Maui Wow - Part 2: Birthdays a' Plenty
I found I didn’t sleep much on Maui. We’d get to bed around 10 or 11, and I’d routinely wake at 4 in the morning. Five hours just seemed to be enough, and for a week straight. It was a tad annoying, but the lone nice perk was the nighttime view from our lanai.
It turned out to be a good thing the sunset wasn’t visible from up here - it got us “out of the house,” so to speak. But we could watch the moon rise over the mountains just as the sun set, and that would start the myna birds in the trees far below our window to screeching something screechy you might expect from the loudest jungle rain forest .... times ten.
But by four in the morning when I’d wake up, the full moon would be following the sun into the sea, casting a streak of luminous moonglow across the ocean. As the dawn broke, the myna birds would erupt in another celestial cycle screech-fest. But the experience of the moon setting behind Bali Hai in the west just as the sun rose above the towering mountains in the east was a glorious feeling of nature perfection. The pattern continued for several days before the sun and moon got out of synch.
The stunning view from our room was perhaps the best thing about our hotel. The best of many. But it was not all good. There were a series of problems with housekeeping. Yet, as is typical with a Beaumark hotel stay, even those problems turned to our benefit.
Dead flowers in the room upon check-in? That got our daily “resort fee” waived for the entire stay. (It’s a $25 per day add-on to cover parking, gym access, bottled water delivery, internet service and the shuttle bus to Lahaina Town). That was a nice savings.
Delivery of a half dozen bath mats when we requested towels? Sorry about that. Enjoy a tray of macadamia nuts and chocolates and strawberries.
Turn-down service forgotten one night? That rates a tray of yummy cheeses and crackers, with a bottle of red wine.
Oh, and when management then “assures” us it will never happen again, but nonetheless does, that gets our favorite perk of the trip. Hey, turn down service is a nicety at most places, but at a beach resort - it’s really kind of important to have a set of fresh towels with the general freshening up they do at evening turn-down. So when housekeeping made management look like a tool by ignoring direct orders to not forget our turn down again, the hotel responded very nicely to our fourth or fifth housekeeping gaffe relayed very verbally by guests who obviously brook no nonsense.
We had requested a late check-out when we made the reservation back in December. Now they were saying they’d be unable to give us that, because the hotel was “sold out.” By the last day and the fourth problem, they’d offered to move us to a “mountain view” room at noon of our last day and let us stay there until 6 pm. That would free up our admittedly coveted deluxe ocean view room for a paying guest checking in. But when the fifth problem came down, management turned over all the cards and said we could stay in our own room as late as we wanted on our last day. Bwahaha, that was like another night free - as our flight home wasn’t till 9pm. Awesome.
Add to that the birthday cake and bottle of champagne they sent up when we first checked-in, and the second birthday cake they sent up on my actual birthday, and we were very satisfied with the care and constant feeding we got at the Westin Maui Resort & Spa. Tee Hee.
Oh, and the cakes were delicious. Oh, and we already had a full bar in the room, with makings for tropical hurricanes, margaritas and tequila sunrises. So the bottle of wine and two bottles of champagne were nearly overkill.
The last 3 days of our vacation were spent in an alcoholic haze at our tropical luxury hotel.
We rented out a lounger cabana one day, and spent it drinking and swimming and sunning and funning. It was a shaded comfy double lounge chair combo thingy, up on a stage next to the pool with a stunning view of the ocean a few yards away.
This was literally a stage they used for musicians on the 4th of July, but had 3 lounge cabanas on other days. The other two were booked, but we soon had the stage to ourselves. An extended family had the other two loungers (one too many to fit on them), but they were an unfriendly lot. Did not respond to our pleasant ‘hello’s,” and - whether it was pure homophobia or something else - promptly disappeared for the rest of the day. Fine with us.
We did nothing to homo scare them away. Stayed properly chaste that day, with tons of people and kiddies around. But we did get a little smoochy on the loungers the night before when I lured Beaumark to the cabana spot for a twilight preview.
He approved of the vibe and the added expense - - so the next day we were hedonistic, but strictly family-friendly. Still ... it was as decadent as we've been in a long while. The hotel brought us by a tray of fresh pineapple chunks to go with the cheese and crackers we brought down from the room. And for every cocktail we likewise brought from the room, they’d bring us two cups of ice water as cautionary chasers on a hot summer’s day. It was quite the pampering.
We read magazine stories to each other, enjoyed the splendid view, noshed on appetizers, drank like fish. Swam like fish, too. Because mostly, at this point, liquids were passing right through us in a matter of moments. I'm nearly embarrassed to admit, but not quite, that we'd routinely walk the five steps to the pool and pee in it. It was the kiddy area of the pool, so we were confident ours was not the only pee in the mix that day.
Most of the pools were connected though, and I suppose our pee and the pee of dozens of children flowed freely around the tropical wonderland of the Westin. You could swim from the Maui pool, all set up for sports with a badminton net and basketball hoop, through a waterfall channel, to the Lanai pool where the kiddy slide was, and then through a grotto tunnel with a fierce whirlpool cavern, to the quiet Kauai pool on the far side of the complex. To continue around, though, you'd have to get out, and climb the steps to the Oahu pool up above. This was the adult pool, which was very sedate. Everyone up there seemed to be standing in the pool reading on their Kindle or iPad. Um, electronics and water? Whatevs.
