Barbara J. Hamby

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Maui--October 2007

Early Wednesday morning, October 17, 2007, we left Floyd’s Buick on Northeast Columbia Boulevard, at his family business. One of the employees drove us the short distance to the airport and took the car back to leave it there while we’re gone. Hawaiian Airlines moved us efficiently through check-in. Going through Security, the zipper on my inner jacket (I had taken the rain jacket off) set off the alarm, so I had to go back, take it off, and put it in a different container. Also, my laptop was removed from its briefcase and sent through separately, so it was a bit of a hassle keeping track of our scattered belongings, but not as bad as some previous experiences I’ve had.

Our flight left Portland on time at 10:15 a.m. and we were served complimentary beverages and pretzels almost immediately. More tempting snacks, alcoholic beverages and headphones were offered for sale to accompany the in-flight movies. They showed a Hawaii promotional film and a feature film that I believe was one of J.K. Rowlings’ wizard stories. I didn’t pay that much attention to it, but dozed and read instead. For lunch (they actually fed us), I opted for a turkey and cheese sandwich and Floyd had a Mexican chicken pasta dish. We were about half way through our five-hour flight when it was served. The flight was smooth and pleasant. A small child behind us was obviously suffering painful ears and created a brief ruckus on departure and landing. I don’t understand why parents of little ones don’t know how to prevent that by giving the youngster something to suck on.

We arrived on time at the Maui airport, were picked up by a driver for the Word of Mouth auto rental agency and taken to their office to get a car. Floyd had dealt with this company for many years. I had anticipated that our ages might be a problem, but not so. We quickly completed the paperwork, and their driver loaded our luggage into a late model Nissan Sentra sedan. We drove to the condo and, after some difficulty negotiating the lock box containing our keys and necessary papers, went to Suite 609 at Island Sands, the unit Floyd had owned for fifteen years, but sold about five years ago.

After unpacking and resting, we decided to postpone grocery shopping and eat out. As expected, we could only eat half of what we were served and decided to breakfast on the leftovers before shopping the next morning.

The condo unit is lovely. A palm tree mural that Floyd’s late wife painted remains on one wall. I gazed for a long time at the fantastic view of the bay from the living room and balcony and the sound of the waves soothed me as I wrote this. The weather was fabulous, with warm sun and scattered clouds. Every amenity you might wish to vacation in luxury was found inside, including a dishwasher, washer and dryer set, microwave, cable television, stereo and other electronic equipment. Curiously, there was also a printer on a small table with the CD software to utilize it. I suspect they attract writers in September to the annual Maui Writers’ Workshop.

After dinner I went to the small but lovely pool and did my exercise swim routine in the solar heated water. The stars were out, a half moon shone, and planes flew directly over the pool. This condominium complex is in the flight path for the main island airport.When I got back, we watched an old movie, A Place in the Sun. One of the many cable channels available here shows movies continuously with no commercial breaks. We managed to stay up until 10:00 p.m. (1:00 a.m. Portland time).

Thursday morning right after our breakfast, we went grocery shopping. Even with the discount coupon provided by the condominium association, sticker shock was jolting. Papayas, as expected, were more reasonable than at home, but mangoes were priced like gold. We bought one large mango that lasted for most of our stay, by supplementing it with papayas. Now I realize how fortunate my sisters and I were six years ago when we were allowed to pick up the mangoes that dropped from the trees at the place where we stayed. We had mangoes at nearly every non-restaurant meal, including mango salsa with mahi-mahi. That was in May and probably the height of their season.

After putting away the groceries, we spent a lazy day gazing at the water, the boats, the scuba divers and surfers. We did some reading about tourist attractions. In the living room, we found a copy of Maui for dummies that gave us a lot of useful information, as did the tourist magazines we picked up. However, so enjoyed loafing in those surroundings, it was hard to decide to go elsewhere. My after-dinner swim at night was chilled a bit by a cool breeze. I decided to try to get to the pool between the end of the hot sun and the beginning of the night wind after that, although I’d miss the moon and stars. We gave up on Thursday’s old movie. I don’t know if the sound tracks are bad on those oldies or our ears just aren’t doing their job anymore, but understanding the conversation was a serious problem and there was no closed captioning.

