Travel to Maui

Thursday, November 3: The Hubby and I can hardly wait. We head for the airport early and a mere five hours later land at the Honolulu airport.

Our connecting flight to Kahului was a short one hour layover. Then there's a change. . .our plane is given away to passengers going to Lihui, Kauai. My guess is they've been waiting a lot longer than we have.

So our plane is an hour late. So'kay.

Hubby and I stop at Ray's Cafe for the Paradise Plate appetizer. It has some quesadillas, eggrolls, prawns, chicken teriyaki skewers, and onion rings all with their own sauces. Yeah. I tried one of each then ate the HUGE ring of pineapple where the skewers were sitting. It might have been garnish but for me it was lunch.

Yes, I did the ritual burning my mouth on pineapple. It was really very, very tasty.

We arrive on Maui at three-ish, pick up our luggage, grab our car and head to Kihei. We want to see what's changed in town. Not much. There are lots, LOTS of people. Does this mean the economy is getting better?

There is a choice of three grocery stores in town:

Safeway ... we have these at home, I'm not shopping here.

Foodland: . . . it's my second choice. We'll end up visiting this store, it's the closest to us.

Times Supermarket, it used to be Star Market. The new name reminds me of a newspaper. This is the market where I like to shop.

We pull into the parking lot, I'm getting ready to unbuckle my seat belt and hopping across my lap is:

I scream, I panic, I'm jumping around like there's a hot taro root on my lap . . . I shoot out of the car. I am not riding home with a bee in there. Hubby saves the day by retrieving it. I'm waaay too much of a chicken to do that.

We go shopping. Among the goodies I see . . . Pog, dragon fruit, mango salsa, Maui Onion chips, the Minahune water. . . then I see Roselani! I just want to rip the top open and dig in with a big spoon!

We pack up the car, then roll down the windows because we'd rather have the breeze than a/c and guess what-who flies into my window? Could it be really the same bee?

You know the drill... I scream, I panic, I'm jumping around like there's a hot taro root on my lap. Yes, Hubby saves the day yet again. Soon we are on our way home.

I'll preface this part with . . . we've been paying an additional amount to our quarterly HOA fees because the Home Owners Association decided they wanted to "upgrade" our units.

What I fear is that they'll hire a designer who will do something "trendy" and our unit will look "dated" in a few years. With that said we can continue . . . we park in front of our unit and this is what welcomes us . . .

This sort of encompasses the entire renovation: a cheap, tacky, tropical feel. I think we paid a lot of money for lipstick for the old wahini. You can't really "see" the faux patina. It's lovely.

The friends, and their company, are at the Five Palms for dinner.

We drive over to join them and we're having a very difficult time finding a parking space. It's REALLY crowded. Good for business and bad for us tourists. There's a Sunset Special that looks pretty good:

I side step the food and opt for a chi chi. It's been a really long day.

I'll eat something tomorrow.