Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, July 18, 2011
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).
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.
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.
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