There's also a bar there, but we had no need to pay for drinks. And the jacuzzi there was so plain and ugly, we mistakenly swam through a water connection to a lovely rock pond that turned out to be an actual pond. Very weird. The real jacuzzi is just an ugly cement unit not even sunk into the deck. Really strange. The rest of the resort is so beautiful.
Anyway, from up here, you could descend to yet another pool and swim across to the stairs that led to the water slide. This slide was Not Kidding. It's twisty and turny and fast. The last two turns run you way up the sides of the flume like a human bobsled and, no matter how many times we rode it (which was lots), I could not comprehend what was going on in the final moments of plunge to the pool. After that last turn, it was just chaos and pandemonium until you hit the water. Wow.
From the splashdown pool, you could swim back to the sports pool - and the cycle could begin again. But, the cycle of booze and water through our bodies often led us no further than four steps into the kiddy pool. Oh well. It was a hedonistic day of pure luxury relaxation and play and drinking and peeing and sweetness.
On the Fourth of July, as I mentioned, they cleared that stage for a live band, put up a bounce house for the kids, and set up a huge grill area for a hot dog and hamburger cook-out next to the regular snack bar. Tons more balls and floaties were thrown into the pool, and it was a really fun day at the Westin Maui pool paradise.
We opted instead for a beach picnic, since we were at one of the nation's most fantastic beaches in the last of the 50 States added to these here Uniteds. Beaumark had made a big score the other day when he found a discarded beach umbrella just off Wailea Bay. It had one broken spoke, but was still quite serviceable. So we set up a big blanket on the sand, with a beautiful umbrella for shade, and enjoyed cocktails and chips on the beach as everyone celebrated the Fourth in the surf.
Boats were launching and landing on the sand, outrigger canoes and surfboards headed out to the waves. Oddly, though, at one point a helicopter came awfully close to shore. In Hawaii, there's none of that constant airplane advertising and 'copter traffic we're used to at So.Cal beaches. So the helicopter seemed a strange intruder, especially when it came right in over the Westin to buzz the place. I figured it was a tourist tour, and I guess the tropical wonderland of the Westin looks pretty cool from the air.
But it turns out it was a special Fourth of July helicopter drop of thousands of live orchid flowers all over the beach. So freaking cool.
Streams of pink and white orchids filled the air and then covered the sand when the helicopter flew back out to sea. That added a distinctly Hawaiian flavor to our Independence Day.
And it's too bad I wasn't wearing blue swim trunks, because that would have added another Independence Day touch. Ya see, it was kind of windy that morning there on the shore ...and our broken umbrella didn't survive long after all. It was soon tumbling down the beach, and our beautiful picnic site was ruined. Worse yet, with our precious shade gone, we belatedly tried applying spray-on sun-screen in the wind. That didn't work out too well - and I ended up with a strange pattern sunburn that left me looking like an explosion at the candy cane factory. Pale white boy with stripes and blotches of lobster red. Blue swim trunks would have completed the patriotic color scheme.
The Hawaiian sun is nothing short of brutal. So it was not too long before we decided to pack up our exposed picnic and leave. We sealed our dead umbrella in its ceremonial casings and prepared it lovingly for a burial at sea.
(Of course, we didn't really inter it in the ocean ... but dumped it unceremoniously in a nearby trash bin. It was a nice try. 20 blissful moments of shade.)
The two days of luxury relaxifying at the pool and on the beach and in the sun and out-of-doors were draining of energy and drenched in booze. And maybe that's why I got a little sour on more than one occasion, and got into a couple of minor fights with Beaumark ... but had one big blow up over nothing while fueling the Mustang, and another while driving when I got some really bad cell phone news about my condo remodel that was going on at the same time, two thousand miles away.
I'd like to blame it all on too much drinking, but I know too well the blame is all for my messed-up anger mismanagement issues - in other words, with ME.
Beaumark does not react well to bursts of anger. While I burn fast, with anger gone within a minute or two of expressing it wildly ... Beaumark takes a deep hurt to that, and will be sullenly upset for hours. You might think that would make us unsuitable companions, and you'd be right on that score. But he's learned to shrug off a lot of my upset, and I've learned to be cool and calm much more of the time.
But in Hawaii, I blew it ... and nearly ruined two of my three birthday dinners, including the one on my actual birthday (really bad news on my real birthday really badly affected me). We went into those dinners kinda cold and creepy - but ultimately the romance of the evenings and the exquisite dining experiences came through to brighten our mood considerably.
Birthday Dinner Number One was at Merriman's, on a rocky bluff above Kapalua Bay and overlooking the ocean. We had a wonderful table at the restaurant's edge, with a gorgeous view of the twilight hour.
And perhaps the most stunning sunset of our entire Hawaiian holiday.
(yeah, the photo’s a repeat - but you can see why I had to lead off this el jay series with it.)
The service was impeccable, the setting sublime, and the food delicious. A complimentary starter of some goat cheese, onion and passion fruit thingy hinted at the yumminess to come. I had a fantastic avocado soup that I may never forget, while Beaumark enjoyed an odd but splendid salad with dried watermelon and smoked ono. He followed that up with Five Spice Pan Roasted Jidori Chicken - and while we usually expect the “chicken” dish to be the restaurant’s boobie-prize, this was amazingly delicious and nom-nom. I had the “mix plate” of Crispy Day Boat Mahi Mahi (in a citrus ponzu), Prime Filet of Beef (with caramelized Maui onion and roasted Hamakua mushrooms), and Wok Charred Ahi with wasabi soy. A veritable yum fest. Cocktails with big pineapple slice garnish and our table being 70% outdoors to experience the most amazing nightfall completed the picture of fantasticalness and put us under a spell of island aloha. It was a very lovely and romantic evening.
