...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.