We woke up this morning and began emptying our rental condo. That meant a very interesting breakfast of cheesecake, guacamole, cheese tortillas, ravioli, PB&J, candy, beer , matte and fruit.. Not usual breakfast fare, but yummy.
We gathered all our stuff, emptied the fridge, took out the garbage and recyclables and started the wash.. I think we’re pretty model rental guests 🙂
We said goodbye to the condo then headed down the road to turn in our rental snorkel and beach stuff.. and grabbed a last Shave Ice at our favorite place
We had a few more stops before the airport.. Gabe and Sam had found a highly rated place that sold Poke out of the back of a Liquor store .. we had to try that..
we also bought some pineapple wine .. which was good.. but pretty acid. I’m about 2 weeks into no alcohol to see how that works with my guts. (Its worked nicely) . .. but it felt good to have a slug of wine 🙂
We then headed to the Maui botanical garden.. a really low key place in wailuku.. used to be a zoo.. You could see Ida mountain from there. it was great to walk around.. we were almost the only ones there.
On the way from there to the airport, I looked up one of my cousins.. Jake.. he and his wife have a Law firm in wailuku.. DIane and I knocked on the door .. and there he was..
We met him when he was one year old.. so this was new. We only stayed a few minutes.. but it was fun getting to know him. We exchanged contact info an promised to share some family history stuff.
From there it was only 15 min to the airport. We dropped Gabe and Sam off at the departures and said good bye. It has been so great being with them here..they are such great travel companions. .. We’re seeing Gabe next week in Santa.. so it was a quick goodbye.
Diane and I dropped off the car and headed to our plane. Thanks to TSAPrev.. we got to our gate before Sam and Gabe got through security.. so we bought them a surprise pizza and dropped it off at their gate
We said goodbye again and headed to our gate.. The Kailua airport is a nice mix of indoor and outdoor.. so we sat outside and ate our pizza looking at Ioa.. A nice end to a great vacation..
Our flight left around 5.. and it was ‘only’ 8 hours to Chicago..
Today Diane and I took the car and left Gabe and Sam to fend for themselves . They wanted a beach day. so We headed up in to the Maui “up Country” on our way to the Haleakala volcano. It was the last thing on our list of things we really wanted to do . It was a beautiful drive.. It was 85 degrees when we started. at sea level . the temperature dropped as we climbed.. The scenery went from dry coastal desert to temperate Forrest to wind blasted alpine pasture to.. a martian landscape. By 10,000 feet is 55 degrees with gale force winds. An amazing transformation in just an hour of driving.
The observatory looked like a martian outpost ..really unexpected in the otherwise barren p ace.. The soil had a reddish color.. it truly looked like i’d imagine mars would be like
the oeak kept going in and out of clouds.. one second clear, another moment you couldn’t see.
We hiked about 1.5 miles down into the cone of the volcano.e.. we learned it wasnt actually a blast conde.. but a dome of volcanic cinder that has worn away in teh wind over the millinea. It was a dry and barren place.. interesting colors…. hardly anything living there.. a few hardy plants
The hikle back up warmed us up.. and by 12:30 we were heading home.. down from the 50’s to the 80’s. We got back to Kihea and headed for the beach. This beautiful turtle was lying in a cover near our beach. We stayed a good 50 feet away to give her space
On the way home we also took one more look at our friends the chickens.. Maui has so many wild chickens (and cats). They look so healthy and cute with their chicks. I think they are much happier than their farm raised cousins
We met up later with Gabe and Sam before dinner and had one more meal at our favorite fish place Coconuts.. Poke and Fish tacos. Yum!
Today was amazing. We had made plans to visit our good friend Caroline who grew up about a mile from us in Vermont. She was in Sam’s grade and has always been a close friend of our family. After college Caroline moved to NYC and then to LA.. Last time we saw her was in 2019 at our mutual good friend Hannah and Olivier’s wedding in France. we always figured she’d end up living in a city.. so we were surprised to hear that during Covid she moved to a very rural part of Maui. She works for PayPal in a job she can do from anywhere.. so why not from here. ?!?
Around 10:30 we drove across the island to find her. She’s living in a beautiful house she shares with one other woman in Haiku Maui . It is such a beautiful place.. down a dirt road and surrounded by a jungle . She showed us around the house and yard which included some wonderful freuoit trees includign Suriname cherries, banana, lemons and tons of flowers.. it was magical
She drove us towards the coast and then down a private unmarked dirt road.. Where we went has to remain a secret.. because local places like this are getting mobbed by tourists (like us) .
Aside here: Its a story we heard from every local we met.. .. Covid was great when the tourists stopped or slowed down.. even witht he impact to the local economy.. it reminded people who live here what it was like when the island was their own. Now in the somewhat post-covid era tourism is up over 30% from pre-covid days.. and people tourists are overrunning the island. misusing the resources, not respecting the land or the people. ,Its given us quite a bit to think about.. I’ll write about that later..
