Matt's Journal

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Why Maui?

When we got married way back before COVID-19, before avian bird flu, before MERS, before SARS, before 9/11…why, when we got married, it was the beginning of the world! And, beginnings beg for demarcation. After negotiations long forgotten, it was concluded that a Hawaiian honeymoon hit the high notes for a start to something so significant. Kauai, then, it was, for our first familial functionings, finally and firmly blessed by family, state and church.

Twenty-some-odd years later. Our son, strong and sure, successfully soaring past significant firsts and seconds, fits and starts, and on his way. We, still suitably strong but sagging and in sight of sixty. Still, a love of life and laughter, and an envie for adventure, still lighting our eyes, still glowing in our hearts. Another trip to Hawaii? Why not!

We made our exitus at the big Maui airport. It was such an easy flight, and not expensive compared to our jaunts to see relatives down South or back East.

The big Airbus A321-neo was full but comfortable, and made the trip in 5.5h. No 110V outlets, just USB – a modern jet. Sad that it wasn’t a 737MAX. Windows were closed, mostly, and opening them admitted a lot of heat from the ocean below. Outside, looking south, we saw no ocean, just cloud decks bright with hot sunshine.

I looked at a big paper Maui map from a book. It showed roads concentrated on the west and north coasts.

I played a guessing game with myself. “It’ll be flat. Dry. We’ll be able to see mountains to our right and left as we drive down to Kihei. It may be green or brown, maybe brown, dry side. No trees, farmland (because flat). The road down will be a narrow 2 lane road with, at 10am when we land, no traffic. Kihei will be like Destin –lots of stores, hot, not very nice. Gas’ll be super expensive. The people: like Californians, mixed, more Asians than in Sac but not the Bay Area. Fast food joints on the presumed strip. All this was my guessing game.

We landed and right out of the jet door I felt the comfortable air, and in the airport hallways I noted with remembered pleasure their lack of walls, all open to the outdoors. Our drive down was as I had guessed, but also not: the road was 4 lanes, not two, and it was very congested in Kihei where it did become a two lane road. Gas prices were like ours. High for anyone else but normal for California. We drove to our condo, a VRBO rental, and found they had no record of us. Ugh. After some discussion and phone calls we located the owner and he gave us the entry code – but said to come after 3pm because they were cleaning it. This was not unexpected; we were early and we knew it.

Oh, the pleasure of shirtsleeve weather! The constant wind only served to render it more comfortable. The mountains, visible all around , were capped with clouds, but we enjoyed blue skies. We ate fish tacos at a nearby Coconut’s. Kihei Road is a beach street but it’s not like Destin where we have our family reunions. It’s lively, there are people on foot, and the Costco and Safeway are situated elsewhere.

I noticed road signs with pictures of sea creatures and words including the word “ahupua’a“. They were colorful and pretty but I had no idea what they meant. They seemed to be near streams or gullies and I guessed they were the stream names. But I found out that “ahupua’a” is actually a name for a unit of land from the old Hawaiian system of land tenure. There was a small shrine-like garden at a gully near us, with a sign next to it. I never determined what it was but there was always someone tending or visiting it.

We awoke and I took a short walk to get a coffee, that turned into a long walk to see Kihei. How else to get to know a place but on foot. An hour later I returned with fresh coffee berries in my shirt pocket, which I ate a couple of days later. A store owner in Kihei gave them to me along with a sample of his Kona-flavored shaved ice. I bought a basic coffee from there and returned home sipping it, passing people all holiday-happy and just enjoying the weather, not too hot, not too cold. Just right.

Then we set off to the south. And, minutes later, we came to the end of the road where we got out of the car and walked to the south end of the island. The unobstructed trade wind there could topple you over.

We passed many an old wall, made of black porous lava rock, what in Hawaiian is called, I believe, ‘a’a. I don’t know what these were like when in use. There was at least one heian, or Hawaiian temple — nothing more than a large rectangle of ‘a’a. The sharp rock bit into our shoes and, if we had to use them, our hands. We loved this three-mile hike with its beautiful views of the blue ocean and its stiff but cooling wind. We ate our lunch at the end then came back.

Our right rear tire had shown itself to have a slow leak. Even so, we got an early start the next day, after a quick breakfast of bread and butter from the local Safeway where we’d gone the previous evening. Our destination was the peak of Haleakala.

We wended our way up, stopping at a couple of overlooks but not staying for long until we reached the Visitor Center. There we got a map. And then we went all the way to the top. The wind was exhilarating and even at 50F it felt very cold. I wore my winter down jacket and hat and appreciated them.

The mountain rises very quickly from sea level…and you could see Kihei, “our” beach, from the top. There was not much obvious life – the “silversword” plant grows there and nowhere else. It had a lunar character to it.

We ate lunch up there then returned. What a fun road to drive on. It seemed exceptionally well-designed and well-maintained.

Next day we drove the famous Road to Hana.

Apologies to Basho. Our pilgrimage was but a short trip compared to his. And we had a car — albeit with a tire that wasn’t quite airtight. This was not the first twisty one-lane road we’d been on. California has lots of them, many in worse shape. But there was more traffic on this one. We stopped often, at the wayside parks and at some of the waterfalls. Our guidebook, Maui Revealed, noted that most people stop at the early falls and get tired of them by the time they get to the best ones. This seemed to be true, in fact. We saw big crowds of cars early on, and passed them by.

Several hours later we arrived in Hana, hardly a town at all — you’d pass through without noticing you’d been there. We holed up in our room right on the ocean – a brown-wicker-panelled den against the cold and night. Not that it was cold – although the wind was constant. It felt so cozy and safe and peaceful inside that you wanted to imagine it being inhospitable outside.

We walked around the town looking for dinner. We found Hasegawa’s Store, an ancient establishment, with cans that had rust on them and some old-looking produce. Prices varied wildly. We bought noodles, a garlic clove. We had butter from Kihei’s Safeway plus a few other things that Laura’d packed with ice in a burlap handbag that I got free at a trade show. That bag showed its worth: the food was still pretty good. We made spaghetti with a butter sauce that night for dinner. We asked the desk clerk if we could pick up fish and she said it was hard to get at that time.

I had this craving to cook some good Hawaiian fish, ono perhaps, like on our honeymoon. But it was not to be this trip.

Next day we set off for the south end of Haleakala Park, home to one of the most dramatic trails I’ve been on so far. But that’s for Part II.