On Friday morning, we visited for about an hour and a half with a variety of other condo occupants, mostly renters, but a few owners who live here most of the year. One couple has lived here more than fifteen years and knows Floyd. One interesting gal who left later Friday is a concierge at the downtown Seattle Sheraton. Coffee, doughnuts and sweet rolls were abundant and tempting. Back upstairs, we noticed the top of Haleakala (visible from the balcony) was clear of clouds. So we gathered warm jackets, hats and snacks and headed up to the mountain. In a little over an hour we had wound our way through fantastic views along hairpin turns to about the 9,000 foot-level Visitors’ Center. Above the clouds and the tree line, we looked down into the dark and light chocolate walls of the huge crater. Heavy winds splashed cool air on us, but summer clothing topped by windbreakers kept us comfortable.

As we drove up, dozens of bicyclists (the most prevalent species we spotted) passed us, coasting down the steep road. We saw a number of varieties of birds, but only domestic animals on neighboring properties. At a lower level Visitors’ Center, we did see a couple of Nene (wild geese).On the way, Floyd had wanted to stop at a favorite viewpoint around 8,000 feet, but the turnoff was located in a road construction area and was closed. The attendant at the Visitors’ Center told us a “blind cricket” had been discovered in a lava tube under the roadway. Formerly believed to be extinct, this endangered species is being protected by strengthening the lava tube so that it will not collapse under the weight of auto traffic.

According to literature we picked up in the Haleakala National Park, “The State of Hawaii comprises only two-tenths of a percent of the total U.S. land area, yet one-third of the plants and birds listed or considered for listing on the Federal Endangered Species List are Hawaiian.” Great effort is being made to preserve what is left. I noted that development and resultant traffic have greatly increased since I came to Maui for the first time.

On the way back from the mountain, we stopped for lunch and picked up a few items we’d forgotten on our first shopping trip at a nearby Foodland store. We rested in the afternoon and I swam before dinner. Unbelievable as it sounds, I couldn’t stay awake in the evenings past 8:30, or 11:30 Oregon time. Fortunately, in spite of dozens of cable channels, there was nothing much worth staying up for on television
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Alert on Saturday morning, after nine or ten hours of sleep, I started reading all the little instruction postings around the condo unit and discovered a way to hook up to high speed internet service—at a fee, of course. The cost is revealed when the modem cable is connected. I hooked up for a day, that turned out to be 24 hours, and then went offline for a couple of days. That first day on line I caught up on my email (reading and writing) and read all the online news. I also wrote a page for my blog.

We lazed around all day. I read, napped and swam while Floyd watched the baseball game. In the pool, I talked to a former schoolteacher from Southern California who has lived here for twenty-two years since his retirement. He complained that the traffic on the island is getting much worse with continuing heavy development. After dinner we watched an old Goldie Hawn movie and did some more reading.

Wake-up call was at 6:30 a.m. daily whether or not you requested it. A flock of 20 to 30 birds cavorted around the building chirping loudly to each other for five minutes or so and there was no sleeping through that performance, at least not for me. Floyd managed to ignore them most mornings.

Sunday morning we scraped enough coins together to get the local newspaper—quite a bit thinner than ours at home. We hung out around the condo all day Sunday. Floyd watched the baseball game and I read and wrote.
While I was still on line Sunday, I received an email from a writer who’d asked me to add a chapter to her book on the theme that life gets better after age fifty. She requested that I send my chapter, which I was still tweaking, by the end of October, so she could get the book to the publisher by November 10th. I was glad I had brought my laptop so I could send it to her. I may add some pictures after we get back home.Sunday news was full of the fires in Southern California. When we first heard about them, they were mostly in the Malibu area.

