problem Solved!

You now should be receiving e-mails from our "Aloha, Maui" blog as the blog is updated.  (Well, at least when we have an Internet connection --- something that won't happen as we fly from San Francisco to Maui tomorrow).  Visit the blog to catch up on the first few posts that didn't go out via e-mail.

"We're working on it!"

Hmmm...still having a problem trying to get posts to automatically e-mail to blog readers.

Nothing is ever simple.

"Due to technical difficulties..."

Technology is such fun (when it works)!

Due to a Google Snafu (don't bother "Googling" this term --- you won't find it), the initial posts I've made to our Maui trip blog have not been e-mailed to you.

Hopefully, I've now fixed the problem.

Tommow's Weather Forecast

Tomorrow's weather forecast:

San Anselmo: Sunny, 72/50.

Maui: Sunnier, 85/70.

Bags Packed

The bags are packed and The Cat is at The Feline Resort.

Ready to go (mostly).

Tomorrow:  Maui!

(Posted via Wi-Fi using the BlogPress app on my iPhone).

Back To Paradise

I swore I'd never go to Hawaii.

Soon Cindy and I will return to Maui for the third time for her, the fourth time for me, and our first trip back to Paradise since 2007.

Details at eleven.