I’m just back from the United States 50th state, a staggering 2,500 miles from the mainland. For the next week or two, I’ll pronounce it Ha-Vie-ee, like how it’s pronounced in the native Hawaiian language. A language, by the way, that only a few thousand people speak natively, no doubt due to the 91 years (1896-1987) where there was “strict physical punishment” for speaking it in schools. We humans are pretty damn uncool to each other sometimes.
Ruby and I travelled there (again!) with some wonderful family friends, Matt, Becky, and their kids, Monroe and Zoey. A nice reminder of how rare and lovely it is to have a situation where the kids are friends, and the adults are friends, and everyone travels together well.
We stayed in a villa at the Fairmont Kea Lani on Maui. I’ve been to Hawaii before, but this was my first time on Maui. It was a beautiful place to stay. A beautiful property and buildings right on the beach. The villa had two spacious rooms, a full kitchen, and a living room with a pull-out couch, on which all the kids slept together.
I’ve stayed at fancy resorts before where the staff uses special greetings with guests. But in Hawaii, naturally, it’s “Aloha.” Probably because, ya know, a real word, and basically the whole brand of Hawaii. But I just can’t shake the feeling that it’s kinda cheesy. Like, do Hawaii long-timers say Aloha to each other? Like it’s 5:21 am and a local is getting a coffee at the gas station in a local neighborhood, do they say Aloha to the cashier? Do they get an Aloha back? I kept meaning to ask this of locals, but kept forgetting. Or not having the exact 1.5 beers in me it takes to reach that perfect level of fun and charm to ask strangers semi-intimate questions.
If I were forced to guess, I’d guess Aloha is more of a thing they have to do at work with the tourists. Like your boss side-eyes you if you just say “Hello, good morning” instead. I never said it back, which felt weird. My goal was kind of a winkwink, it’s cool, you don’t have to do the cheesy tourist thing with me, I very promise I don’t care.
The first night, we got checked in and b-lined it to Monkeypod. We’d all been there before (at a different location) and have talked about it endlessly. It’s a micro-chain with 4 locations across two islands. It’s just: great. They make a Mai Tai with Honey Liliko‘i Foam on the top which I have fond memories, and it was every bit as good as I remembered. I had wings and mahi-mahi tacos. 10/10.
I never get the fish. I don’t like fish. I like specific little bits of seafood once in a while, but rarely cooked slabs of fish. So on that very first night, I decided I’d get fish every night on this trip. Maybe if I try enough of it, I’ll come around. It didn’t work. I struck out more times than I hit. But no big regrets. I tried.
Timing-wise, it wasn’t the absolute perfect time to be in Hawaii. But it was spring break for our school district, so C’est la Vie. Unprecedented rain with some flooding. A rather ironic situation after the horrible fires just a few years back. We were watching the weather and reading the news weeks in advance, but things didn’t seem dire enough to cancel the trip.
Honestly, some overcast weather isn’t the worst. None of us left with sunburns. It allows you to hang out outside all day, which you just can’t do on full-sun days, as it exhausts you.
The first full day turned out to be one of the rainiest, and we spent most of it at the pool anyway. I got us a cabana that turned out to be awfully useful. Being in the pool in the rain is no big deal, but lying out in chairs in the rain is annoying. And you certainly can’t crack open the laptop or read a paperback. I did both that day and was loving it.
We were trying to book an ATV tour for ourselves, and that was the one thing we just couldn’t get done. The rainstorms just weren’t letting it happen. Apparently, there was too much debris and whatnot on the trails; the places that offered these tours didn’t reopen until after we left.
We started most mornings at the breakfast buffet, included in our fancy villa booking. It was pretty crowded as they couldn’t seat people outside in the wet.
Then we’d hit the water without fail. A few days we did the ocean, but came to understand it really wasn’t a good time for that. Storms wash landcrap out to sea, making the water look muddy. Apparently, that’s worse than just looking ugly; it can harbor dangerous bacteria. The guy at 808 clothing told me that you’d have to be a real idiot to go out in it and that real Hawaiians would never. Last year, some lady had to have her legs sliced open to flush out the bacteria (or something? The guy was pretty weird). Also, later, our zip-line guide told us she loves to surf and wouldn’t go out because the “muddy” water is extra-attractive to sharks, since the low visibility helps them more than it helps their prey. Also later, we went to a surfing beach absolutely full of obviously local surfers. Turns out people don’t exactly speak for all people.
We did some knee-deep ocean stuff because it’s hard to resist.
One day we drove up to Paia, a northern coastal city with extreme charm. Unfortunately we got there when it was pouring pretty good, so we spent most of it hustling between store overhangs. You could really see how close to flooding everything can get, quickly.
We mostly just did a little shopping, walking around, and snacking in Paia, and I didn’t take many photos there. It was super cute though, highly recommended. I sorta regret not buying a Ukulele bass from the music shop there as I’ve been eyeing one up like forever, ever since going on a trip with Brad Frost where he brought his. Which reminds me: we had the kids to Uke lessons at the Fairmont and it was kind of a mess. Probably skip that.
The hostess at the bar we stopped at told us how to get down to the turtle beach nearby (Ho’okipa). It was really pouring when we got there, so we just parked for a while and watched the surfers. Really amazing to watch. Huge waves.
The turtle beach didn’t disappoint!
Hitting the pool was a daily event. The kids are old enough that we could shoo them out the door to the pool and not worry about it too much. Two of the kids had trackable wrist watches that could make calls, so that was extra convenient. There was a swim-up bar that I appreciated existing despite never getting around to using it. I did us the walk-up bar once, and the Zach Bryan impersonator bartended made me a cocktail despite it being almost an hour after it was supposed to close. He was being fawned over by two woman who wanted to make sure he had their number for later. I enjoyed that, naturally.
Ruby’s favorite experience, and perhaps mine too, was the zip lining we did. We chose Haleakalā Zipline Tours as, well, it was open, and it’s location high up mid-island looked cool. It was. The two charming guides helped make it fun, showering us with bird-facts and about their conservation efforts. Ruby had to get over some fears of zip lining at all, which she did and of course now loves it. I left thinking of other zip lining we could to back home and hoping to see a ʻAlalā (Hawaiian crow). We hit Black Rock Pizza on the way home, my only non-fish dinner.
The very last day, our friends moved on to another island, while we were hitting the redeye flight home. We had most of the day to kill, so we wandered around the property a bit, wandered some stores, then went to the local cinema to catch Project Hail Mary (fun!) and then off to the airport. Only a 5-hour flight back to Seattle compared to the 7-hour flight from Salt Lake City on the way there. We both slept a little and it went easy breezy.
