JABbering Stooge

I may as well go ahead and tell you about my trip to Maui.

So on the same day that Congress surrendered what remained of our Fourth Amendment rights to “Fredo,” effectively legislating the FISA court out of existence, I was in the air headed to Maui. After a three-hour layover in Las Vegas, in which I got to do some slot machines, we boarded the plane for Maui, arriving at about 7 PM local time.

Sidebar: The slots in the Vegas airport leave something to be desired (other than your money). There’s not much variety. You can choose either the old-fashioned One-Arm Bandits™, or you can go with the Wheel of TortureFortune™-themed ones. That’s it.

After getting our rental car, it took us a while to get to our hotel, so we didn’t arrive until almost 9 PM. The airport on Maui is in Kahului, on the north-central part of the island, and our hotel was all the way down in Makena in the southeast. Since we hadn’t eaten on the plane (despite being a dinnertime flight, ATA didn’t serve us anything other than a light snack), we were hungry by that time. The rest of the family, despite having already eaten, joined us for dinner at the only place open at that time of night: our hotel’s lounge/bar. Even then, we just managed to get in the door before they sent the cooks home. Lucky us.

Sidebar: The whole purpose of this trip was a “Girls’ Day at the Spa” for the folks on my mom’s side of the family. Mom even went so far as to make a CD of “theme music” for the trip, which she gave a copy of to each family member on the trip. Both of my mom’s sisters and one of her three brothers were in attendance, along with their kids. Also in attendance was one of mom’s absentee brothers’ kid. There were thirteen of us in all.

We spent two whole days planning out what we wanted to do with our week. Well, okay it was one day of planning, one day of constant revisions. I swear, getting my mom’s side of the family to plan anything is like herding feral cats. Eventually, we worked out the following schedule:

• Monday: Trip to I’ao Valley (everyone), dinner at The Big Wave in Kihei

• Tuesday: Snorkel Trip to Molokini and “Turtletown” (everyone), Luau at the hotel

• Wednesday: Girls’ Day at the Spa (Mom, Aunt Karen, Aunt Roberta, Aunt Ginny, Cousins Katie, Kristen, Marnie and Keyon(!)), Snorkel Trip to Lana’i (Dad, me, Uncle Larry, Cousins Jessica and Gabriel), dinner at Sansei Japanese RestaurantJoe’s Bar and Grill

• Thursday: Bicycle Ride Down Haleakala (Dad, me, Aunt Ginny, Gabriel), Surf Lesson in Kihei (everyone else), Parasailing in Whaler’s Village (everyone except Uncle Larry and Aunt Ginny), dinner at Lahaina Fish Company

• Friday: Go home

After making our initial plans and getting reservations for the early week activities, we were left to our own devices until dinner time, which ended up being almost 8:30 or 9 because, much like planning anything in this family, coordinating meeting times and places is often a haphazard and ad hoc affair. We ended up eating dinner Sunday night at a local cheeseburger-themed chain whose most well-known location is “Cheeseburger in Paradise” in Lahaina. Their location in The Shops at Wailea, which is where we were that night, is known as “Cheeseburger, Island Style.”

Amazingly, despite what my mocking of our abilty to plan and coordinate anything would lead you to believe, most of our plans went off without a hitch. We even got to see some dolphins on the snorkeling trip on Tuesday. The only two days we had any trouble were Wednesday and Thursday, and that was because the snorkel trip and the mountain bike trip took longer than expected. Because we were so late getting back from our snorkel trip, and the restaurant wouldn’t hold our reservation, we ended up having to eat at Joe’s Bar and Grill on Wednesday, and due to a similar problem with the bike ride, we almost missed out on parasailing.

Sidebar: Because my mom’s side of the family originates from Roswell, NM, we thought it would be appropriate to go with the UFO Parasail company to do our parasailing.

On Friday, everyone went home. Well, not quite. We were the last to arrive, and we were the last to leave, since our flight to Phoenix wasn’t until a little after 8 PM local time. You see, we had planned to spend a day or so in Phoenix to visit my brother. Yes, that would be my wingnut brother who believes that Clinton murdered the Branch Davidians. (Fortunately, we deliberately avoided talking politics around him - even my Libertarian-leaning father is more liberal than my brother.) Once that was done, we headed home. Although we arrived at about 10:30 PM Austin time, we pulled into the driveway right at midnight.

Sidebar: Incidentally, while we were waiting for our plane, we saw not one, but two official-looking U.S. Government aircraft arrive at the Maui airport no less than 10 minutes apart. Both had the light blue bottom and “United States of America” on the side, they were too small by half to be Air Force 1 and 2. Who knows what they were there for, and who they were carrying? I sure don’t.

And now, without further ado, my Maui slideshow!

I’ao Valley State Park in addition to its fabulous views, has a bit of a feral cat problem (though, ironically enough, this is why I was excited to go). Pay attention to the cat in this photo, you’ll be seeing it again at the end of this post.

Another pic of I’ao Valley’s feral cats. This one didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped.

The steep slopes of I’ao Valley.

A walking trail in I’ao Valley State Park.

Same walking trail, different perspective.

I’ao Needle, shrouded in clouds.

Family shot at I’ao Valley State Park.

L-R: Dad, Cousin Keyon, Aunt Karen, Aunt Roberta, Mom, Aunt Ginny, Uncle Larry, Cousin Jessica, Cousin Katie, Cousin Kristen, Cousin Marnie, Cousin Gabriel

I’ao Needle from the scenic overlook.

The “mouth” of the I’ao Valley from the scenic overlook.

The cousins. That’s me in the “Impeach Cheney?” hat.

The male cousins with I’ao Needle in the background.

Department of Homeland Security Warning: Flash flooding may sap your precious bodily fluids.

Jessica, Aunt Roberta, Aunt Karen and Uncle Larry at the Luau.

We would be pigging out at those lines a bit later.

Sunset at the Luau.

West Maui Mountains shrouded by clouds at sunset.

Post-face-stuffing conversation at the Luau.

I jokingly said “Pretend you like each other” before snapping off this picture. I guess Dad was playing along…

Sidebar: Mom borrowed my camera on Thursday to take pictures of the surfing lessons. Sadly, most of those didn’t turn out so well, but she did manage to get some good shots of the hotel area that day. Pictures 20-30 are hers.

West Maui Mountains, as seen from our hotel room.

Lana’i, as seen from our hotel room.

Interior courtyard of our hotel.

Slightly different perpective of the courtyard. You’ll see that waterfall in the lower-left corner again from ground-level later.

Another perspective of the courtyard. A koi pond is in the background.

Another shot of the courtyard and koi pond.

Local plant life in the hotel courtyard.

Courtyard waterfall.

Another shot of the courtyard waterfall.

The koi pond from ground level.

What do you say to shy fish? “Don’t be koi.”

The owners of that local chain I spoke of got into trouble with Jimmy Buffett over this…

Our hotel room had this portrait in it. Can you guess why I felt compelled to take this picture?

Remember that cat at the start of the slideshow? Well, I managed to turn it into a LOLcat pic: