Maui

May 10th-17th

The rental car gods smiled upon us when we arrived in Maui. Maybe they felt bad about the roach thing, or the this-car-has-no-brakes thing. Either way, the rental company was out of economy, sub-compact, and compact cars. We left the lot in a brand new bright yellow four-door Jeep Wrangler.

We rolled up in front of the timeshare (thank you Ellen's mom and dad and Aunt Ann!) and spent the rest of the day drinking rum, soaking in the hot tub, and saying, "oh my god, this place is gorgeous!"


The view from our deck.

Monday morning Aunt Barb hung out in Lahaina while we went for a surfing lesson. Turns out, surfing's easy when you're standing on an 11 foot blue padded garage door. The instructors had our class practice the technique on the sand a couple times before leading us into the water. Armed with our gigantic surfing slabs, we were all able to catch waves on our first or second tries. We spent the next two hours trying to look cool, only occasionally falling catastrophically into the ocean. (Roger, modest as he is, wants to make it clear that he doesn't actually have to "try" to look cool.)

The rest of the week is a blur of lazing around the condo, spotted with bits of activity:

- We spent a few evenings bumming around the notorious - but charming - tourist trap that is Lahaina town. Situated among the seafood restaurants, art galleries, and surf shops is Banyan Tree Park. In the park is a single banyan tree:

See all those tree trunks? That's all one giant tree. Long root-like vines drop down from the branches of the central trunk; when they reach the ground, they take root and become another tree trunk, connected to the mama trunk via that branch. In other words, best ewok village ever.

- The three of us drove the West Maui coastline to the Nakalele blowhole and the Olivine pools one afternoon. The blowhole is a hole in the lava rock above crashing surf. When waves crashes below, spray shoots up through the hole, frequently soaking the tourists standing nearby. (We tried to make that previous sentence funny, but it's just not. Unless you giggle at the word "blowhole", which we do.)



The Olivine pools are tide pools located on a remote ridge of coastline, accessible via precarious slippery trail of death. Aunt Barb opted out of said trail, but we would not be deterred by mere common sense. We picked our way down and paddled around the pools for a bit, chasing tiny fish and staring in awe at the forbidding coastline.



- Kahana Sands, the small resort where we spent our week in Maui, is the kind of place that throws BBQs and ice cream socials for its guests. One afternoon, they held a hula hooping contest, which Ellen dominated indisputably. The spinjam crowd back home would have been proud.


(While we're on the subject of physical mastery, Maui is also the place where Roger got his press handstand. He'd been practicing since we left Boston, and as of a certain glorious afternoon, he's able to lift into a handstand without jumping or kicking his legs. Again, the spinjam crowd back home would be proud.)

- We became quite the snorkeling connoisseurs while in Hawaii. We spent a few hours in Maui at Napili Bay, where in addition to the usual underwater suspects we spotted more sea turtles, and several boxfish.

- Flushed with confidence after our first successful attempt at surfing, one morning we rented slightly less huge boards and ventured out on our own. Honestly, we did pretty well without the instructors there to cue and guide us.

- On our last day in Maui, the two of us visited Little Beach, the unofficial home of Maui's nudist community. A plethora of aging naked men playing paddleball, with a smattering of bold women baring all on boogie boards, and hippies far as the eyes could bear to see. Roger immediately giggled like a 2 year old, dropped trou, and bolted for the surf. Ellen followed without suit soon after, and our pasty asses shone like 2 pearls in the sand. The day was full of warm sun and epic body-surfing. We had some great conversations with natives, and really wished we could have stayed longer. Little beach is our favorite part of Maui, pants down.