Decided to fly out to Maui for a week vacation, on account of the siblings wanting to meet up for a post-Christmas sort of get-together. It makes a hell of a lot more sense to meet here each year than pay 3 times the price for a plane ticket to New Brunswick.
Boarded my flight at YVR and was wandering down the aisle absentmindedly. Walked past this family with kids all over the place with their colourful Superman carry-ons and screaming newborn. Shuddered. Who brings a newborn on a flight? Why are you so desperate to travel? Kept walking and realized I’d gone past my seat. Idiot. If you’ve been on a boarding plane, you know how hard it is to swim back upstream against the herd of cattle. Walked back, with a fearful pit in my stomach. Sure enough. Seated right in the midst of this uncontrolled breeding experiment. Ew.
Anyway, kid was actually fine. I think the beard scared him. Other than falling asleep on my arm a few times. It’s hard to be bothered by much with two earplugs in and a pair of headphones over top of that. I even loaded up my iPhone with music dug out of the old hard drive backups, just for this.
Arrived uneventfully, got to my rental car (holy cats, this place has a LOT of rental cars) and even found the apartment ok. Cats and dogs all over the road, middle of the night. Was weird.
Pulled up to the apartment and since it’s like midnight, I’m wondering if it’s even open. It’s someone’s house or something. Which entrance? One has a light on. I just walk in. I had to laugh at the thought of someone waking up and finding a total stranger just comfortably sleeping in their guest room.
Woke up bright and early (6:44 AM!) and thought “I should take a picture of the sunrise” and “I should go for a run.” Got up, got dressed (shorts! tanktop!) and headed out. Took a few terrible photos of a bland foggy sunrise, but still the neighbourhood is really nice, anyway. The mountains are really cool.
The sun rose.
Beautiful pavement is what America does best!
That mountain peak beckons!
We’re up on the edge of a valley, so I ran down, down, down towards the ocean. The sun was coming up and I am weak and pasty white like an indoor ghost, so I didn’t wanna get caught out too long, so turned back at the main road. Ran back up the hill, stealing a couple of Strava CRs on the way. Ha! I love that. There’s a lot of hills in Maui though, I was sweatin’ bullets.
Just loved this house.
There’s also a lot of loose, barking dogs here. It’s an American thing, I guess. I’m not sure why Americans feel the need to own, and not contain, several dogs. They’re fuckin’ everywhere. Even a person with little to no fear of dogs has to cross their fingers when running past a ghetto house with a chain link fence and 3 pitbulls in the yard. Not that I don’t love pitbulls, I truly do, but I ain’t wanna battle three of them with only a pair of short-shorts and a camera.
Run was great though. So good to not be freezing cold!
After run we (me and brother’s girlfriend’s mom) did some grocery shopping. Bought some beer, bought some fruit loops (I’m on vacation. Don’t talk to me.)
After we hit the beach down near here, little spot called Waihe’e, pretty small but basically empty. Not exactly a tourist destination, but a beach is a beach, frankly. Water was lovely, but I was thinking it was gonna be crazy warm! Was it Ed who told me the water was “so warm!”? He lied.
First glimpse of the ocean. Looks like Australia.
Driftwood art glamour shot.
Ignore the industrial Port in the background.
Really nice water. Of course the pictures don’t do it justice.
Oh yeah look at that wave.
Then we went and checked out this famous Maui hike called “Waihe’e Ridge Trail”. Just wanted to recon the start so we could do it early one morning. I’ll run it tomorrow if no one wants to get up at 6:30 AM!
I will run this.
This part of the Island is pretty … industrial, but looking forward to getting out and doing some more exploring once the rest of the crew arrives.
“Aloha, motherfucker.”
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