Home again, home again, lickety split

Finally, our flight was called to board. I was sad to leave. Tears welled up in my eyes more than once. As soon as we got on the plane, the "aloha" disappeared. We were given the usual spiel about safety issues which I half-listened to. The captain introduced the passengers to "our Newark-based crew," all with that northeastern winter pallor (no sunkissed skin, no Polynesians, no flowers). All seemed a little fidgety as if they had had too much Red Bull to hold them over this red-eye flight.

Luckily, our seats reclined as far as one of those great TV chairs we had as kids. So sleep for me was not a problem. Larry, unfortunately, never had a recliner and wasn't quite so comfy. I slept about 4 or 5 hours. Larry caught cat naps throughout the flight.

We landed in Newark about a half-hour ahead of schedule. Tail winds were strong today. Two hours later, we were unpacking at home. Laundry and getting back on eastern time will take up the next several days.

Hawaii, particularly Maui, was grand! It's truly a paradise, something for everyone. My final thought leaving the islands was, "Maui...wow-wee!" We'll be back.

Knowing that Friday, the 24th, was going to be one nasty travel day didn't prepare us for the luggage schlepping, miscellaneous aggravation, and the heat of mid-day Honolulu International. Our flight from Maui was 25 minutes. Add the hour and a half you have to be there before your flight plus the pat-down by a Homeland Security officer because your watch set off the much-more-sensitive-than-normal security screen. "Over here, miss. Please stand with your legs apart, arms out to your sides, palms up." The wand which was passed all over me kept setting off an alarm. With a chuckle from my female frisker, she told me it was my underwire bra. Well, I guess it was my turn. The last time I was searched at an airport was coming out of Beijing, China in 2002. And almost everyone got searched there. I just didn't expect it at a little airport like Kahului (OGG) in Maui.

Our flight on Hawaiian Airlines deposited us at one end of the Honolulu airport. Continental's check-in was about a half mile away at the other end. So we had to grab our six pieces of luggage and wheel them on a cart. We have had experience in the past that certain airports, notably Miami, will not take your luggage if you are too early for a flight. You have to sit outside with your luggage until they tell you it's time to check in. Fortunately, Continental accommodated us, and we got rid of our four check-in pieces. But honestly, 6 hours is too long to wait around in the heat. Honolulu International is an open airport in most of the terminal areas. The windows around the gates have glass, but the other windows are wide open to the breezes (where ARE they today?), sounds and smells of jet engines, birds, etc.

I suggested to Larry that we look into Continental's President's Club. At least we could get out of the noise and heat. Larry looked at me like I had two heads. Membership to this club is outrageously expensive, and we don't fly often enough to make it worthwhile. Well, we knocked on the door to find out if there was a one-day pass we could buy. The receptionist asked to see our boarding passes and told us to come in. Hmmm, air conditioning, snacks, drinks (soda, alcohol, milk, juice, water), soft lighting, quiet, TV lounge, restrooms, WIFI, comfortable chairs and sofas. Free? Yesssss, jackpot!

So we sit and wait and watch the Olympics on TV or movies on the computer (we brought some DVD's from home). At 10:00PM, we can board the plane. We are supposed to have dinner on this flight. Wow, a meal after midnight. I just might be too old now to do that kind of eating!

Sometimes you just gotta be a fan when a celebrity shows up. Other times you feel sorry for them that they have no privacy. You realize that your space is their space too. Take John Stamos, for instance, today at the pool. Poor guy, there he was...hiding behind a big plant under an awning. He was wearing a blue NYPD baseball cap, white muscle shirt, dark glasses, a beard-in-process, and he just couldn't sit still. He had his hand over his mouth most of the time and had some kind of electronic device in his ear (a Blue Tooth maybe). He was fidgety as he looked around and put his glass up to his lips. Occasionally, someone or some group of people would walk up to his table and interrupt his conversation with his male companion. He seemed gracious enough, but GAWWWD! This is HIS vacation too! But then, how did I know all of this if I wasn't staring at him! Then there's Britney Spears. She's walking around, and people are staring at her all the time! Kevin Costner is just plain hiding! This must be celebrity week at Four Seasons Maui.