Birthday Dinner No. 3 was at Mama’s Fish House in Paia. It’s just about the most famous restaurant on Maui, and Paia is one of the handful of really super charming little towns in the center of the island. We had a hard time finding the restaurant and were about to turn around in a dead end cull-de-sac when two girls asked if we were looking for Mama’s and guided us through a nondescript secret back door to the restaurant’s adorable wonderland. It was like stepping out of Dorothy’s house into technicolor.
On a palm-laden beachfront park, “Mama” has built a vast hobbit lodge into the side of a hill that’s filled with fantastical woodwork, oddball bric-a-brac, island knick-knacks, historical photographs, and polynesian artifacts of all kinds and natures, with room after room crammed with layer upon layer of detail. It’s the ultimate Tiki Room come to life, and a really amazing place to enjoy a unique meal.
But by stepping through the back door to this slice of paradise, we missed out (till after dinner) on the carefully designed walk down the hillside thru the beach park to the fish house. Paia is the gateway to the rain forest, so blue & white umbrellas were stationed for guests at both ends of the park walk. Very cute.
And when put into action, very beautiful. At one point during dinner, it was raining steadily ... and the sight of half a dozen couples strolling under umbrellas through the palm trees at the shore in the gloaming twilight was moody and marvelous.
Also marvelous was the custom-printed birthday greeting waiting at the table for me. Yay! Our wise-gal character of a waitress was also marvelous. My umbrella-adorned cocktail was pretty darn marvelous, too. The beautiful covers of the various menus were marvelous (we stole a copy of the drinks menu, but it was the too-large-to-conceal dinner menu that’s the real glory, the dessert menu no slouch either).
And the same printing press that churns out table cards (um, there were two other birthdays, and three honeymoons just in the dining room we sat in), also churned out new menus every day. That’s because the fish offered for your pallette at the Fish House at night was freshly caught that morning ... and the names and brief bio of the fishermen who caught every fish is printed on the menu every evening. That’s pretty rad right there.
So Beaumark had the Ahi and MahiMahi sauteed in Panang curry and coconut milk. I had a taste before he added the mango chutney and even more spicy optional condiments that came with. It was really delicious, and absolutely the first Indian spicy dish that I actually enjoyed the spice of. But I could never have made it through 6 more bites of panang hotness. My dish was a far more mild Lehi (pink snapper) sauteed in white wine and garlic butter. Mmmmmm, yum.
It was really interesting to eat a creature that was killed for my sustenance sometime after I woke up that morning by a man who’s name was told to me. I think that’s the closest I’ve ever been to hunting. Ok, that’s not very close ... but I felt more compelled than my mama ever made me feel to eat every last bite of my dinner. And I was so stuffed I could not eat more than a spoonful of my free birthday desert ... homemade blueberry leche ice cream (and foregoing ice cream is not something I’m known for).
Oh, and we also tried the homemade poi. I was curious about it afer having visited a Taro farm. It was not quite as awful as I’ve been led to believe, but pretty bad. Beaumark said it was the best poi he’d ever tasted, like it was mixed with apple butter or something. Even so, we had just a tiny spoonful each. To think the ancient Hawaiians practically survived on this stuff is mind-boggling.
After dinner, we wandered around the rest of the restaurant, and the grounds now that the rain had stopped. The ambience at Mama’s Fish House really can’t be beat. I’d like to explore it some more ... but at an hour’s drive from our hotel, I just don’t know if I’ll be back on future visits to Maui.
The middle Birthday Dinner was on the Fourth of July, and I had to pretend to be an Independence Day baby. That wasn’t too difficult. I’m used to having my birthday merged and mingled with Fourth of July celebrations, and it’s always been fantastic. (Oh, and I’m also used to informing folks that American Independence was really declared on July 2nd - my birthday - and only first announced to the citizens of Philadelphia on the 4th).
The place was a locals’ favorite joint called Kimo’s, on the shoreline of Historic Old Lahaina Town - the town just south of our Ka’anapali hotel - and the town where, it just so happens, the only professional 4th of July fireworks show on Maui would be happening that evening.
We took advantage of our (now free) shuttle bus service from the hotel to Lahaina Town, because I’d been drinking and I was likely to keep doing so. Lahaina Town is an adorable collection of old buildings from the boom days of Hawaiian island exploitation and colonialism. We walked along Front Street, where there were lots of bars and restaurants and tacky tourist shops, but it was all very pretty. Most of it in a western style, but one grand building so perfectly Hawaiian.
We stopped for a while at a sidewalk booth with big tropical birds. Parrots, McCaws and a very big Cocktaoo who was so much more brawny than Beaumark’s bird, Daphne. They all seemed very well trained, or perhaps cowed, by this white-bearded huckster who was all smooth and friendly to his marks, but looked as though he’d turn and slit your throat in an instant if you crossed him. After getting to know Daphne, I was awed by the calm quiet of these birds - especially the buff male cockatoo. Too bad Daphne’s too far away for a fix-up. This bird was hot.
