Fish Out of Water

Musings and observations about life from an East Coast native now living on the Left Coast in the California State Capitol since 2004. This fish has made her home in Madison, WI (7 years); Portland, OR (2 years); Las Vegas, NV (7 months); Middlebury, VT (3 summers); Marne-la-Vallee, a small town east of Paris, France (6 months); Middletown, CT (3 years); and Marshfield, MA, the fish's coastal hometown 40 miles south of Boston (17 years).

Name:
Location: Sacramento, California, United States

4.01.2018

Maui (Day 6 -- End of Trip!)

Tuesday, March 20: Power Outage, Ocean Center, Frank Lloyd Wright (!), Iao Needle, Whole Foods, OGG > SFO > SMF
I began our final day with a shorter run south along the Beach Walk, passing lots of other resort properties along the way. I finished with some side lanai Zumba, yoga in the room, and a quick dip in the pool.

Mr. E's day began with a sudden loss of electricity while he was in the bathroom!!! We learned later that the problem was wide-spread throughout West Maui, including up to the shopping areas in Lahaina where we found our breakfast destination Starbucks closed. Uh oh... Luckily, by the time I browsed the nearby Walgreens for books, the power had been restored so we grabbed food and coffee at Starbucks and then headed a bit farther down the road for "second coffee" at Maui Grown Coffee Company Store. Unfortunately, the power was still out at this site. But as we were debating what to do, the lights came back on -- yay! We shared a sticky bun on the wraparound lanai as we waited for the coffee to brew so we could sample some of the different roasts.

We then returned to the hotel, and Mr. E went for a run while I started packing and took care of some tasks on the computer. We departed around 12:30pm and made a quick stop at the scenic overlook along the highway, which provided a great panorama over the ocean, including Molokini Crater and several islands.


We continued on to the Maui Ocean Center in Maalea, where we both had a fresh mahi mahi and veggie stir fry at Beach Bums restaurant overlooking the same harbor where we'd boarded our Trilogy boat yesterday. After lunch, we toured the Ocean Center for nearly two hours, admiring the various sealife, including several young honu. We also encountered another location of The Honu Collection kiosk and were able to greet the same woman who'd helped us with the necklace purchase a few days earlier. We finished up with some final souvenir shopping at the gift shop and then were ready to begin our journey northward across the isthmus back to the airport in Kahului.

Thanks to the Lonely Planet guide, we made a stop at the King Kamehameha Golf Club to tour the Frank Lloyd Wright (!) designed clubhouse as well as the Hawai'ian art collection housed within the building. The structure is quite impressive and looks almost like a salmon-ish colored space ship in the moddle of the hillside. So incongruous!

The final sightseeing on our agenda was the Iao Needle. Several of the pathways were closed off due to lingering damage from flooding in 2016, but we still got to see the needle and walk around the taro garden area.

We followed a scenic route along the coast to the mall in Kahului, where I scored with a $2 paperback at the Friends of the Library store. Then we went just down the street to Whole Foods for dinner before heading to the airport around 7pm. Since we were quite early for our 9:50pm red-eye flight, we found a spot for cocktails and a few rounds of Rummy 500 before boarding and settling into our comfy First Class seats. Yay for the regional upgrade thanks to Mr. E's status on United!

Oh -- and we solved the mystery of the OGG airport code! As we walked towards our gate, we noticed a display along one wall about a man named Captain Hogg, who was instrumental in the development of commercial aviation on Maui, so the airport abbreviation was derived from his last name.

And we'll be back to the islands in January 2019... Maybe we'll be able to do a helicopter tour from the Big Island across to Maui to visit Haleakala???

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