It's our last day here, and we headed to the Maui Ocean Center. It's a large aquarium and marine life sanctuary. The fish in this aquarium are what you would find in the ocean off the coast of Maui in the underwater lava formations and coral reefs. I have never seen such exotic and colorful fish in any other aquarium I have visited. Sharks, yeh, they're cool but give me the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a, the state fish of Hawaii. It's odd and colorful and is more commonly called a trigger fish. These are tropical waters and are very attractive to all kinds of fish. Also, the green sea turtle is protected here. Those guys are really cute!

Tonight is our last night in Maui. We have reservations at Ferraro's, one of the three restaurants here at the hotel. But first, sunset over the Pacific is appropriate for the end of our vacation. Stay tuned...we're not done yet.

"It's Wednesday. We have two more full days in Maui. It's bright and sunny. Whaddaya want to do today? Sit by the pool and have people wait on us?"

"Let's take the Road to Hana and see if it's really raining on the windward side of the island. And then we can take the road past Hana and come around the south side of the island so we can find out why the rental car companies say we can't take that road. In other words, let's make the loop around Haleakala."

"OK!"

At 11:00AM after breakfast, we hit the road...the infamous Road to Hana, Hana Highway, Route 36/360. Popular T-shirts boast, "I survived the Road to Hana!" Talk about the long and winding road! This has got to be what the Beatles were talking about. 65 miles and 3 hours later, we found Hana right where the maps told us it would be. And no, it was not raining in Hana. But it rained and was overcast all the way. If it is raining on the mountain (Haleakala) then we have a good show down on the coast with lots of waterfalls.

Going past Hana, we found ourselves at the "other" visitor's center in Haleakala National Park. One center is near the summit; and this one is at the southeastern foot of the volcano at O'heo Gulch, pictured here. At the base of each of the waterfalls is a pool of water where swimming is allowed if the flow is not heavy. Because there were heavy rains in the mountains the night before, swimming was prohibited today. The pools become a swirling, rapidly moving river which can sweep people over the rocks into the Pacific Ocean. The National Park Service closes the access trails to the pools at these times. It's hard to get the perspective with these two photos (immediately above) but we were standing about two feet from the edge of a 100-foot cliff looking down at the rocks and water. The bridge above the uppermost waterfall is Route 31, the narrow road around the southern part of Maui. And speaking of the road...an eight-mile stretch was single-lane and either unpaved (dirt) or severely patched (really bumpy). The lush tropical rainforest turned into this dry, scrubby grazing land in a matter of a couple miles!

Larry is overlooking a huge volcanic valley which goes to the Pacific Ocean to the right. You can see the bridge we drove over to pass this "hole" in the landscape.

Finally, we rounded the southwest bend of the island and were able to look out over the resort areas of South Maui. Oh look, there's our hotel! That's Ma'alaea Bay with West Maui Mountains in the distance.

What a diverse and beautiful island!

The order of the day was whale watching. Yes, WHALE watching. The waters off the southwestern part of the island (just off Wailea and our hotel) from December to April are the favorite breeding ground of the endangered Humpback whale. There are approximately 9,000 whales which are part of a group known as the Northwest Pacific whale community. 4000 to 5000 of these guys winter in the relatively shallow waters of the Hawaiian Islands. The remainder go to other areas of warm water such as Mexico. While the whales are in "breeding mode," they are fasting. The clear blue waters of Hawaii contain very little, if anything, needed to feed these great mammals, the fifth largest on Earth. During the summer months, the whales migrate to the cooler waters off Alaska to enjoy a feeding frenzy before they migrate back to Hawaii for their other frenzy. So the Humpback eats in Alaska and sleeps in Maui. Yuk, yuk, yuk! The male whales "sing" constantly. Not only does this attract females, it attracts other males who want to find out what's going on with their comrades. Are those guys getting lucky and I'm not? The whales also produce sounds that are higher and lower in frequencies than the human ear can hear. The higher frequencies can be heard by other whales up to a couple hundred miles away. The lower frequency noises can be heard thousands of miles away! This is thought to be how the whales communicate with each other when they go to their different breeding grounds.