Monday morning news told us the fires, fueled by Santa Ana winds with gusts up to 85 miles per hour, had spread from the San Diego area to Santa Barbara. Reportedly, up to 250,000 people had been evacuated from their homes. Concern for my relatives in that area kept me watching the news. Floyd took a walk on the beach in the morning and decided he needs to do more walking, complaining that he’s out of shape. We headed to a mall at lunchtime and shared an excellent plate of broiled fish and vegetables. I walked through a women’s clothing store and griped about the prices, so Floyd suggested I try Goodwill. I have been known to do that occasionally. Then we picked up a few more groceries and headed back to the condo. We had decided it was too hot to walk around sightseeing.

While looking through a bookcase for something different to read, I ran across a guest book that had been in use here when Floyd owned the unit. His late wife and some of their relatives and friends had written in it, as well as other visitors. We decided to take it back with us for his children.

After an early supper, I headed for the pool where the air temperature was around 78 degrees and the water was 92. It was hard to drag myself out of there, but I came back, showered and watched an old Edward G. Robinson film with Floyd.

Tuesday morning I hooked back up to the internet again and found an email from my sister in Oceanside where they were sweating out (literally and figuratively) the fires all around them. She reported the air quality as the worst she’d ever seen with smoke and ash everywhere. The outdoor temperature was very hot, but they were able to keep it in the low 70’s indoors. However, opening windows, even at night, was not helpful because it let in more bad air and smoke. They still had electricity.

After breakfast, Floyd walked to the beach and waded in the warm water. When he returned, we went to Maui Plantation where we toured the grounds briefly, I took a few pictures, and we boarded a trackless trolley to ride through the many plantings of every Maui crop imaginable. We saw mangoes, papayas, bananas, coconuts, pineapple and coffee. Women harvested coffee as we rode by.  The driver/guide told us the harvesters work from 6:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m, with only one half-hour break. She said a pot of coffee takes 3,000 beans. She also told us that pineapple is being phased out as a crop on Maui. The major grower of pineapple now is China. She said in five years only China and one other country will be furnishing all our pineapple. She also remarked, “They’ll be yucky, so don’t buy them.” Information on the webside partly contradicts her, but does say Dole stopped growing pineapple on Lanai in 1992 and Del Monte will harvest their last Hawaiian pineapple crop in 2008.

We had an excellent lunch at the plantation. Mine furnished two meals for me. The service was slow, but very courteous, and the prices reasonable. We weren’t in a hurry, so slow didn’t matter. I had my first mahi-mahi (on this trip), served with a fabulous fruit salsa made with mangoes, strawberries, melon, pineapple and cilantro.

From there, we took the short drive up to the Iao Needle, where I snapped a few pictures on a short walk to a bridge over a river. Some young Hawaiian men were showing off, jumping off the bridge into a small pond far below. The many tourists milling around were at least as interesting as the scenery. According to information I obtained on a Hawaiian website, the Iao Valley was the site of the 1790 battle between King Kamahama I and the Maui Army. The Puu Kukui Mountain, behind the Iao Needle, is one of the wettest places on earth. Although it was only early afternoon we were both tired and went back to the apartment to rest. After my swim and dinner, we were both ready for a good night’s rest.

Wednesday morning we gathered up beach paraphernalia and headed for Big Beach. We drove through Kehai, rather than going by freeway, so we could see more interesting scenery. We walked around the beach a while and then rested. I wasn’t up to any serious hiking and so we didn’t stay a long time.

Coming back through Kehai, we stopped for lunch at a deli Floyd was familiar with. The face of a small brown man lit up as we walked in and he said to Floyd, “Long time no see,” grinning broadly. It had been five years since Floyd had been there, but the proprietor remembered him. The deli is a colorful establishment frequented mostly by locals, with good food and no frills. Unlike yesterday’s lunch, we didn’t get orchids on our plates, but there were fresh Bird of Paradise flowers on the tables. Bookshelves on one wall were crowded with books and junktiques. (Every once in a while, I get the urge to make up a word.)