We came to Kimo’s soon enough. It was a lively joint, really hopping on the 4th of July. They had a big deck on the main floor that jutted out to the ocean, and what looked to be a nice space with good views upstairs, too. But even though they had my birthday noted and my table request in hand, we were told the manager decreed there could be no deck seating requests honored this night. I kinda understood that, what with the crowds in town for the fireworks and festivities. But Mark was a little insistent they honor our request made far in advance. He was getting nowhere with the tough hostess - so this was one rare instance where my own methods of charm worked where Beaumark’s had failed. Basically, I kidded her on being a grand bitch of a dame, and suddenly we were like best friends. Bwahaha. Gay-boy double tag-teamed! We chatted for a while, and she tipped me off to come back a little earlier than our 6:30 reservations, because the first deck seatings were usually done with their meals by 6:15 and that’s when tables there were likely to clear up and be available.
Ok, then.
We had some time to kill, so we wandered through Lahaina to its main claim to fame, the giant Banyan tree in the central square that takes up an entire city block.
There were some fun characters hanging out there, including some kids swinging Tarzan-like on vines, the local scold who complained the tree was not to be climbed on (um, armies of little kids were climbing all over it), and a guy who was doling out information tidbits in hopes of getting tips from tourists.
We didn’t oblige him, but learned a fascinating fact while he tried to charm an Australian group out of some banknotes. Seems the Banyan tree is the third largest living thing in the world, and was once far larger - covering some three square miles before eventually being cut back to fit in the town square.
For those of you who don’t know how Banyan trees operate, they send out vertical shoots from existing branches that reach to the ground and implant themselves, growing to be separate trunks - but all part of the same tree - and the complex can extend endlessly until checked.
As we strolled around the harbor, there were bands with live music and contests of skill for the local day of celebrations. Lots of people were gathering at a breakwater near the north end of the harbor, so I figured this was where the fireworks would be. There was plenty of space, so we planned to head back here if our dinner table didn’t have a good view.
We never did make it back to Kimo’s before our actual reservation time, and I was glad to find Tough Hostess Cookie was concerned about me! With a wink, she sent us upstairs to a wonderful ocean view table on the upper deck. It wasn’t all outdoors like the lower deck, but the view was fine - and likely the dark shades over the windows would be raised after the sun set, which would be happening pretty soon. Better yet, we discovered the fireworks would be set off from a barge in the harbor Right Outside the Restaurant. Hahaha!
Oh, and best of all, just before sunset, the upper deck went through an amazing transformation. Yes, people came by and raised the sun shades on the windows, and then a guy came through and lit all the tiki torches along the railing where we were sitting ... and then the entire roof over the deck was mechanically retracted - and we were suddenly outdoors in a tiki paradise above the sea about to view another amazing Hawaiian sunset! .... followed by fireworks. ;-)
Our waitress was as nice as could be, but she steered us wrong by recommending the clam chowder. Maybe we were foolish to even think chowder could be good this far removed from New England, but I - for one - was a sucker for anything fish on Hawaii. I was wrong. But the meal improved with our main courses. Beaumark had the Koloa plum-glazed pork ribs (a specialty on Kauai, a few islands away). It was messy goodness. I stuck with the fish, and was rewarded for my tenacity with an absolutely scrumptious Monchong - baked “Kimo style” with a roasted garlic, basil and sweet lemon glaze.
There were several options for preparing any fish you chose. But I figured go “Kimo style” when at Kimo’s, right? The correct answer is, Yes! It was seriously the most delicious fish course I have ever enjoyed. The Monchong was great, but it was really the Kimoizing that did the trick. You could do a filet of boot sole Kimo Style and it would turn out delicious!
For my birthday, I got a rousing chorus of a special Kimo’s birthday song by a gaggle of wait staff, and a glorious mud pie with a candle.
And fireworks!!!
After the pyro show, a live band started in to play downstairs ... and we listened while enjoying a post-dinner cocktail before heading out again. The mood was festive in Lahaina Town and we had a fun walk around.
But back at the shuttle bus stop, things were crazy. Lines to get on the busses stretched out forever, but none of the busses in the huge parking lot - or cars for that matter - were able to move an inch. Traffic in Lahaina was off the hook, and no one was able to so much as exit the parking lot. Considering how many trips our hotel’s lone Shuttle would need to transport all the people in line, the wait would have been well over two hours.
We tried to board a bus that was headed for the hotel next to ours, but they wouldn’t let us. That trick cost us our place in the endless line for our own bus - so I figured it would take less time to walk the 2 miles back to our hotel - disregarding, to Beaumark’s dismay, the dangers of that walk with no real sidewalk, no streetlights, and 4th of July drivers on the road. But we walked no further than the main highway, and called a cab.
Props to the people who gave us a taxi number when the one I had the foresight to put in my phone didn’t work. But why they turned all lame in not letting us share their cab back to our same hotel I’ll never know. It was a bit of a wait for the second cab to come, but we were glad to get a cab out of crazy Lahaina Town at all. As it turned out, the cab picked us up from the same parking lot I would have used had I just driven to Lahaina. My decision to use the “free” shuttle cost me fifteen bucks.