The Pacific Whale Foundation, a non-profit organization, runs 2-hour boating tours off the coast of Maui to observe these magnificent animals. Twenty dollars a head is the bargain of the day! Because the whales are endangered, federal law prevents anyone (whether they are large boats or surfboards or swimmers or anything in between) from getting closer than 100 yards. Severe fines are levied by the Coast Guard against anyone not heeding this law. A nice "problem" is that the whales don't know they are endangered, can't read, and often come closer than 100 yards on their own. So THEY can approach YOU. Such a double standard! If they come close, the Pacific Whale Foundation likes to say, "You've been mugged in Maui, and you like it."

Sunday found us avoiding the resorts which tried to attract crowds with their "fabulous" Sunday brunches and extraordinary prices (48 dollars a head for a champagne brunch...not today...don't want to snooze the day away). We found the Kihei Cafe which brags of the best breakfast in Maui...who voted on this, we're not sure. But it was fun ordering at a counter then going to find an outdoor table amongst the neighboring rooster and hens that walked freely around the grounds. A sign was posted: "For health reasons, do not feed the birds." Yeh, ok. Are they providing the eggs served??" ;)

It was overcast Sunday and we took a chance at going to the Iao Valley, one of the fascinating features in the West Maui Mountains. This was a sacred place for the ancient Hawaiians through the time of the takeover by Kamehameha in 1795. The major attraction here is a volcanic prominence called the Iao (pronounced "eeow") Needle pictured here. In a matter of minutes, the clouds rolled in, the temperature dropped about 10 degrees, and rain started to fall. It was too cold and wet to hang around. This part of the island is a tropical rainforest and gets about 360 inches of rain a year!

Leaving the Iao Valley, we drove east about TWO miles. The rain stopped because we were now in the arid central plains. The rainfall here is about 10 inches per year. Weird, eh? Welcome to Maui! The dry plains are where a couple of western, risk-taking entrepreneurs bought up the "unusable" land (about 37,000 acres) from the native Hawaiians over several years. Samuel Alexander and Henry Baldwin of Alexander & Baldwin (founded in 1870) HC&S- HISTORY built irrigation ditches, tunnels, and piping to bring water from West Maui Mountains. The land was turned into the perfect environment to grow sugar cane: warm weather, moist soil, and constant sunshine. Sugar cane grows to anywhere from 8 to 30 feet tall and takes two years to mature. The fields are planted at different times so there is always a harvest going on. When the cane reaches maturity, irrigation is cut off. The plants wither and become dry except for the stalks which retain their moisture. When the leaves are dry and brown, the field is set on fire to get rid of the parts of the plants which are not used. The moist stalks do not burn, because of their water content, and they are harvested. Sugar was Hawaii's number one industry into the 1960's at which time tourism took over that honor.

So, after all that talk about rain and dark clouds and history and stuff, here's a picture to bring you back to why tourism is so popular in Maui...

Today is Saturday. Both of us are still tired from our drive around West Maui yesterday. So we explored our resort after brunch. A half-mile sidewalk connects the four major resorts here in Wailea. It's called the Beach Walk. Clever name since it goes along the beach. From south to north, the resorts are the Fairmont Kea Lani, the Four Seasons, Grand Wailea, and the Marriott. Each one has its own personality. The Grand Wailea is by far the most eye-popping with massive freeform swimming pools complete with waterslides, poolside bars, etc. It seems to cater to families because the pool areas were wall-to-wall kids. Don't they have SCHOOL at this time of year?? Also, at the Grand Wailea plopped on their beachside lawn is this cute, little chapel, ready for the next wedding. 350 weddings a year are held here!

