Aren’t vacations fun? You spend a week running around like crazy, getting ready to spend a week relaxing. Then when you get home, you spend another frantic week catching up on everything that didn’t get done while you were on vacation.
Sometimes vacations seem like a net relaxation loss to Laurel and me. But that doesn’t stop us from meandering off to Maui most every year. As we did yesterday.
After a semi-sleepless night spent worrying about what we’d forgotten to pack, we headed up to the Portland airport at the not so jolly time of 6:45 am. With terrific timing, this got us to I-205 just when everybody in the metro area was driving off to work. We got to follow them for quite a few dreadfully maddening snails-pace freeway miles.
How do you stand it, Portlanders? If you do this every day, why aren’t you as crazy as Los Angeles commuters? Judging by the behavior of our fellow I-205ers, you probably are. Nonetheless, we made it to the Hawaiian Airlines ticket counter with time to spare. Which I promptly spent at my traditional first vacation stop, the airport Powell’s Books.
Then, on to Maui. After waiting an eternity for a National Car Rental pickup, I found Laurel and our bags waiting at curbside. Already missing our dog, she was thrilled that a drug-sniffing Beagle had given our checked luggage some close attention as it came off the carousel. For some reason she said that the dog seemed most interested in my boogie board.
Sorry, my canine friend, you were about thirty-seven years too late.
After making our obligatory stop at the Kahului natural food store to stock up on organic vegetarian supplies for our Napili Shores condo and enrich the local economy with legal green stuff, for the second time in a day we got to spend a lot of time staring at the rear bumper of cars slowly creeping along the highway.
Except now the highway bordered the warm Pacific, rather than southeast Portland. Big difference. Still, when you’ve just sat on an airplane for almost six hours, it isn’t much fun to crawl bumper to bumper into Lahaina.
How do you stand it, West Maui locals? Don’t you sometimes feel like kicking every tourist off of your island so you could drive faster than 20 mph? I did yesterday, conveniently forgetting that I was one of the potential kickees.
Once we set foot on the beach, however, all of the day’s maddening moments were forgotten. Here'e Laurel enjoying the powerful amnesiac effects of yesterday’s Maui sunset.
Today’s wasn't too shabby either.
It isn’t 100% paradise here, though. This afternoon I went to Napili Beach by myself while Laurel was shopping. I settled down on my mat for some reading, swimming, and people watching.
The people watching, a.k.a. (for me) babe watching, isn’t so hot on Napili Bay this time of year. Mostly out of shape family types and older folks. So when I saw a youngish guy and his shapely thong-clad girlfriend walking toward my end of the beach I channeled all of my psychic energies into a silent plea of “Sit down…here.”
And they did! Just ten feet or so to my left. There is a God. Albeit one with a sense of humor. For the guy laid down to the right of the girl.
Which meant that between me and the girl’s eminently attractive bikini-clad breasts was the guy’s head. And when they rolled over, between me and the girl’s eminently attractive thong-clad butt was the guy’s own unappealing rear end.
Trouble in paradise. I had to keep subtly shifting around quite a bit to improve my babe-watching angles, burning up calories that I had planned to spend bobbing around on my boogie board.
Well, you probably aren’t feeling sorry for me. But you should. It’s tough beaching it on Maui. Tomorrow I’ll be back hard at work on my mat. Say a “more thongs” prayer for me.
Dear Brian,
Poor you. Robert Paul Howard
Posted by: Robert Paul bHoward | May 05, 2006 at 11:43 AM
Even on our small island of St. Lucia, there is bumper to bumper traffic. You just need to go somewhere where there are no cars--say Bermuda.
Posted by: Carol Ann | May 05, 2006 at 02:52 PM