Maui -- Day 1 6/6/12

I’ve wanted to go back to Hawaii since – scratch that.  I never wanted to leave Hawaii when I visited Oahu five years ago.  Lying on a beach is my happy place and Hawaii = beach = J!  So the decision on where to go for vacation was a simple one this year – so simple the choice was made sometime last year.  Since I didn’t get a chance to island hop to Maui in 2007 it was finally time to visit this island.

The timing was a little interesting for this trip.  Usually I try to arrange my trips in April around my birthday which coincides perfectly with tax refund and my work bonus.  But I knew from past experience that Hawaii water in April is too cold for comfort.  So this year I pushed the trip back to June.  It meant I had to have a staycation for the week of my birthday – not ideal but at least I took some well-needed time off.

Then there were other issues on the home front.  My eldest cat Jonah was starting to show his age.  In the past year he’d started having these strange sneezing fits where he’d bat at his nose and make it bleed.  This led to him completely ruining his nose and making his breathing labored.  Couple that with some weight loss and I had to come to terms with the fact that he was indeed very old and wouldn’t be around much longer.  One of the sucky parts about being a pet owner, I know, but it didn’t make the decision to have him put down in May any easier.  Now it’s just me and Beata staring at each other – the first time I‘ve had a single animal in my house for 16 years.

And it looks like we’ll be staring at each other in this house for a while.  I’ve been trying to sell since 2007, first with a realtor for 6 months then with Buy Owner with zero luck.  Then I found I was upside down on my mortgage.  Then Buy Owner went bankrupt.  Sigh.  But it looks like the housing market is starting to get better.  There are new townhouses being built in my community and I started to think that maybe escape was in sight.  I began to freshen up the interior paint and make minor repairs in the hopes that I could have the house shown while I was away.  I finally decided to scrap the Buy Owner listing and contact a realtor again … who promptly told me that unless I could bring at least $10,000 to the table there was no way I would be able to ask enough to pay off my mortgage.  Maybe in another 2 years …

So.  Yeah.  It was time for a change of scenery.

I got a package deal on expedia.com for hotel, flight, and car rental.  The Purrfect Nanny would once again be sending a sitter to the house to look after the cat.  One of the benefits to moving to the new work location was that it's not far from Sandy Springs MARTA station and, with advanced notice, I could leave the car in the work parking garage.  Cool.  More money to spend in Maui.  I had booked a condo for six nights with the intention of cooking my own food to save even more money.

45 minutes on MARTA, an incredibly long line for security (though it moved pretty steadily), and I just make it to the gate a few minutes before boarding my 8:55 a.m. flight.  I wedged myself into a very cramped seat for the 2 hour flight to DFW.  No food served on the flight so I scrounged around the Dallas airport and found a McDonalds.  $7 for a so called combo chicken nugget meal and you don’t get any fries?  What the --?

On to the next flight, an 8 hour one from Dallas to Maui (Kahului).  Ended up next to a woman named Colleen who was returning home to Maui after visiting her daughter.  She was a pastor’s wife travelling with her husband back to her other daughter who had just gone through surgery to remove gall stones.  She’s telling me this all in a rush then suddenly asks my age.  I’m surprised but tell her that I’m 41.  I then got promptly hit with her Sudoku book for daring to go to Maui by myself.  Could someone please tell me why I keep meeting women who want to mother me despite my advancing age?  Why is it that on all the plane trips I’ve taken only once have I met a hot guy?  What’s up with that?

She later apologized for asking my age (but not for the hit) and we spent the rest of trip in relative silence.  For that I was grateful.  I’m not too fond of the overly-chatty.   I did wonder if this was the reason why she wasn’t sitting next to her husband.

Eight hours is about my limit for a flight.  Any longer than that and I risk going stir crazy and this flight was pushing me to the brink.  Didn’t help that I was incredibly cramped and had a hard time falling asleep.  I think I preferred my last trip to Hawaii where I had two layovers instead of one.  They make the trip longer but at least I get to get up and stretch my legs.