The Four Seasons exudes elegance and tranquility. You know that when you take a deep breath anywhere on the property (besides smelling the heavenly tropical floral scents) that you will exhale all the stress that may have come with you from the mainland. No detail is overlooked. This is one of the top hotels in the world.

The other two resorts fall somewhere in between. We are happy we chose the Four Seasons. Larry says "we got the deal." And "the deal" to him means that he got the hotel that satisfies him the most.

Tonight, dinner at the Pacific Grill, one of the three restaurants here at the hotel...

Under the Yum Yum (banyan) tree and beyond...

Today's adventure was like no other. But I find myself saying that with each passing day. West Maui was our goal. Lahaina is a great area, the only town on the island with a true "downtown." We had breakfast at the Pioneer Inn, right on the docks where whalers wintered with their boats beginning in the 1840's. In 1874, a banyan tree was planted in the town square. Remember how we mentioned the well-manicured banyan trees of Punchbowl on the island of Oahu? Well, this banyan tree was left to its own devices and grew as it pleased. It is now about 100 yards in diameter. That's the length of a football field! The main trunk is our first picture today. What you might not know about banyans is that they send shoots off their branches to take hold in the soil to provide additional water and nutrients. The single banyon tree in the town square looks like a grove of many trees because so many off-shoots were allowed to take root. It is a VERY happy banyan tree! Here is a very happy tourist too, glad to be in the 82-degree weather of Maui, and next to one of the banyan's many offshoots.

After doing Lahaina, we took off on a trip north past the West Maui resort areas to the very northern-most part of the island, in search of the Maui that is off-limits to most tourists. We have been told that most car rental contracts are voided if you travel on two roads in Maui. One of these roads is route 340 in the northeastern section of West Maui, heading into Central Maui. The other road is in southeast Maui around Haleakala. We checked our car rental contract and could find nothing that said the rental car cops would come find us if we took either road. Larry really didn't care one way or the other, we were on an adventure. The problem with the northern road, I am assuming, is that there is an 8-mile stretch of one-lane, two-way road (it IS paved) dropping off about 300 feet to the Pacific ocean on one side with the other side being a wall of crumbling volcanic rock at a 90-degree angle straight up. Well, that was a challenge, especially when vehicles came at us from the other direction. There were occasional pull-offs which allowed the flow of traffic without a stalemate. The photo above shows the island of Molokai in the distance. (These are unretouched, actual colors.)

Several miles into the paved trail thing, we came to a town isolated from the "real world." This sleepy little hamlet is called Kahakuloa. The only way in and the only way out is the single lane road which you can see meandering to the left and above the church. And you can see how the shoreline and mountains complete the picture of isolation. After two hours to go thirty miles, we got stuck in rush hour traffic

on the way back to our hotel. It was a true adventure today and worth every minute, but I am glad Larry was driving! We were really tired and decided to stay in this evening and ordered room service for dinner. TV was good with the a little of the Winter Olympics.

Turning 50 is a milestone in one's life. Not being "there" for the black balloons and everything else that goes with them is one of life's little pleasures. Larry asked me if I wanted a 50th birthday party or a trip to Hawaii. Wow, let me think long and hard about that one. No-brainer!

