Gotcha

Hawaii …. again you say … here is the back story.  Karen’s nephew Greg announced back in May that he was engaged to a lovely girl named Anne.  They wanted to pick a place to get married that was between Canada and Australia where Anne is from.  Hawaii was the logical choice since it is roughly a ten hour flight from both places.  Once the wedding invitation came out with the date, the planning began.  We knew that we wanted to go again for two weeks but then I was “talked into” extending my trip by another week.  Who am I to say no.

After six months of waiting, the day has finally come.  Karen dropped me off last night at the International Plaza Hotel ($119 CAD) since I had an 8:00am flight with Air Canada.  I just want to give a shout out to Karen’s niece Marie for handling the majority of our travel bookings.  She works for Expedia Cruise Centers and if you ever want to use a travel agent, give her a call.  She is the best.

I caught the 5:30am shuttle and between printing my boarding pass, dropping off my bag (which was .1kg under), breezing through security (thank you NEXUS card) and customs, I was at the gate by 6:15am.  When I checked in yesterday, I picked a seat in a row of three that appeared to have no other passengers in it.  So I was needless to say surprised when the gate agent announced it was a full flight.  I guess there will be no stretching out and catching a few zzzz’s after an awful night of sleep.

The flight to San Francisco was not too bad.  I passed the five hours by reading, watching TV, snacking on some leftover Halloween candy (thanks Karen) and some napping but not too much.  We landed at 10:25am local time to beautiful sunny skies.  Once I got off of the plane, I checked the monitors to see that my connecting flight was in another terminal.  The long walk was good for me to stretch my legs.  I used the two and a half hour layover to grab some lunch, pick up some reading material (Jon Bon Jovi is the cover story in People magazine this week) and check in with Allison who lives in Maui but more on that later.

 
Soon it was time to go and unfortunately it was another full flight.  This flight seemed really long and I could not get comfortable at all.  The seats were much smaller than on my previous flight.  I think United crams more seats in the same space.  Finally after five and a half hours, we arrive on Maui at 3:50pm local time.  It was sunny and warm (28°C I believe).  It did not take me long to get my bag and head over to Thrifty to pick up my Nisan Maxima ($275.67 USD including taxes, 1574 miles driven).  The drive from Kahului to Lahaina is about forty-five minutes which gave me enough time to have a first listen to Bon Jovi‘s new album “This House Is Not For Sale” that I picked up from Target.  What do I think, I’m not sure yet.  I need to listen to it again.

I arrived at the Noelani Condominium Resort ($1360.99 USD) and picked up the keys to my accommodations for the week.  I am in Unit 112 and it looks exactly like the pictures.   After unpacking and having a quick bite to eat (BLT from Leoda’s Kitchen and Pie Shop), I made my way to the Maui Theatre where my friend Darren Lee stars in “Burn N’ Love”.  Regular readers know that Darren and Allison live on Maui along with their twin daughters Shayla and Sienna.  Since I got to the theatre earlier than expected, Allison was able to get me into the show without Darren knowing.  Afterwards during the Meet and Greet, I was able to surprise Darren.  We have been able to surprise him five other times … February 2007, February 2009 and April 2011 in Las Vegas, June 2012 in Langley, BC and November 2014 on Maui.  I always love the look on his face when he realizes what is happening.

We picked up Allison from home and headed over to Lahaina Coolers where we enjoyed a late night snack while catching up and making plans.  I sit here on the bed, exhausted but so happy that I am hearing the crashing waves while I fall asleep.