But the one thing that was better on this trip over the last -- I didn’t get pressure sickness!  Yay!  On two separate trips over the West Coast (once on the way to California and once coming back from Hawaii) I’ve felt extremely off.  Not vomit-ill, more dizzy and flushed, but still bad.  The first time it happened, I fainted in the aisle  and had to be taken off the plane in a wheelchair.  Not the memory I wanted from my first trip to Cali.  The second time this spell hit me, I recognized the symptoms and didn’t even try to stand up for fear of falling down.  But this trip … nothing.  Maybe it had something to do with flying to Hawaii out of Texas instead of Cali.  I don’t know but I was thrilled that the flight was uneventful.

And then, Maui.  It was a gorgeous afternoon and very hot, even moreso to me because the plane was absolutely freezing.  So glad I brought a jacket as recommended by Amanda and Chere for my possible biking trip down Haleakala.  I had to shed it quickly once off the plane while lugging my gear to the shuttle that would take me to the Alamo office.  The guy who checked me in saw my license and told me that he used to live in Gwinnett.  He was working for Verizon and they transferred him out here.  That job ended and he decided to stay.  Better here, I asked.  Uh, yeah.

Outside again, a pretty native woman checked my paperwork and guided me to the three economy cars at the end of the lot.  I could pick whichever one I wanted, keys were already in them.  They were all 4-door sedans; one brown, one silver and one red.  Guess which one I took.  What can I say?  If I can’t afford to rent a convertible or a 4WD jeep, a red sedan is the next best thing.

Exiting the lot proved a little tricky, not because of traffic but because of chickens.  There were three exit lanes and two were occupied.  The third was clearing up but the aforementioned wild chickens were blocking the way.  The attendant waved me forward, assuring me that the birds would move.  I told her I hoped so; I just got this car I don’t want to have ‘ran over some chickens’ be my first Maui memory.  She tells me not to worry, we could just eat any that got squashed.  No thanks, I told her, couldn’t bear the thought of cleaning it.  She agreed, marked down what car I’d taken, and wished me a good trip.

I had printed out directions to the hotel from MapQuest before leaving but they turned out to be much more complicated than they needed to be.  It was pretty simple getting out of the airport and on the road to Kihei.  I passed a lot of stores and businesses on the way out of Kahului, making a note to come back later and check them out.  Then I turned out of the city and onto the roughly ten mile road to Kihei.

I just had to giggle.  Finally out of that plane, in my zippy red car, passing mountains and fields of sugar cane , on my way to the beach.  Awesome.  I missed my turn off to

S Kihei Rd

but quickly realized my error and turned around.  I wasn’t even sure I was on the right track as the beginning of S Kihei is a bunch of residences and a couple of larger hotels.  And then I spot my first beach on the right hand side.  It’s rocky and not the most inviting but things get better. 

I passed a bunch more hotels and condos, still trying to find the Aston Maui Banyan.  It’s just when I’m passing the best beaches I’ve seen so far that I see the hotel sign on the left.  Even though I didn’t plan it, my hotel is right across the street from Kama’ole Beach II.

The hotel itself was nice.  Several buildings housing both residents and renters, two pools, a parking garage, and even a movie rental kiosk in the office.  My room unfortunately didn’t have a kitchen like I’d hoped (there was a door leading to an adjoining room and I think the kitchen was in there) but it was a minor thing.  I unpacked and got changed as quickly as I could then went straight to the beach.

Ahh.  Kama’ole.  My guidebook says that this is one of the best beaches on the island and I have to agree.  Having it be in walking distance makes it even better.  The beach is actually split into 3 separate beaches divided by outcroppings of black lava rock.  I love watching the water splash against the rocks, love the feel of warm sand under my feet.   The water is initially very cold but I got used to it.

Just walking along the beach and staring at the water is good for me.  I don’t even feel like a complete dork for just standing and staring – there are plenty of other people doing the exact same thing.  The power of the ocean …

Beyond hungry (I’d slept right through the overpriced boxed meal on the plane) I walked to the nearby Subway for a sandwich.  Then it was back to the beach to join the growing crowd of people coming just to watch the sunset.  Can you blame them?

The long trip, the time change and all the excitement meant that I got to bed early like around 8:00.  There’d be plenty of time to explore tomorrow.