After an email from Jackie and a phone call from Andi to wish me a happy 50th, Larry and I got underway for a trek to the top of Haleakala, Maui's 10,023-foot dormant volcano. The summit is visible from our hotel suite balcony if Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of volcanos, decides that the clouds should part. However, the ride to the top is about 90 minutes from Wailea, on Haleakala's southwestern edge. That's 90 minutes to go less than 2 miles...up. Unfortunately, there is no direct route. We had to drive to the north central part of the island to pick up Haleakala Highway which has countless switchbacks to the top. For every thousand feet increase in altitude there is about a 3-degree drop in temperature. So 75 degrees at sea level becomes about 45 degrees at 10,000 feet. Why would anyone want to waste even one day in the balmy breezes of south Maui to venture to some nasty environment with temperatures like the northeast in winter? Well, the view at the top is like nothing else on Earth. At about 6000 to 8000 feet, you are literally in the clouds. Continuing on, leaving the clouds below you, you notice that vegetation is getting sparse, the air is cold, and you feel a little funny in the head (altitude sickness...oxygen concentration is lower than what you're used to at sea level). The sun is bright, and sunburn happens verrrrry quickly with the thin air and low latitude. It's necessary to drink lots of water at these altitudes because dehydration can happen without your being aware of it. The summit of Haleakala lets you view the crater almost a mile below when looking east. Turn southeast and you can see the Big Island of Hawaii about 50 miles away. If you look closely at the photo that looks like we are snapping away at the clouds through the window of an airplane, you can see snow-capped Mauna Kea on the Big Island. Mauna Kea is just under 14,000 feet. Looking west is Science City, a joint venture between the US Air Force and the University of Hawaii. A telescope which uses a 12-foot-in-diameter lens monitors space junk to keep it from being a problem for satellites. The telescope can zero-in on an object as small as a golf ball. Also, continental drift is measured with the equipment here. The Hawaiian Islands are moving west on the Pacific tectonic plate at about the rate your fingernails grow. Beyond Science City, you can look down the southwestern and western slopes of Haleakala to see the resort areas of Makena, Wailea, and Kihei, providing the clouds cooperate.

After visiting the summit, you would think that any other stop along the way would be anticlimactic. Not so. About 1500 feet down from the summit on the Haleakala Highway is the Leleiwi Lookout which provides a different perspective on the crater. There is such a cool view from Leleiwi that even those of us who are not hikers BECOME hikers for this experience! A 600-yard walk from a parking lot for those of us wearing our Gucci Hiking Slippers becomes that ethereal experience captured only by being there in person! Music by Enya completes the mood. Don't forget your CD. The National Park Service does not provide a soundtrack to Haleakala.

Driving all the way back down the mountain poses some challenges. It is important that you do not ride your brakes for the 20-some miles of switchbacks. You have to put your car in low gear and do the 15 to 25 miles per hour recommended. Besides this, there are several tours that offer the adventuresome an experience of biking down the mountain, all the way to the beach in Kahului. Getting behind one of these groups of bicyclists can be an annoying experience. Keep playing an Enya CD. Very important! Amarantine is a her latest CD and quite suited for this ride.

Tonight...dinner at Spago. The restaurant is located in our hotel. It is one of Wolfgang Puck's chain. Very creative fare with a Pacific rim influence.

More tomorrow....

PAW AND MAW

...It's Wednesday, the 15th, and we were hard-pressed to leave our little enclave here at the Four Seasons. But leave we did. The 8-dollar mini-bottles of Evian water and 9-dollar airline-size (unit dose, for you pharmacy people reading this) bottles of Chivas Regal were not sitting well with us. And only two creamers per person for our morning coffee....oh, heavens no! Speaking of the coffee, Four Seasons provides fresh Kona coffee beans, a coffee grinder, a drip coffee maker, filters, real cream creamers, and Splenda (along with the pink one, blue one, white one, and brown one...Splenda, the yellow one, is important). Anyway, we visited our favorite discount store, Costco, and stocked up on an excellent bottle of scotch whisky, and four bottles of wonderful California and French wines. The local food chain (Safeway) got our business for Evian water, wasabi peanuts, and a quart of half-and-half.

Somehow, the weather did nearly an unheard of thing here in Wailea. "Leeward" translates in practical terms to dry, arid, desert-like conditions. Wailea is on the leeward side of the island. It rained today. Not only did it rain, it rained hard and long. Looking at the forecast, we are expecting rain for the next x-number of days. But the temperatures are 5-7 degrees higher than normal. No lightening, no thunder, just tropical rain in 82-degree bliss.

The cabanas pictured (those square, tent-like things) are ours on a first-come, first-served basis. So we are protected from tropical sun and rain showers alike. Christopher will appreciate that there are "beer monkeys" who run around taking orders for drinks. But really, they are poolside waiters/waitresses who bring us drinks, cold towels, snacks, or anything else we need.