But it was grand to be home. Fourth of July was fun. My birthdays, all of them, were fun. Resort Life at the Resort was appropriately vacationistic. But I didn’t come to Hawaii for the sun and surf alone. I came for Adventure! TM.
And that’s what’s up next ....
It turned out to be a good thing the sunset wasn’t visible from up here - it got us “out of the house,” so to speak. But we could watch the moon rise over the mountains just as the sun set, and that would start the myna birds in the trees far below our window to screeching something screechy you might expect from the loudest jungle rain forest .... times ten.
But by four in the morning when I’d wake up, the full moon would be following the sun into the sea, casting a streak of luminous moonglow across the ocean. As the dawn broke, the myna birds would erupt in another celestial cycle screech-fest. But the experience of the moon setting behind Bali Hai in the west just as the sun rose above the towering mountains in the east was a glorious feeling of nature perfection. The pattern continued for several days before the sun and moon got out of synch.
The stunning view from our room was perhaps the best thing about our hotel. The best of many. But it was not all good. There were a series of problems with housekeeping. Yet, as is typical with a Beaumark hotel stay, even those problems turned to our benefit.
Dead flowers in the room upon check-in? That got our daily “resort fee” waived for the entire stay. (It’s a $25 per day add-on to cover parking, gym access, bottled water delivery, internet service and the shuttle bus to Lahaina Town). That was a nice savings.
Delivery of a half dozen bath mats when we requested towels? Sorry about that. Enjoy a tray of macadamia nuts and chocolates and strawberries.
Turn-down service forgotten one night? That rates a tray of yummy cheeses and crackers, with a bottle of red wine.
Oh, and when management then “assures” us it will never happen again, but nonetheless does, that gets our favorite perk of the trip. Hey, turn down service is a nicety at most places, but at a beach resort - it’s really kind of important to have a set of fresh towels with the general freshening up they do at evening turn-down. So when housekeeping made management look like a tool by ignoring direct orders to not forget our turn down again, the hotel responded very nicely to our fourth or fifth housekeeping gaffe relayed very verbally by guests who obviously brook no nonsense.
We had requested a late check-out when we made the reservation back in December. Now they were saying they’d be unable to give us that, because the hotel was “sold out.” By the last day and the fourth problem, they’d offered to move us to a “mountain view” room at noon of our last day and let us stay there until 6 pm. That would free up our admittedly coveted deluxe ocean view room for a paying guest checking in. But when the fifth problem came down, management turned over all the cards and said we could stay in our own room as late as we wanted on our last day. Bwahaha, that was like another night free - as our flight home wasn’t till 9pm. Awesome.
Add to that the birthday cake and bottle of champagne they sent up when we first checked-in, and the second birthday cake they sent up on my actual birthday, and we were very satisfied with the care and constant feeding we got at the Westin Maui Resort & Spa. Tee Hee.
Oh, and the cakes were delicious. Oh, and we already had a full bar in the room, with makings for tropical hurricanes, margaritas and tequila sunrises. So the bottle of wine and two bottles of champagne were nearly overkill.
The last 3 days of our vacation were spent in an alcoholic haze at our tropical luxury hotel.
We rented out a lounger cabana one day, and spent it drinking and swimming and sunning and funning. It was a shaded comfy double lounge chair combo thingy, up on a stage next to the pool with a stunning view of the ocean a few yards away.
This was literally a stage they used for musicians on the 4th of July, but had 3 lounge cabanas on other days. The other two were booked, but we soon had the stage to ourselves. An extended family had the other two loungers (one too many to fit on them), but they were an unfriendly lot. Did not respond to our pleasant ‘hello’s,” and - whether it was pure homophobia or something else - promptly disappeared for the rest of the day. Fine with us.
We did nothing to homo scare them away. Stayed properly chaste that day, with tons of people and kiddies around. But we did get a little smoochy on the loungers the night before when I lured Beaumark to the cabana spot for a twilight preview.
He approved of the vibe and the added expense - - so the next day we were hedonistic, but strictly family-friendly. Still ... it was as decadent as we've been in a long while. The hotel brought us by a tray of fresh pineapple chunks to go with the cheese and crackers we brought down from the room. And for every cocktail we likewise brought from the room, they’d bring us two cups of ice water as cautionary chasers on a hot summer’s day. It was quite the pampering.
We read magazine stories to each other, enjoyed the splendid view, noshed on appetizers, drank like fish. Swam like fish, too. Because mostly, at this point, liquids were passing right through us in a matter of moments. I'm nearly embarrassed to admit, but not quite, that we'd routinely walk the five steps to the pool and pee in it. It was the kiddy area of the pool, so we were confident ours was not the only pee in the mix that day.
Most of the pools were connected though, and I suppose our pee and the pee of dozens of children flowed freely around the tropical wonderland of the Westin. You could swim from the Maui pool, all set up for sports with a badminton net and basketball hoop, through a waterfall channel, to the Lanai pool where the kiddy slide was, and then through a grotto tunnel with a fierce whirlpool cavern, to the quiet Kauai pool on the far side of the complex. To continue around, though, you'd have to get out, and climb the steps to the Oahu pool up above. This was the adult pool, which was very sedate. Everyone up there seemed to be standing in the pool reading on their Kindle or iPad. Um, electronics and water? Whatevs.