This was our seventh day in Maui and the only fly in our ointment was concern for my sister and brother-in-law and their friends and relatives in Southern California. We were fortunate to be able to receive email reports from her because they still had power. The smoke and ash were very bad in Oceanside, where they live, but they hadn’t had to evacuate. Their weather was hot but she said the humidity had risen from 4 percent on Monday to 54 percent by the ocean. Inland it is much lower. We continued to monitor the news and to hope the winds might die down so the fires could be controlled.

Floyd alternated napping with watching the World Series game and I napped and read in the afternoon. There was just enough wind to keep the high 80’s temperatures from being uncomfortable. Tuesday night, the wind whistled through the open bedroom window and blew my hair around, but it wasn’t cold. Daily rations of mangoes and papayas and soaking up sun for winter made us want to stay forever. Every day I checked the weather at home and felt glad to be there. After the usual swim and dinner, and a bit of TV, sleep beckoned. What can I tell you, we’re old.

Startled awake Thursday by a series of loud thuds, I glanced at the clock and saw that it was only 5:30 a.m. After I was fully alert, it occurred to me that the reason we got such good rates for this trip might have something to do with noisy construction going on nearby. But I never heard of starting work at that hour.

After breakfast we drove to Lahaina where we found a parking spot, shopped enough to validate the parking ticket, and walked many blocks to the Banyan tree. The treacherous old sidewalks kept me on my toes so I could stay on my feet. Gawking at traffic, tourists and colorful shops, nightclubs, theater, etc. made it a challenge. I walked part way back to the car with Floyd, parked myself on a bench and accepted his offer to come back for me.

By the time we headed back to the condo we were ready for an early lunch. We ate at King Kamahama Golf Course, on a deck overlooking the beautifully landscaped hills covered with golf carts and golfers. It reminded us of Floyd’s daughter Meredith’s recent wedding at the Pumpkin Ridge Golf Course near Portland. “The King Kamahama Golf Clubhouse is at the base of the West Maui Mountains between Maalaea Bay and Wailuku. It is based on original Frank Lloyd Wright designs, including the art glass.  When you are in Maui it is definitely worth a side trip.” The previous quote is from a website on architecture.

Back at the apartment, I napped and read while Floyd slept and later tuned in to the World Series game, a much better one than yesterday.

The pool reminded me of some I’d been in on cruise ships. The strong wind raised small waves on the water. Watching the palm trees sway, not so gently, I wondered if anything might fall on my head. After dinner we watched “On Golden Pond.” I’d seen it at least twice before, but was surprised by how much I’d forgotten. I was reminded that I’d rented the video so my mother could see the movie when it was first out. She hated the language and it spoiled the story and good acting for her.

With the wind howling in our ears, we retired for the night.

After a very light breakfast, we went down to the pool to the Friday morning coffee klatch. We found muffins and ignored the other goodies. We shared a muffin and I had half a cup of not great coffee. Most of the people there were the same ones we visited with the previous Friday; the group was smaller this week than last, however. During our conversations I learned I was not the only one awakened early Thursday by loud noise. The other lady who heard it decided it came from the unit below theirs where a young couple keeps a lot of water sports equipment, including kayaks, and she thought they were probably moving it around.

We picked up a newspaper on our way out to the car and headed for Paia where Floyd said, in the past, many surfers would dot the beaches. The surf was not really up when we got there and there were a number of surfers, but not a really big number. From there we began a drive around the island—completely around, including the “back side.” Floyd said the road has been improved considerably, but it still proved to be exciting enough to keep us both wide-awake. Many sections of the road, as well as several bridges, were one lane only. Other parts were narrow with no shoulder. There was quite a bit of traffic going both ways, but we seemed to be able to find wide areas whenever we met oncoming traffic. At least neither we, nor the oncoming drivers, had to back up very far. I told Floyd, “I’m glad you’re driving” and, quick as a flash, he came back, “So am I.”

