From Maui, Installment 1

The following is the email I sent re: our Dec 2009 trip to Maui the day before I set up this blog. Thanks to Wanda and others who have been encouraging to me to blog. I've got my fingers crossed that I can make this work!

Alooooooooooha! For those of you who are used to getting my travelogues, you'll recognize the format. For those of you new to my missives, welcome to the group. I use these emails as journals of my trips, assistants to my memories as I adventure about. Sometimes I just prattle about unimportant (even boring) things, and sometimes I actually end up with something exciting or entertaining to share. As they say in all good AA meetings -- Take what you can use and leave the rest. If any of you ever want to be removed from this list, just lemme know. No harm, no foul.

We had our whirlwind week of to and fro Portland and the Tri Cities. Our Friday evening Christmas party at Ingi's new company, the Story Group, was fabulous. Carol and Claudia and Ingi and I drove from PDX to Richland for the shindig and it was great for me to finally put names to faces. The party was fun with good food and good games (with prizes!) and a chocolate fountain. Several of us discussed just laying down backwards on the table and letting the chocolate drain into our mouths, but we couldn't figure out how to do this with any grace so we fantasized only. There was dancing and visiting and fol-de-rol and it was a great end to sister Carol's visit and a great kick off for Ingi's and my Christmas vacation. We made it back to Portland with no weather issues or road slickness (Thank God!), dropped Carol off for her flight to San Francisco, went home and packed wildly so we could make our flight to Seattle. Whenever we travel we keep saying we're going to pare down on luggage and we said it again this year. Again, we failed. We have 2 checked bags each and two carry ons. Half of my big bag is shoes. The other luggage is books. We really didn't bring many clothes or other items. Two computers. A few Christmas presents to unwrap on Christmas eve. Oh, one whole other bag is our snorkel fins and masks. And so it goes.

When we got into Seattle, we schlepped our embarassing amount of luggage over to the hotel courtesy bus. We were spending Saturday night in Seattle before our Sunday flight to Hawaii. As we began to circle the airport, we yelled stop! to the driver as Ingi spied someone he thought he knew along the side of the road, waiting for her own courtesy shuttle. It was our dear friend Ella from Iceland who had just gotten off her plane from Reykjavik! Small world, eh? We pulled our surprised and stunned Ella onto our bus and took her to our hotel where we got to visit with her a couple of hours. We ordered room service and fed our hungry selves and talked about Iceland and family and Hawaii and how strange it is that we ran into each other. We put Ella into a cab to her hotel and Ingi and I got several hours of sleep until we had to wake early to catch our flight to Maui from SeaTac. We got another short visit with Ella in the airport (we were in the same concourse as she was taking Horizon to Eugene and we were on Alaska Air to Maui). Five and a half very bumpy hours later (don't get me started about how scary turbulence is for me), we arrived in Maui around one pm. It was warm and sunny, about 85 degrees. I kissed the ground. We claimed our rental Jeep (in Icelandic we pronounce it yeppi) and sped immediately to Costco. We spied others from our plane there -- I guess its the thing that tourists do if you have cooking facilities. We bought some mahi mahi to experiment with, a good old Costco rotisserie chicken, some lau lau's (wonderful taro wrapped pork and rice treats), some pineapple and a sampling of Belgian beers. Ok, so the Belgian beers don't exactly fit with the Hawaiian theme, but they looked fun to try. We will head to Safeway tomorrow for smaller portions of other cooking and food stuffs. It's lovely to have a kitchen to putter in. We hear that restaurants here are expensive, but at least Costco prices were the same as Portland or the TriCities. Ingi learned how to play rock, paper, scissors at the Story Group Christmas party, so we're gonna have rounds of it to see who does the dishes.

Our little silver yeppi is stabled under our condo in the ground floor parking. We're on the second floor, which is the first floor of living space units. There are two floors above us. We've only been here a few hours, but we already feel at home. We're both in shorts and t-shirts, barefooted and tired. The condo is approximately 800 square feet, tiled in cool marble, and quite homey. There is a long hallway as you enter the condo. Immediately on the left is a bedroom with a king bed. Next down the hall is a bathroom with a large walk in shower. Next is a closet with a stackable washer/dryer. The end of the long hall opens into a moderate sized living room and a square and compact, upgraded kitchen. There are two comfy rattan chairs with cushions and a square coffee table and a couch. There is no dining table inside, but a nice table and four chairs on the balcony. It is all very comfortable and efficient. Right off our balcony is a tallish palm tree of some sort that is decorated with brightly colored Christmas lights so I feel we have a Christmas tree just for us. As the sun was setting this evening, somone on the property blew the conch shell and lit the tiki torches and I felt like bursting into a rousing rendition of "Bali Hai is calling!" There are vessels of many types -- sailing ships, motor boats, yachts, and catamarans -- anchored just off shore from our condo. We have a sea wall and a pool between us and the ocean -- only about 50 feet seperates us from the water. The waves are loud in our living room and I love the sound. I do so look forward to the next two weeks of relaxation and adventure. We got lots of suggestions of things to do from family and friends, so I'm hoping to follow through on many of them. Tomorrow we head into Lahaina Town to walk about and get a lay of the land. I've unpacked the books and the myriad of flip flops, so were ready to go.

Ingi is on his computer on the other side of the room. He just read me the report he posted to his Facebook page -- it's a GREAT synopsis from his perspective. If you're not already "friends" with Ingi on Facebook, send him a request so you can read his Hawaiian thoughts and experiences.

Hope this note finds you warm and happy. I sure am.