The Day I met Olympia

Day 8

OGG ( Kahului, Maui )
78 F

To move around the Hawaiian islands, you fly.




The main form of flight is one of two airlines that go interisland; Aloha or Hawaiian. They also fly to the mainland to points on the west coast, and both use HNL as a hub.

This means that for most flights, no matter where you're going, you need to go to Oahu first. So for our trip to Maui, we took one flight to Oahu, and then from there a flight to Maui. Our day began early, so after all our flying we were on Maui by 0930 at Kahului airport ( OGG ). Charles upgraded the rental, so we traveled the island in a bit of style during our little getaway, in a '06 Sebring convertible.

Our housing situation was typical of what I've come to expect in Hawaii. We knew someone ( Kathy, a friend from when I lived here before ) who knew someone ( a friend of hers had a son, named Julian. Maybe. ) who had a place they weren't using. In our case, it was a condo in the town Kihei right on the southside of Maui, a stone's throw from the water.

When I arrived, I wasn't hungry so I went off exploring by myself... this is where I ended up getting my ear pierced, as you may have read about in a previous blog entry. After we regrouped, we hit the beach, of course.

There's a saying about Maui, how the beaches are always crowded, but the trails are always bare. My experience has borne this out. The Maui beaches are like those in California, as far as the crowds go... which is not entirely easy to understand; Maui beaches are usually kinda rocky, and nowhere near as nice overall as Kauai's beaches, which are comparatively less frequented by the crowds. The trails are typically amazing though, and hardly ever crowded at all.

At the beach we met Kathy's friend Vanessa, and her boyfriend Searay. It was a good afternoon, I got to play a bit of volleyball and see some first-class alpha-male showdown-ness between Charles and Searay.

Yes, I recused myself, getting a handle on my own tendencies and just enjoying the show. Hard to believe, perhaps. Yet true.

Afterwards, a shower and a change of clothes and some wine later, we stumbled to a very nice restaurant called Spices, on the Kihei Highway along the coast. A very nice affair, with appetizers, wine and a first class meal.

Back to the condo, to turn in.