There's also a bar there, but we had no need to pay for drinks. And the jacuzzi there was so plain and ugly, we mistakenly swam through a water connection to a lovely rock pond that turned out to be an actual pond. Very weird. The real jacuzzi is just an ugly cement unit not even sunk into the deck. Really strange. The rest of the resort is so beautiful.
Anyway, from up here, you could descend to yet another pool and swim across to the stairs that led to the water slide. This slide was Not Kidding. It's twisty and turny and fast. The last two turns run you way up the sides of the flume like a human bobsled and, no matter how many times we rode it (which was lots), I could not comprehend what was going on in the final moments of plunge to the pool. After that last turn, it was just chaos and pandemonium until you hit the water. Wow.
From the splashdown pool, you could swim back to the sports pool - and the cycle could begin again. But, the cycle of booze and water through our bodies often led us no further than four steps into the kiddy pool. Oh well. It was a hedonistic day of pure luxury relaxation and play and drinking and peeing and sweetness.
On the Fourth of July, as I mentioned, they cleared that stage for a live band, put up a bounce house for the kids, and set up a huge grill area for a hot dog and hamburger cook-out next to the regular snack bar. Tons more balls and floaties were thrown into the pool, and it was a really fun day at the Westin Maui pool paradise.
We opted instead for a beach picnic, since we were at one of the nation's most fantastic beaches in the last of the 50 States added to these here Uniteds. Beaumark had made a big score the other day when he found a discarded beach umbrella just off Wailea Bay. It had one broken spoke, but was still quite serviceable. So we set up a big blanket on the sand, with a beautiful umbrella for shade, and enjoyed cocktails and chips on the beach as everyone celebrated the Fourth in the surf.
Boats were launching and landing on the sand, outrigger canoes and surfboards headed out to the waves. Oddly, though, at one point a helicopter came awfully close to shore. In Hawaii, there's none of that constant airplane advertising and 'copter traffic we're used to at So.Cal beaches. So the helicopter seemed a strange intruder, especially when it came right in over the Westin to buzz the place. I figured it was a tourist tour, and I guess the tropical wonderland of the Westin looks pretty cool from the air.
But it turns out it was a special Fourth of July helicopter drop of thousands of live orchid flowers all over the beach. So freaking cool.
Streams of pink and white orchids filled the air and then covered the sand when the helicopter flew back out to sea. That added a distinctly Hawaiian flavor to our Independence Day.
And it's too bad I wasn't wearing blue swim trunks, because that would have added another Independence Day touch. Ya see, it was kind of windy that morning there on the shore ...and our broken umbrella didn't survive long after all. It was soon tumbling down the beach, and our beautiful picnic site was ruined. Worse yet, with our precious shade gone, we belatedly tried applying spray-on sun-screen in the wind. That didn't work out too well - and I ended up with a strange pattern sunburn that left me looking like an explosion at the candy cane factory. Pale white boy with stripes and blotches of lobster red. Blue swim trunks would have completed the patriotic color scheme.
The Hawaiian sun is nothing short of brutal. So it was not too long before we decided to pack up our exposed picnic and leave. We sealed our dead umbrella in its ceremonial casings and prepared it lovingly for a burial at sea.
(Of course, we didn't really inter it in the ocean ... but dumped it unceremoniously in a nearby trash bin. It was a nice try. 20 blissful moments of shade.)
The two days of luxury relaxifying at the pool and on the beach and in the sun and out-of-doors were draining of energy and drenched in booze. And maybe that's why I got a little sour on more than one occasion, and got into a couple of minor fights with Beaumark ... but had one big blow up over nothing while fueling the Mustang, and another while driving when I got some really bad cell phone news about my condo remodel that was going on at the same time, two thousand miles away.
I'd like to blame it all on too much drinking, but I know too well the blame is all for my messed-up anger mismanagement issues - in other words, with ME.
Beaumark does not react well to bursts of anger. While I burn fast, with anger gone within a minute or two of expressing it wildly ... Beaumark takes a deep hurt to that, and will be sullenly upset for hours. You might think that would make us unsuitable companions, and you'd be right on that score. But he's learned to shrug off a lot of my upset, and I've learned to be cool and calm much more of the time.
But in Hawaii, I blew it ... and nearly ruined two of my three birthday dinners, including the one on my actual birthday (really bad news on my real birthday really badly affected me). We went into those dinners kinda cold and creepy - but ultimately the romance of the evenings and the exquisite dining experiences came through to brighten our mood considerably.
Birthday Dinner Number One was at Merriman's, on a rocky bluff above Kapalua Bay and overlooking the ocean. We had a wonderful table at the restaurant's edge, with a gorgeous view of the twilight hour.
And perhaps the most stunning sunset of our entire Hawaiian holiday.
(yeah, the photo’s a repeat - but you can see why I had to lead off this el jay series with it.)
The service was impeccable, the setting sublime, and the food delicious. A complimentary starter of some goat cheese, onion and passion fruit thingy hinted at the yumminess to come. I had a fantastic avocado soup that I may never forget, while Beaumark enjoyed an odd but splendid salad with dried watermelon and smoked ono. He followed that up with Five Spice Pan Roasted Jidori Chicken - and while we usually expect the “chicken” dish to be the restaurant’s boobie-prize, this was amazingly delicious and nom-nom. I had the “mix plate” of Crispy Day Boat Mahi Mahi (in a citrus ponzu), Prime Filet of Beef (with caramelized Maui onion and roasted Hamakua mushrooms), and Wok Charred Ahi with wasabi soy. A veritable yum fest. Cocktails with big pineapple slice garnish and our table being 70% outdoors to experience the most amazing nightfall completed the picture of fantasticalness and put us under a spell of island aloha. It was a very lovely and romantic evening.
