Two New Fans of the 50th State

As I wait for Kodak Easy Share to upload my zillion Maui photos to share with you all, I thought I would update my poorly neglected blog with the story of my trip. By the way, Kodak Easy Share, easy my ass. It’s gotten to photo number 8 after about ten minutes. And that’s after I spent about an hour squinting at all the photos that Kodak happily uploaded in teeny tiny format going “Is that the one where I’m making the weird face, or is that the good one? Oh, that’s not even me, that’s a tree.

So anyway, Dan and I went to Maui for a week! We just got back on Thursday night. It was a good time, mostly because we didn’t have to work and we got to hang out on beautiful Maui beaches for seven days.

We stayed in Ka’anapali, for those who are interested. It’s on the West coast of Maui and has some great beaches. We realize now that in order to make a vacation truly relaxing, it might be wise to just go for it and spend the money to stay at a real resort. We came to this sad realization after booking a hotel listed as "Mid-Priced" and we drove down the strip of beautiful hotels upon our arrival, with me in the passenger seat going “Is that ours?” “Nope.” “Oh, that one’s pretty, is that ours?” “Still no.” “Wow, that one’s got a spa and four pools, is that ours?” “Um, no. See that one with the crocked sign at the end of the road? That’s it.” Our hotel was pretty middle of road and the bed might as well of been a bunch of rags wadded up into a square shape. In fact, maybe it was.

Actually when we first checked in, I was more then a little perturbed when we opened the door to our room for the next week only to find two twin beds. Bitchy Heather came out full force and I was immediately on hold with the front desk to change rooms, tapping my foot impatiently. Dan tried to make the best of it and pointed out that not only had they given us two twin beds, but they’d accidentally left us a bottle of champagne with a card to “Mark and Cindy” congratulating them on their honeymoon. I gave up with the phone and went down to the lobby to ask for a room with a king bed. Dan knew to leave this to the professionals and stayed behind to pilfer all the bottles of lotion and shampoo.

I cut to the front of the huge check in line and got the problem sorted out. I also mentioned that there was a card and bottle of bubbly in there for some couple who wasn’t us.
“Um, no.” The front desk guy said. “I had that moved.” Me: “Um, OK well then what was it I saw?” Front desk guy: “I’m not sure, ma’am, but I had the card and champagne moved before you arrived. Thank you.” And promptly closed his station. I arrived back at the room and instructed Dan to throw the champagne in with our loot because we were claiming it and we would make a toast to Mark and Cindy. Which we did.

We rented a Jeep so we could put the top down and Dan picked the bright yellow one and we named it Sunny. I never realized how old school Jeeps are. You had to like unzip the windows, it took about 30 minutes to unravel everything and actually take the top down, and there were no power locks. This was all instant fodder for about 100 Dan/Heather fights.

We spent a few days driving up and down the West Coast and one of my favorite days was driving down a one lane dirt road, following the vague directions of our Maui guide book to a little stand in the rainforest which sold “the World’s Greatest Banana Bread.” It was pretty damn good. Another day we took a boat trip to the island of Lanai’i, where we snorkeled and saw how pineapple growing has ravaged the tiny island and has ruined the lives of many islanders. I took pictures.

We took the famous road to Hana one day, which is a three hour drive through winding roads and alongside cliffs through the lush Maui north coast. You end up in the middle of nowhere, hours from your hotel and in a town that has more free range chickens then residents. This is where I decided would be the perfect location to get really sick. My cold that had been festering for days decided to fully take effect here, and all the romantic walks and long hikes through bamboo forests past huge waterfalls were cancelled so that i could sit in the grass outside the only gas station in down to blow my nose. I felt so bad we decided just to turn around and drive back.

The ride itself was really pretty though, don't get me wrong. It was like being in Jurassic Park. maybe because we were driving down narrow deserted roads through a green rainforest with a canopy and we were in a Jeep. Dan really wanted a T-Rex to appear out on a no where and eat the Jeep in front of us. We hummed the Jurassic Park theme the whole way, and it only took about an hour before it became incredibly annoying.

We pulled over at a lot of sccenic outlooks along the Hana Highway. At one stop we were the only car as far as we could see and we took a moment to admire the beauty and solitude of the exotic place we were in. Then, a large Southern woman leapt out of a car behind us and yelled to my boyfriend, "Oh my GOSH! You look just like Jeff Gordon!!! Look, honey, he looks like that racecar driver! He's Jeff Gordon, oh my goooosh!" They took a picture of him and I hurried him to the Jeep before he signed an autograph. He hears this a lot and apparently the Hana Highway in Maui is cheif territory for major Nascar fans. And apparently we were on the same tour plan as this Nascar couple, because at every scenic stop in our guidebook, we'd open the car door and hear "Jeff Gordon! It's you again!" It's tough dating a celebrity.

Ok there was much more to this Maui trip besides us stealing champagne and me getting sick, so I'll have to post more later. Consider this Maui Part 1. Much more to come...