At almost every turn in the road, the view of the ocean and nearby hills was sensational. We stopped at a couple of viewpoints and looked for surfers, but saw only a couple on a beach way below. The surf was not very high and the descent from the road was quite steep, so I imagine only super adventurous surfers would brave the trail. We rolled down from the hills, hungry and tired of riding, and stopped at the Honolua Store, a large general store in an old building with picnic tables on the surrounding porch. In the back we found a food service area with a line of people coming and going. We chose plates of teriyaki meatballs, rice and vegetables and some drinks, for which we paid slightly over $13.00. We shared a picnic table with a young couple who lives on the island. They tried unsuccessfully not to giggle at our banter and, when Floyd left to get me a straw, the young man told me, “You stumbled on the best food on Maui.” I don’t know about that but it was good and certainly reasonable. Their business is successful enough that they were adding on to the building when we were there. After resting and my swim/exercise routine, dinner of leftovers was quite enjoyable. Incredibly, nothing on the dozens of television channels Friday night was even mildly tempting. I updated the journal, folded laundry, read and answered email, and Floyd napped and read.

Cane has been harvested all around us, and they burned the fields this morning. This will go on for four or five days, according to a notice in the elevator. We closed all windows and doors and turned on the air conditioner, so my nose and eyes would not burn so badly. I turned on the bathroom vent for a while to pull smoke out also. I had thought I might swim twice Saturday to make up for the extra eating, but decided the pool and the air around it might not be the best. The black sooty deposits inside and out are called “Maui snow.”

We stayed in Saturday, partly to avoid the smoke, but mostly so Floyd could watch the football games and the baseball game. On the web, I ran across information about the alleged world’s oldest blogger, at age 108. Her blog is titled: “The Life of Riley.”

Floyd left right after breakfast Sunday to revisit a beach that’s a bit more of a hike than I cared to tackle. I stayed at the condo for a leisurely swim/exercise session. Almost every time I went gone to the pool, I ran into someone different to visit with. Quite a few of the long-time residents of this complex are from Southern California and have relatives and/or friends that they’re concerned about because of the fires. The lady who was there Sunday was one of them. The water in the pool was down to 84 degrees Sunday morning, but the air temperature was 80, so it wasn’t too uncomfortable.

After getting out the books and the cables for my camera and its dock, I tried to transfer the pictures onto my laptop computer. No matter how I hooked it up, the computer refused to “see” either the camera or the dock (with camera on it). So, I decided, “Back to the drawing board.”

Floyd got back from his ocean swim in time for lunch. I’ve become a wimp in my old age and favor swimming in heated pools with no seaweed or salt. We were given a respite from the cane burning Sunday so we could enjoy opening up everything again. I retired to the bedroom to nap and read while Floyd watched the final World Series game. I was preparing dinner when Colorado rallied briefly and made the final innings of the game more exciting. But, the Red Sox held on. After dinner, we watched TV and read until bedtime.

Monday, and only two more full days to be in Paradise. After reading a lot of information about the present condition of the road to Hana and the traffic on it, I decided not to go there. I was overwhelmed by the prospect of 56 one-lane bridges and 600+ curves, even as a passenger, and I didn’t want to have Floyd drive it, nor did I want to.

After breakfast Monday, Floyd drove me to the nearby aquarium, left the car there with me, and walked back to the condo for his exercise. I walked through the aquarium for mine. Beautiful fish were everywhere, but the coral displays were even more striking, in all colors, shapes and sizes. When my feet started screaming, I drove back to the condo and suggested we go to lunch at the Maui Plantation café, where I had the wonderful mahi-mahi sandwich a few days before. My stomach suddenly began cramping when I got out of the car, and I became sick enough to lose interest in eating. We brought all of my lunch home, and part of Floyd’s. I took a long nap.

Ice cream sounded good to me and we had none, so I went to the neighborhood deli and bought a pint of Haagen-Dazs and a pint of Tom & Jerry’s. I handed the clerk a ten dollar bill and she said, “I need 37 cents more, please.” Since it was for medicinal purposes, I didn’t even blink.