Birthday Dinner No. 3 was at Mama’s Fish House in Paia. It’s just about the most famous restaurant on Maui, and Paia is one of the handful of really super charming little towns in the center of the island. We had a hard time finding the restaurant and were about to turn around in a dead end cull-de-sac when two girls asked if we were looking for Mama’s and guided us through a nondescript secret back door to the restaurant’s adorable wonderland. It was like stepping out of Dorothy’s house into technicolor.
On a palm-laden beachfront park, “Mama” has built a vast hobbit lodge into the side of a hill that’s filled with fantastical woodwork, oddball bric-a-brac, island knick-knacks, historical photographs, and polynesian artifacts of all kinds and natures, with room after room crammed with layer upon layer of detail. It’s the ultimate Tiki Room come to life, and a really amazing place to enjoy a unique meal.
But by stepping through the back door to this slice of paradise, we missed out (till after dinner) on the carefully designed walk down the hillside thru the beach park to the fish house. Paia is the gateway to the rain forest, so blue & white umbrellas were stationed for guests at both ends of the park walk. Very cute.
And when put into action, very beautiful. At one point during dinner, it was raining steadily ... and the sight of half a dozen couples strolling under umbrellas through the palm trees at the shore in the gloaming twilight was moody and marvelous.
Also marvelous was the custom-printed birthday greeting waiting at the table for me. Yay! Our wise-gal character of a waitress was also marvelous. My umbrella-adorned cocktail was pretty darn marvelous, too. The beautiful covers of the various menus were marvelous (we stole a copy of the drinks menu, but it was the too-large-to-conceal dinner menu that’s the real glory, the dessert menu no slouch either).
And the same printing press that churns out table cards (um, there were two other birthdays, and three honeymoons just in the dining room we sat in), also churned out new menus every day. That’s because the fish offered for your pallette at the Fish House at night was freshly caught that morning ... and the names and brief bio of the fishermen who caught every fish is printed on the menu every evening. That’s pretty rad right there.
So Beaumark had the Ahi and MahiMahi sauteed in Panang curry and coconut milk. I had a taste before he added the mango chutney and even more spicy optional condiments that came with. It was really delicious, and absolutely the first Indian spicy dish that I actually enjoyed the spice of. But I could never have made it through 6 more bites of panang hotness. My dish was a far more mild Lehi (pink snapper) sauteed in white wine and garlic butter. Mmmmmm, yum.
It was really interesting to eat a creature that was killed for my sustenance sometime after I woke up that morning by a man who’s name was told to me. I think that’s the closest I’ve ever been to hunting. Ok, that’s not very close ... but I felt more compelled than my mama ever made me feel to eat every last bite of my dinner. And I was so stuffed I could not eat more than a spoonful of my free birthday desert ... homemade blueberry leche ice cream (and foregoing ice cream is not something I’m known for).
Oh, and we also tried the homemade poi. I was curious about it afer having visited a Taro farm. It was not quite as awful as I’ve been led to believe, but pretty bad. Beaumark said it was the best poi he’d ever tasted, like it was mixed with apple butter or something. Even so, we had just a tiny spoonful each. To think the ancient Hawaiians practically survived on this stuff is mind-boggling.
After dinner, we wandered around the rest of the restaurant, and the grounds now that the rain had stopped. The ambience at Mama’s Fish House really can’t be beat. I’d like to explore it some more ... but at an hour’s drive from our hotel, I just don’t know if I’ll be back on future visits to Maui.
The middle Birthday Dinner was on the Fourth of July, and I had to pretend to be an Independence Day baby. That wasn’t too difficult. I’m used to having my birthday merged and mingled with Fourth of July celebrations, and it’s always been fantastic. (Oh, and I’m also used to informing folks that American Independence was really declared on July 2nd - my birthday - and only first announced to the citizens of Philadelphia on the 4th).
The place was a locals’ favorite joint called Kimo’s, on the shoreline of Historic Old Lahaina Town - the town just south of our Ka’anapali hotel - and the town where, it just so happens, the only professional 4th of July fireworks show on Maui would be happening that evening.
We took advantage of our (now free) shuttle bus service from the hotel to Lahaina Town, because I’d been drinking and I was likely to keep doing so. Lahaina Town is an adorable collection of old buildings from the boom days of Hawaiian island exploitation and colonialism. We walked along Front Street, where there were lots of bars and restaurants and tacky tourist shops, but it was all very pretty. Most of it in a western style, but one grand building so perfectly Hawaiian.
We stopped for a while at a sidewalk booth with big tropical birds. Parrots, McCaws and a very big Cocktaoo who was so much more brawny than Beaumark’s bird, Daphne. They all seemed very well trained, or perhaps cowed, by this white-bearded huckster who was all smooth and friendly to his marks, but looked as though he’d turn and slit your throat in an instant if you crossed him. After getting to know Daphne, I was awed by the calm quiet of these birds - especially the buff male cockatoo. Too bad Daphne’s too far away for a fix-up. This bird was hot.