We drove down the road a bit and then headed down a trail to a small stream. from there we walked up the stream about 1/4 mile to an amazing waterfall (I apologized pictures of little fuzzy… The waterproof case I was using really his fogged up the pictures.. Imagine this… Only 10 times more beautiful 🙂
We had a good long swim there then we hike back down the stream and climbed up to the road, got in the truck and drove up the road a bit more to a great jumping rock with a nice pool and waterfall. We took turns jumping in. About 15 feet so fun and not too scary.… ‘Diane has some good movies of us jumping. I’ll try to share those as well.
We jump back in the truck went all the way down to the end of the dirt road past the house Text Caroline rented when she first moved here. Or destination was Caroline’s boyfriend Kaleo’s house. It was such an amazing place.… Completely off grid. I said buildings right above a beautiful creek with a waterfall a great swimming hole… The creek then runs straight down to the ocean less than a quarter of a mile downstream. We first met Kaleo’s dad Sven who had been living in Maui for 35 years… He’s originally from Germany. Super great guy built all of the stuff by hand. I’ll solarelectric all the water everything is completely up coming from their own land. The place is surrounded with fruit trees. Amazing. And we went down to the house… Well they were actually several houses. There’s a guest house, small “Hale” where Kaleo lived… I cooking house, a bath house and yard where Kaleo’s parents lived. We then met Laeo’s mom ‘Dana who had been in Maui for more than 20 years. She was originally from upstate New York. Both of his parents are so nice. Kaleo showed up just a few minutes after we got there. He’s such a great guy.. he grew up in this totally off grid world… Then recently spent 18 months working in Frankfurt Germany. He’s really smart really nice and very interested in making things. We plan to connect him to our new friend Max in Wailuko who’s a master maker.
We hung around getting to know them a bit a. Caroline Open some fresh coconuts that we had picked up at the neighbor Daniels house… And we had our first fresh coconut water treat.
We then walked a few meters down f to the Stream behind their house. Kaleo, Caroline, Gabe and sam went swimming while ‘Diane, Dana and I watched. It reminded me of something like the swimming holes we have at home like triple buckets those surrounded by tropical plants. Only difference is… This was in their backyard and there was no one else around…
After a bit… Kaleo and ‘Dana showed us the way to walk down to the beach. It was a little bit of a slippery scramble over the creek and longer Rockfence but the walk was so beautiful. More swimming pools, natural slides, amazing plants and fresh fruit. We found these amazing Liliquoi (Jamaican passionfruit)… You bite into the thick yellow skin and suck out the delicious juice and seats. I’ve never had anything like it. We stuffed ourselves on them and brought a whole bunch back
In a few minutes we reach the point where the freshwater stream met the ocean. It was a narrow Rocky Harbour with steep walls. The surf was crashing like crazy… We were surprised to learn that this had once been a shipping port for processed sugar about 100 years ago. It’s hard to imagine any kind of boat getting anywhere near shore with the crashing surf. You could still see some of the hundred year old rusty equipment hanging around.
Diane and I had fun putting 1 foot in the ocean and 1 foot in the freshwater stream…
It was so amazing listening to the surf the rocks on the beach. It made an amazing sound. I recorded some of it click on the thing below and you can hear it
We hung out on the beach for a little bit… And then walked back up the stream towards the house.
We said goodbye to Klezl folks and jumped in Caroline’s truck and headed back to her place to get ready for dinner.… We went to a bar for a drink then to a fantastic sushi restaurant (Nuka) in haiku. The cook there is a good friend of Kaleo’s family so they treated us really well. It was a fantastic meal
Around 930 it was time to head home. We said goodbye to Caroline and Calio. It has been such an amazing day. Truly the best day of our vacation. Mainly because I’ve seen our good friend Caroline here and so happy I’m meeting Calio and his family… But also because during the stay we saw the Maui we remember for 36 years ago.
It was a magical day !
Happy fathers day everyone. I am so happy to be a dad to our 3 boys. I woke up feeling very grateful to be a dad. I want to start with a shoutout to all the dads out there including the ones. in our family.. My dad Hugh and dianes dad Gabe.. As well as my brother billy and bro-in laws John, Steve. and Joe All really great dads !
We had another great day in Maie.. Gabe and Sammantha took a surfing class up in Lahina..whiel Diane and I enjoyed ourself sitting in the shade on the beach watching and reading
We caught lunch then went up to visit my good friend Gday and his wife Jan. Grady has been a friend of mine at IBM for at least 15 years… Maybe longer. Just one of the closest mentors I’ve had. It was such a pleasure coming to see him here. He and Jan have the nicest spot. 18 months ago they moved just a couple of blocks from where they were right on the beach to a beautiful house with the most amazing pool. It was great getting to know Jan better. They are such warm and wonderful people. Such great hosts ! It was great hearing about their life on the island .. They’ve been here about 15 years… and have integrated in very well. They are adopted Uncle and Aunty to many local kids.
Jan and Grady grilled a wonderful fish dinner which we ate while watching the sunset.. What a wonderful life style !
