Maui, Hawaii

As soon as my mom found out my Dad was invited as the representative for his office to the 9^th circuit judges’ conference held in Maui, she said, “I’m going!” And as soon as she told me she was going I said, “ME TOO!” They left me out last time. Okay I was still in the womb last time. But they also left me out when they went to Italy a couple years ago. Okay it was their 30^th anniversary. But this time I said I AM COMING AND YOU CAN’T STOP ME.

In the end, my dad didn’t even attend the conference, which actually worked out better for us since we had more flexibility in choosing our activities and how much time we spent on which islands.

I was (somehow) able to get 10 days off work from my internship, and my dad, mom and I headed out early Thursday Aug 9. We connected in Phoenix, which if you have ever had a layover in that airport you know what I mean when I say WTF?? 

We landed early afternoon in Maui to beautiful weather. We antsily picked up our rental car and headed off towards Lahaina on the west side of the island. Of course our first stop was at the liquor store so we could properly stock up. We continued our scenic route along the west coast to our hotel, which was located right on the shore. As you walked through the lobby you were greeted with a warm breeze (although no lei) and a spectacular view of the ocean. It looked so much like a postcard that when I sent it to some friends they didn’t believe it until I sent a pic of me in the shot. Various flora and fauna littered the hotel, including a parrot, cute little penguins (I felt bad for them cooped up in a tiny unnatural environment, though), swans, etc.

We took a quick dip in the pool before getting ready for dinner. We headed down to the sushi place (Japango) located in the resort. We were all feeling quite tired since it was a 6 hour time difference and we had been traveling all day. None of us could keep from yawning or constantly talking about how tired we were while waiting for the food to arrive. The sushi was amaaaaazing. Some of the best I’ve ever had. It was so fresh and just flat out delicious. So good in fact that we went back the next night!

Friday we sunned and swam in the ocean until my mom and I had a surfing lesson around 2. We had both surfed before, most recently (and my first time) in Costa Rica a few years back, but I was still nervous since I hadn’t done it in a while. I stood up my first time, though! I forgot how tiring surfing is. Paddling to catch the wave is really hard when you don’t have someone helping you, but paddling back is just as tiring since you’re fighting the waves. Our surfing instructor was really impressed that my mom was still surfing at her age. She did much better than in Costa Rica—actually stood up a few times! Go Diane! My dad captured many photos from the shore, some of which are below:

We both made the rookie mistake of completely forgetting to lather up the backs of our legs with sunscreen and both came away with lobster-red legs. Thank god for aloe vera.

Afterwards, we headed back to our hotel and ran into my parents’ longtime friend Carolyn who was there attending the conference with her friend Keith. They had just flown in that day and were a bit tired and we knew we’d see them the next day so we say goodnight pretty early. And like I said, my mom and I then headed back to Japango for more sushi (I’m getting hungry now writing about it).

Saturday we got up relatively early to go on a snorkeling excursion for the day. When our boat was zipping along on the way out to our snorkel spots, two dolphins started jumping in and out of the water along with us. They are extremely playful and apparently really like to ride along the bows of boats or in the wake of boats. We headed out to Molokini Bay and a couple other cool spots, including one place named Turtle Bay or Turtle Palace – you get the idea. And I saw two turtles! I forgot just how big they are. They are so awesome to watch gliding through the water. The boat staff told us it was okay to swim near them, but to not get too close or to chase them. But of course there was the one d-bag who did just that (always). But besides the turtles there were a lot of really cool differently colored fish to watch and swim along with.

We got back mid afternoon and rested for a bit and then I went on my long run for my training before we met back up with Carolyn & Keith for dinner. We drove about 10 minutes down to Lahaina, where we ate at a place called Pacific O’s on the oceanfront. I don’t remember what I had but it was some sort of seafood that was nom nom nom delicious.

Sunday my dad and I got up shortly before 3 am to go watch the sunrise at Mount Haleakala. My dad mentioned how they did this the last time (sans my mom) they were in Hawaii and it being amazing. We headed off (sans my mom again this time around) and drove about 2/2.5 hours across the island and up windy, curvy roads to the top. There were a lot more people than I expected to be there for the sunrise. It was awesome. Of course the crapiness of light sensitivity on my iPhone didn’t capture just how awesome it was but here are some pics:

Afterward, my dad and I drove back down the mountain to meet my mom, Carolyn & Keith at a bike shop where we were brought back UP the mountain to the same viewing point earlier. Our driver was really annoying and wouldn’t stop using the phrases “I can’t stress enough…” and “If there is one thing you take away from what I say today…” except there were about 10 endings to that phrase so how were we supposed to know what to take away? I also fell asleep briefly because, hello I was up at 3 am and his voice was extremely monotonous and boring, and he yelled at me and told me I wouldn’t be allowed on a bike if I wasn’t listening.  Pfft.

Finally we escaped the confines of his boringness and headed off down the mountain. I thought this would be a perfect crosstraining for my half marathon, but silly me forgot that the entire ride was downhill, with the only muscle work required coming from my hands riding the brakes the entire way down. The scenery was beautiful though, with constant breathtaking views of the ocean. We stopped at lunch halfway down and my mom and I split a pizza that we both agree is probably the best we’ve ever had – arugula & prosciutto with basil = YUM. Although our ride started off a bit drizzly and misty, we continued the rest of our 10,000 or so descent with clear, sunny skies.

That night we were invited to a pre-conference pizza party at one of the judge’s suites. There was plenty of pizza, beer and sangria to go around, although I could barely keep my eyes open at that point (grandma alert) since I had been up since 3 am. One of the judges assumed I wasn’t drinking because I was underage: “How old are you 16? It’s okay have a beer I won’t tell anyone!” I know older folk say it’s a compliment when others think you look younger, but I’ll believe that when I’m 30, not when I’m 23 and it’s the third time in two weeks that various people thought I was still in high school.

Monday we snorkeled a bit at the end of the beach at a place called Black Rock before we had to head back to the hotel to pack up. There were some kids jumping off a rock that was probably 15 or 20 feet up in the air. I was a bit anxious since the last time I cliff jumped I ruptured an ear drum, but climbed up anyway. You always forget how much higher the cliff actually is once you’re up there ready to jump off. I hesitated for about a minute or so while others anxiously awaited. I had to say to myself something a little French kid said to a friend from study abroad when we cliff jumped there (although there was a lot higher! Hence the ruptured ear drum): “Ne réfléchis pas,” which means don’t think about it! Basically, just go already! Little kids are always so impatient.

Before heading out we had lunch at a great fish n' chips place in Lahaina that literally stuck out right over the water. Although, I’m sure my mom would have preferred eating at Mick Fleetwood’s restaurant that he recently opened up right down the street. Even she admitted it probably wasn’t very good, though.

A warning: don’t ever fly Go! Airlines. We were taking a simple island-hopper over to Kauai to spend about 6 days there. Go! seemed great since it was super cheap. Big mistake. Despite about a 30 minute delay boarding the plane, we thought everything was fine as we started gaining speed on the runway to take off. All of a sudden, the plane slowed down and we taxied back towards the gate. The pilots came over the loudspeaker telling us the dashboard was indicating a mechanical failure, so they were calling in a mechanic to come check it out and would let us know if we had to deboard the plane, which 20 minutes later we ended up doing.

Long story short, we waited about 4 hours for the mechanic to come (which we later heard he never even came) and decided to ditch Go! and rebooked on Hawaiian Airlines. Good thing, too since we checked the travel status the next day and it was the plane never left. Go! was also just completely unprofessional – the crew gave very sporadic updates and 90% of the time there wasn’t even someone at the gate to answer question about what was going on. With Hawaiian, we had to connect through Honolulu, but arrived around 10 pm and picked up our rental car and drove north to Princeville where our rental condo was.

Making a second post since this is kind of long!