Madeline and I got up at 3:30am on Thursday to get to the airport for our flight to Maui. We flew separately from Michelle and Ella because Michelle had worked some serious mileage card mojo between our personal card and her work card to get us all there and back for $40. So, traveling in pairs was a small, fun even, price to pay. Madeline is a far better traveller than she used to be. I enjoyed flying with her and she enjoyed the window seat from PDX to San Jose, CA. We played games, watched a movie, and shared a fruit and cheese platter. Once we arrived, we picked up the rental car, picked up groceries at Costco (and ice) and had to kill time until Michelle and Ella arrived, 4 hours after later.
Maddie and I killed some time at Keopuolani park, where she made a few friends and played hard for a good solid hour. Finally, she came to me, sweaty and red-faced asking if we could get in the ocean. We drove over to Hoaloha park and dipped our feet for a bit and tried to stay out of the way of all the after-school canoe club kids and their outrigger canoes. Eventually though, both of us thirsty, we found some bottled water and settled on a parking lot near Ah Fook (tee hee!) where we could see Michelle and Ella’s plane land. Sure enough, we saw their approach, picked them up, and made our way to Lahaina. Everyone was looking forward to getting in the ocean, but by the time we got to our condo (Lahaina Roads) and unloaded our stuff and groceries, the sun was setting and it was too late to get in the ocean. So we hit up Maui Brewing for a vacation kickoff dinner.
We were able to get right in, but the girls were fading fast. We had some great beers (the Black Rock Lager is swell, and the Big Swell IPA is dandy), but the food was meh. If there is such pride about the Kula pork and Hawaiian beef, why cook it all to a bone dry finish?
Anyway, we completed our marathon day (a big deal for MG, who kept it together for over 19 hours) and pretty much crashed afterwards.
day 2
We started the day with some bacon and eggs then went to Kiki beach for an absolutely lovely morning. The girls started to explore with goggles, but got jealous of me with my fins. So we played for a couple hours then returned to the condo to enjoy the poolside. The girls are maniacs in the water, whether ocean or pool, and Michelle and I alternated between joining them in the pool, soaking up the rays, or risking urchin spines and reef scrapes off the seawall to do some snorkelling. We finished the absolutely terrific day with fish tacos that we made with some fresh Mahi Mahi.