I’m in Maui, Day 8!
Since Peter arrived last night, I’ve been doing more touristy things: dinner last night at Leilanis, a day bobbing around in the ocean and wandering around Lahaina, an evening daubing lotion on the bits of me I didn’t touch up properly after bobbing around in the ocean… (damnit!)
But lest you think I wasn’t getting any sightseeing in before Peter came, au contraire! For instance, the first day I was here, driving around an industrial estate in Kahului looking to see a furniture store about a mattress, as I flipped a u-turn in a parking lot I saw, in front of the gas tanks and behind the drive-through box:
And then on Monday, when I pulled into the far-flung bit of parking lot I’ve grown attached to here with my few new gallons of paint, I saw a family of these things bopping around the parking lot, till I got out and started photographing them, which is when they headed for the bushes:
And that was after admiring the view of the West Maui Mountains from the parking lot at the Home Depot:
And yesterday, waiting for Peter’s plain from the patch of brown dirt outside the airport designated a “cell phone lot”, I kept hearing a cock-a-doodle-do, and, craning my neck to see out the windshield at various angles, couldn’t see where it was coming from. Then I saw something out of the corner of my eye and, right outside my driver’s side window:
So there, you see? Even those spending their Hawaiian Holidays on the Kuihelani Highway can sight-see. I should write a guidebook.
Anyway, sorry blogging’s been so erratic. Without proper planning, execution is always difficult, and as the execution girl in this little operation, executing my duties of execution has been difficult. But Leilani at the front desk has taken all my unwanted furniture (even the vertical blinds! and they’re 30 years old!), and stuff is FINALLY being delivered tomorrow, so hopefully things will start to take shape. And I’ll have more time to tend to the blog.
March 28th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Leilanis… I like eating there more than the bar across the way. Go up north a tick to Napili Bay - it’s heaven. Just below all the construction in Kapalua. That’s where we stay on Maui, but next month it’s Kauai instead, after five years… The sunscreen you want is some stuff called Doc Martin’s of Maui, comes in a yellow tube and stays on even in water - doesn’t sting. It’s amazing and works better than anything else in the world.
March 28th, 2008 at 8:53 am
/sniffle
I love my readers!
I’ve been to the Plantation restaurant a couple of times, and yeah it’s lovely up there. I’ve got: TVs coming between 9 and 11, TV bench/lanai furniture coming in the early afternoon but I have to call at 10 to norrow that down, and a painter coming at 3. So what to do after 3, with a slight sunburn? I’m thinking maybe the Maui Ocean Center, but then I thought “We could go to Kapalua!”
If I go to the cannery mall for my daily bubble tea (have you been to Ba Le? O.M.G.) I’m TOTALLY getting that sunscreen.
March 28th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Right below Kapalua, like exactly next-door, there’s a very good beachfront open-air restaurant called The Sea House at the Napili Kai Beach Club. Interesting place, one of the oldest resorts on the Island and the first on the North Shore side, started in the early 60’s by a bunch of Canadians. They have an island heritage preservation Foundation’s and local kids (up to teens) do a Luau-dance presentation Tuesday nights, lotta drumming and stuff, it’s fun. Napili Bay is one of the best-kept secrets, and directly around the corner to the south is a tiny inlet with three turtles that swim around. It’s fronted by condos at Napili Point but there’s a public pathway and you can walk around and get in off a rock-ledge and visit the turtles. It’s called Honokeana Cove - you DO have THE BOOK, right? “Maui Revealed”? http://www.wizardpub.com/maui/mrhonkeanacove.html
You don’t want to go out in the direct sun between 11:00AM And 3:00PM anyhow, so hit the beach afterwards. :-) They have the sunscreen at the little surf-shop in the plaza by the Ocean Center, or should. It’s a surfer’s item kinda thing because it lasts so long in the water. Goes on kinda thick like hardened paste-wax! :-) My wife likes shopping in Pa’ia - and “upcountry” in Makawao where there’s artsy shops and a good Mexican restaurant. So you’re buying or renting or…I missed that post, sorry!!
March 28th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Well, I know where the 2nd Subway is in Perry. :)
March 30th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Yeah, sorry, it’s a bit of a Bay Area thing. I swear sometimes this place feels like Tahoe with palm trees.
We’re going up there this afternoon. I’ll have this page loaded on the iPhone so we can follow your instructions to the letter. I’ve eaten a couple times at the Ritz-Carlton up there, but I don’t think I’ve ever really walked around.
This is my grandparents’ (and to a certain percentage my dad’s and uncle’s, now entirely my dad’s and uncle’s due to some business machinations) old place at the Whaler (I was wondering last night if anyone else has owned their unit since the building went up), which no one’s really been in since Grandma got Alzheimer’s. So I’m here to slap a coat of paint on the walls and, it turns out, do everything else, including buy all the furniture, to spruce it up to turn it into a rental property. So, come here often? Lookin’ for a fine place to stay, on the beach, with a kitchen, new remodel, all new appliances, fully outfitted, and designed with loving and tasteful attention by yours truly? Eh? Eh?
btw, Safeway didn’t have it, and neither did the ABC store, but Longs at the Cannery Mall had that sunscreen.
March 30th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Wow a place at the Whaler’s? Kewl!! Work is a good way to appreciate a different place. Island work is kinda done on Island Time — where we lived overseas (in India) it was similar as far as laid-back (or not-no-hurry) goes, quittin’ time is like 3:30 or something. And Hawaiians are so family-oriented and love-oriented, I think they take Valentine’s Day as a holiday! Any excuse to take off! There’s a furniture outlet in Kihei we liked, used to be a greast place to pick-up grill-it-yourself short ribs at Azeka’s in Kihei, but they retired. Too bad the flavor was unique and awesome, very Islandy. Also taking a snorkel-boat from Ka’anapali up to Honolua Bay is a good trip. We did the America II boat once which was also fun, I like being on the water and wish I had a sailboat. I’d up-anchor and hit the Pacific bound for Tahiti and further…never come back. We’ve been to Maui every year (5 in a row) since my buddy Kev got married there in ‘01 and I was Best-Man - and twice one year (Spring and Fall). Got married on the Big Island in ‘03 and we don’t really (really dont!) go anywhere else but Hawaii anymore, not Europe anyhowe - it’s at the limit of my wife’s flight-endurance - leave here in the morning and you’re there for Lunch at Mama’s Fish House for killer Mai-tais and incredible mind-blowing view! In May we’re going to Kauai instead. Recommendations from a surfin’ Stanford Doc with whom my works said, Poipu. Also we must make a visit while there to a bar named after his great-great (?) uncle, Robert Louis Stevenson. :-)
March 30th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
I trust yawl has the title in some kinda order. We’ve got the same sorta of deal with the family beach house at Dekle. Back yard here http://thegreencuttingboard.blogspot.com/salt_marsh.jpg
Joint tennacy/tennancy-in-common/tennacy-for-life Professional interloperary and long-time hangers on. It’s fun tho. And we rarely lack for entertainment.
March 31st, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I’m serious. Get and keep the title in some sort of order. Even if there’s 50 people on it. We came damn close to losing the place after the great March Storm of ‘93 which left us with nothing but a septic tank and a shitload of memories.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:39 pm
My2nd favorite Aunt owns the land, my 3rd favorite Uncle built it, my Mom financed it. Why can’t we all just get along?
LOL. Relatives, I has them.