Aloha

I had a two day trip to Costa Rica at the end of the month, but traded it in open time for a Maui trip that was worth a bit more time and it got me back to town so I could attend the Session meeting at church. Of the two Hawaii trips that we do, Maui, in my opinion, is by far the nicer over Honolulu. Waikiki Beach in Honolulu is crowded and full of people. It reminds me of St. Pete beach in Florida only with volcanoes.

The flight over seemed to take forever! I had just spent the night before celebrating my sister's wedding, so I guess I was tired. I got first break going over and must have slept almost the entire two hours of my rest period, which is a rarity.

Hawaii doesn't observe DST, so this time of year they are five hours behind us. As a result, we arrive earlier in the afternoon in Maui.

Upon arrival we went to Fred's Mexican Cafe (http://www.mooserestaurantgroup.com/) which is part of the Moose McGillycuddy's pub on Kihei. I had never been there before, but Ken, one of the guys on the crew, raved about the fish tacos so that is where we decided we would go. They bring out phenomenal chips and salsa, and we all had Longboard drafts (a local brew). The Mahi tacos were delicious!

We headed back to the hotel around 8pm local time (which is like 1am for us). I stopped at the ABC Store on the way home to get some postcards and some bags of Kona coffee for some friends.

At 5:30am the fire alarm went off. Normally I would be pissed, but it was like 10:30 body clock time, so I just took it as a sign that it was time to get up. I went over to the gym to work out and then cleaned up and headed over to Kihei Caffe for my pancakes and home fries and a large Kona Kola. The pancakes here are wonderful and the folks that work there are very animated. It's a nice mix of locals and tourists.

After breakfast, I thought I would sit on the beach and continue to delve into War and Peace (I am not on page 600, so only 500 more pages to go). It got a little warm, so I went to a park with a covered pavilion and read and watched the folks who were getting lessons in paddle boarding. I think it is easier than it looks!

After trying to take a little nap, I went over to the Hawaiin Moon's Natural Foods store (AKA Hippie Mart) and got some snacks for the red eye home. Our take off our of Maui was neat, as the clouds were below Haleakala.

We made good time coming home with the tail winds and ended up getting in about 30 minutes early!