Day 1: E-ville to Maui, Saturday, March 7, 2020

Day 1: E-ville to Maui

Quote of the Day: 

Oh, where have you been, my green-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways

Weather: Cool in E-ville at 5:40am, very wind on east side of Maui near airport, warm on east side in Kihei with light winds

THB is a last minute replacement for LB’s friend who most likely was worried about the coronavirus. The round-trip airfare: $400. THB could not resist more snorkeling even if Raja Ampat is an impossible act to follow.

That's an I-phone THB is holding, not a camera

Department of Repairs: The shutter on THB’s Canon Supershot camera wasn’t closing by the end of the Asia trip, so it is in the shop seeing if it can be repaired. In meantime THB is using the old I-phone that went with us to Asia and was the local phone for Singapore and Indonesia except the guide that met us at the airport and local sim card retailer sold us a sim card for Singapore and Malaysia (oops: should have been Indonesia). Sorry, THB does not mean to be covering old grievances. Back to today: THB has fat fingers, bad eyes, and an inability to understand how easy pic taking is with the I-phone. It will take some time for adjustments. For example, THB took many too many burst mode pics and then just before posting realized he had taken many too many videos. Your forgiveness is requested in advance. {ed. note: the followers may enjoy posts with a lot less pics}

The latest in back of the seat accouterments: an I-pad/movie viewer holder with usb plug right next door

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A baby (this baby?) cried non-stop on the tarmac and for a good 10 minutes after take off

The Hawaiian Air flight leaves at 7am, arriving in Maui around 10:30. With about 2 ½ hours to go, we hear the words every flyer dreads: We’ve required the flight attendants to take their seats and buckle in, we’ve got bumpy air coming. And, it was really bumpy. LB thought barf bags should be passed out. THB decided to go into his Drakes Passage meditation mode and it worked!!

Flight lands on time, and we run around town dining, visiting beaches under gale winds on the east side of the isthmus, food shopping, and renting of snorkel gear at Snorkel Bob’s (no relation to TH Bob). 

Acevedo's Hawaicano Cafe modest front door. Great pork chili verde burrito

LB goes for veggie torta, with one lemonade, $40 (island prices are about 15-20% higher than mainland prices)

Baby Beach (the inner beach is protected by a rock "shelf"

Dead turtle

Hookipa Beach with many live turtles and 30 mph trade winds

Surfers are allowed to enter water here; there is a mass of turtles that look just like rocks to the right and up side of pic...alas, one of those that didn't make it from THB's brain to a computer folder

The condo is remote controlled: you have to enter a 6 digit code (and with THB’s declining eyesight, it sure looked like a 5 digit code that kept changing every time he looked at it…hyper-modern?) that is only active after 3pm.

Insert a lot more pics here...maybe tomorrow, maybe never

LB takes the room with a view and THB goes for the twin beds (after all, THB is just a fill-in). Light dinner at the condo of drinks (semi-alcohol forward), Mt. Tam cheese and molasses cookies (imported from San Pablo Ave Arizmendi), crackers, carrots, and garlic and sea salt bagel chips (imported from Wise Sons on Mission St). THB forgot the poke (LB is a vegetarian) which is quite good from a deli inside Foodland.  Tomorrow!!

It gets late early here and also no springing forward into daylight savings time so once again THB is somewhere where he has no clue as to what his body thinks is the local time. Suggestions welcome

Book Review: Honeymoon in Tehran, Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran, Azadeh Moaveni (used paperback with lots of notes in pencil made by a prior reader, pub’d 2009): The second installment of Moaeveni’s relo to Iran as a reporter for Time Magazine. This one focusses more on her personal life: falling in love, getting pregnant then married and finally making the decision to relo to London with hubbie and baby boy. While THB’s interest waned during the wedding prep, culturally this book is very important: what do immigrants have to do to adjust to a politically insensitive (or overly sensitive) environment while somehow holding on to their customs and roots from their origin country. Harder yet, what if they are doubly or triply dislocated as well as poorly understood (even if they speak the new local language well) in their new country. This, given the mass migration coming from climate change, may be the issue of the next 50+ years. Highly Recommended