The second week of our vacation, we got pretty busy with going out to dinner and making like tourists, and after David’s parents and Debbie left on the 27th, David and I kind of slowed down completely and relaxed.
Thursday, after they left on their respective flights, we completely bummed out for the day at the condo, as it was overcast and very windy. We barbecued chicken that night on the rooftop deck that we’d bought at the natural foods grocery store across the street, trying to use up some of the massive amount of groceries we still had.
Friday, we went to Olowalu, but had a pretty disappointing time of it as it was murky and a bit rougher there than usual. On the way back, we tried a “locals lunch” spot called “L+L Drive Inn” that had been recommended by one of the crew on the Kai Kanani snorkel boat we’d taken. It was a pretty awesome “two scoop rice” plate lunch of chicken curry katsu.
Spent a lot of time the last few days on the lanai, watching the water and the turtle neighbors just off the point. That night,we went to dinner at Hakone, at the Maui Prince, changing the reservation time so we could… yes, geek out watching the season premiere of Stargate: Atlantis. On a crappy little TV with terrible sound, we geeked out. But the meal was good, and then we got our stuff pulled together and partly packed up, and went to bed.
Departure day is always a tough one. Checkout time at this condo was 10am, but our flight wasn’t until nearly 3pm. Even with traffic and a possible stop for reading materials on the way out of town, we still had about 2 hours to kill.
So we went to Maui Marketplace,or Mall, or whatever it is there on Dairy Road in the culturally bankrupt “airport alley” part of Kahului, and bought some books and an extra duffel bag for overflow purchases. And since we were hungry, we found our way to the food court, and there was another location of L+L, plus a couple of other local joints. Lots of non-tourists were enjoying their lunches – we chose stuff from an outfit called “Maui Island Grill” that was a whole order of magnitude of awesome beyond what we were expecting from a “food court.”
We still had at least 45 minutes or more before we had to be at the airport, so we went looking for the “airport beach” behind OGG that we’d been at on a previous trip – it’s a “locals” kind of place too, and also where the kitesurfers and windsurfers take off from. Sure enough – you take the airport loop all the way around, go down the rental cars return street, and it becomes “Ka’a” street (which supposedly “car” in Hawaiian). It comes out on a road that parellels the beach between the airport and the harbor – and along there, are several beach parks. We just found a place to stroll along for a while and watch the kites and sails skitter along like waterbugs, and then we headed over to the airport, returned the car, dinked a bit, and then boarded our overnight flight home.
And here we are… ::yawn:: with our ecstactically happy cat Riley keeping us in sight every instant. Catching up on our shows, thank St. TiVo. Currently fading fast as we watch the third of three new episodes of Torchwood, or at least I am. David slept for about 4 hours or more on the flight, but I only dozed briefly.
And as soon as this episode is over, I’m going to crash for a bit. I had a message that I’ll be dropped right back into the sh*t at work tomorrow first thing.
Oh joy. I wanna go back to Maui.