Bananas grow on the grounds here and we have found little stacks of them here and there, for the taking.

We didn’t encounter any smoke Monday and thought possibly cane field burning might have been cancelled due to high winds. Or, those same winds blew it away from us.

I finally got my chapter for Shirley Dick’s book emailed to her after my nap. I decided I was tweaking it to death, so copied it into an email and sent it off.

Dinner for me was butternut squash soup, crackers and ice cream. Floyd worked on the remainder of his giant sandwich, left from lunch.

When I was opening the sliding glass door in the evening, I spotted our resident gecko, a very tiny one. Judging by all the bug bite marks on my arms, we needed a larger size. It’s the first time I had seen any gecko this trip.
For the first time since we’d been in Maui, the moon was obscured by clouds in the early evening, but visible when I got up shortly after midnight. Neither of us slept well Monday night, mostly due to the howling winds.

After two two-hour naps between 10:30 p.m. on Monday and 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, I gave up and got up and read the book I hoped to finish before we had to leave. I watched the sunrise and got one cloud picture I think may be pretty good. I woke Floyd about 6:30 so he could get an early start to Poli Poli Park to watch paragliders. I decided the snakelike road to the park might be too much for my stomach in its less-than-happy condition, so did not go along.

While he was gone I did some laundry, started packing, had an hour nap, read a little, watched a little TV and had a great, but cold, swim. I hoped swimming against the wind in the cold water would burn a few extra calories, dreamer that I’ve always been. I also called Hawaiian Airlines to reconfirm our reservation for Wednesday’s departure. Once again, I was impressed with their organization and efficiency.

When Floyd returned around 1:00, we called Cashco Warehouse, where his car is parked, to be sure someone leaves the keys where we can find them when we arrive late Wednesday night. I did a little mending so that when we unpack, everything should be in good shape. Even though we are leaving with most of our clothes clean, I’ll rewash them at home after being on the plane. We’ll be putting a lot of them away for the winter after that. Dinner was a conglomeration of leftovers. Reading furiously, we both finished books we had found in the apartment, so that we could leave them there. Then we watched television, including a favorite, Boston Legal, until bedtime.

Wednesday morning we had breakfast, finished packing, and got ready to leave. I ran the dishwasher and put away the dishes. We left a few used towels hanging in the bathroom for the maid to take care of and left the bed unmade. We knew the owner would have the unit cleaned before it would be occupied again. I took some pictures inside the apartment and out on the grounds while Floyd loaded our bags into the rental car. We took the bags to be checked directly to the airport, and drove to a Long’s drugstore so I could get a book to read on the plane.

After that, we went to a nearby shopping mall for some lunch. The restaurants that Floyd remembered being there were gone, but there were several to choose from, Thai, Sushi or other Oriental types, mostly. We ordered one lunch plate and the two of us could not finish it before we left to return the car and be delivered to the airport. Each airport has its own set of procedures for clearing security. I thought I was on top of the process, but discovered I should have had our boarding passes in hand, and not in my purse being scanned when I walked through the arbor. So I had to retrieve them and take them back to show the TSA (Transportation Security Administration?) gal before I could put my shoes back on and help Floyd gather up our stuff. There is always at least one glitch, it seems.

We had books to read at the airport, and I chatted with a woman from McMinnville briefly while we waited. The time went rather quickly, even though the plane arrived late. The airline personnel did a quick turnaround, and we left about twenty minutes late. The pilot was able to make up most of that time by increasing his air speed, with permission. We arrived only about seven minutes late at PDX. We took our time making the long hike to baggage claim and rescued our bags, the last two on the carousel, just before they were to be taken away for safekeeping. We got a cab to the warehouse where we retrieved Floyd’s car and went home in light traffic. Floyd was able to get to sleep right away, but it took me until about 3:00 a.m. to wind down. Already dealing with the three-hour time difference, I dreaded the additional change back to Standard from Daylight time on Sunday, November 4th. But, as always, it was good to be home.