Travel Diary

Perhaps odd for a lifelong Californian to have only been to Hawai'i four times, but there it is. Four times. The fourth (this time) was to a new island at least: Maui.

I didn’t know much about the little green patch of land called Maui, although a lot of it isn’t too green. It’s a little strange that it almost looks like desert in some places. Yeah, it has the green parts too. Just a lot of variety that I didn’t see in places like Kauai.

This trip would be fast: two nights, which isn’t all that unusual as I did a quick two-night trip about eight years ago.

I had the tickets booked well in advance and even chose first class for the return flight. It’s a lot of time to seat in economy and I didn’t want to risk not getting upgraded. I’d also be getting a boatload of miles from the trip, so that was a bonus.

I took a Tuesday afternoon flight out there on Alaska Airlines. Normally, I like to vacation over weekends; however, I had a lot of vacation days saved up, so this was fine too. I drove to SFO, took the shuttle over (so weird to be at the parking garage in daylight!) waited a spell, boarded a flight and off we went. It was nice to head back in time, as I almost always start my trips going eastbound. I arrived about 2pm. And boy, it was hot.

I guess I expected that, though I was dressed warm and that had to change fast. Not a problem. Sweaters are easy to remove. In fact, I only brought and wore my sweatshirt for just the flights. I waited some time and my parents finally swang by to pick me up. It was off the the mountains for us. We would be visiting Kula’emoku. It’s a tall peak at 2,250 feet, though we didn’t actually scale the peak. Legend has it the peak made for a great lookout spot for warriors.

The mountain area was definitely green. Just foliage on top of foliage. Green, green, green. The mountains were lush and it was a pretty epic place to be. A river rang along the scenic park which I followed for a bit to take some mild waterfall photos.

Afterwards, we headed to a nice 1950s diner place. The weather was superb so we ate outdoors. I hate eating inside when it’s nice outside and it’s even more of a treat when it’s almost December and you can eat outside. Sadly, they served no booze, so … easy fix…I wandered to a nearby gas station and bought a few IPAs (Sierra Nevada).

A big treat was a glorious sunset where the reds, yellows, oranges, and golds just spanned the entire sky. It would have been a monumental ocean sunset photo, but we were too far from the beach at that time. Having all the buildings and power lines in the photos didn’t really make it a Pulitzer prize winning shot. But was worth a try. Memorable nevertheless.

We stopped at a drugstore or the like to look for a game of Scrabble (something we always enjoy playing) but they didn’t have that, so we opted for a deck of cards instead (why is it called a deck?)

Back at the condo, we played cards for a spell and then crashed. I fell asleep fast.