We came to Kimo’s soon enough. It was a lively joint, really hopping on the 4th of July. They had a big deck on the main floor that jutted out to the ocean, and what looked to be a nice space with good views upstairs, too. But even though they had my birthday noted and my table request in hand, we were told the manager decreed there could be no deck seating requests honored this night. I kinda understood that, what with the crowds in town for the fireworks and festivities. But Mark was a little insistent they honor our request made far in advance. He was getting nowhere with the tough hostess - so this was one rare instance where my own methods of charm worked where Beaumark’s had failed. Basically, I kidded her on being a grand bitch of a dame, and suddenly we were like best friends. Bwahaha. Gay-boy double tag-teamed! We chatted for a while, and she tipped me off to come back a little earlier than our 6:30 reservations, because the first deck seatings were usually done with their meals by 6:15 and that’s when tables there were likely to clear up and be available.
Ok, then.
We had some time to kill, so we wandered through Lahaina to its main claim to fame, the giant Banyan tree in the central square that takes up an entire city block.
There were some fun characters hanging out there, including some kids swinging Tarzan-like on vines, the local scold who complained the tree was not to be climbed on (um, armies of little kids were climbing all over it), and a guy who was doling out information tidbits in hopes of getting tips from tourists.
We didn’t oblige him, but learned a fascinating fact while he tried to charm an Australian group out of some banknotes. Seems the Banyan tree is the third largest living thing in the world, and was once far larger - covering some three square miles before eventually being cut back to fit in the town square.
For those of you who don’t know how Banyan trees operate, they send out vertical shoots from existing branches that reach to the ground and implant themselves, growing to be separate trunks - but all part of the same tree - and the complex can extend endlessly until checked.
As we strolled around the harbor, there were bands with live music and contests of skill for the local day of celebrations. Lots of people were gathering at a breakwater near the north end of the harbor, so I figured this was where the fireworks would be. There was plenty of space, so we planned to head back here if our dinner table didn’t have a good view.
We never did make it back to Kimo’s before our actual reservation time, and I was glad to find Tough Hostess Cookie was concerned about me! With a wink, she sent us upstairs to a wonderful ocean view table on the upper deck. It wasn’t all outdoors like the lower deck, but the view was fine - and likely the dark shades over the windows would be raised after the sun set, which would be happening pretty soon. Better yet, we discovered the fireworks would be set off from a barge in the harbor Right Outside the Restaurant. Hahaha!
Oh, and best of all, just before sunset, the upper deck went through an amazing transformation. Yes, people came by and raised the sun shades on the windows, and then a guy came through and lit all the tiki torches along the railing where we were sitting ... and then the entire roof over the deck was mechanically retracted - and we were suddenly outdoors in a tiki paradise above the sea about to view another amazing Hawaiian sunset! .... followed by fireworks. ;-)
Our waitress was as nice as could be, but she steered us wrong by recommending the clam chowder. Maybe we were foolish to even think chowder could be good this far removed from New England, but I - for one - was a sucker for anything fish on Hawaii. I was wrong. But the meal improved with our main courses. Beaumark had the Koloa plum-glazed pork ribs (a specialty on Kauai, a few islands away). It was messy goodness. I stuck with the fish, and was rewarded for my tenacity with an absolutely scrumptious Monchong - baked “Kimo style” with a roasted garlic, basil and sweet lemon glaze.
There were several options for preparing any fish you chose. But I figured go “Kimo style” when at Kimo’s, right? The correct answer is, Yes! It was seriously the most delicious fish course I have ever enjoyed. The Monchong was great, but it was really the Kimoizing that did the trick. You could do a filet of boot sole Kimo Style and it would turn out delicious!
For my birthday, I got a rousing chorus of a special Kimo’s birthday song by a gaggle of wait staff, and a glorious mud pie with a candle.
And fireworks!!!
After the pyro show, a live band started in to play downstairs ... and we listened while enjoying a post-dinner cocktail before heading out again. The mood was festive in Lahaina Town and we had a fun walk around.
But back at the shuttle bus stop, things were crazy. Lines to get on the busses stretched out forever, but none of the busses in the huge parking lot - or cars for that matter - were able to move an inch. Traffic in Lahaina was off the hook, and no one was able to so much as exit the parking lot. Considering how many trips our hotel’s lone Shuttle would need to transport all the people in line, the wait would have been well over two hours.
We tried to board a bus that was headed for the hotel next to ours, but they wouldn’t let us. That trick cost us our place in the endless line for our own bus - so I figured it would take less time to walk the 2 miles back to our hotel - disregarding, to Beaumark’s dismay, the dangers of that walk with no real sidewalk, no streetlights, and 4th of July drivers on the road. But we walked no further than the main highway, and called a cab.
Props to the people who gave us a taxi number when the one I had the foresight to put in my phone didn’t work. But why they turned all lame in not letting us share their cab back to our same hotel I’ll never know. It was a bit of a wait for the second cab to come, but we were glad to get a cab out of crazy Lahaina Town at all. As it turned out, the cab picked us up from the same parking lot I would have used had I just driven to Lahaina. My decision to use the “free” shuttle cost me fifteen bucks.
But it was grand to be home. Fourth of July was fun. My birthdays, all of them, were fun. Resort Life at the Resort was appropriately vacationistic. But I didn’t come to Hawaii for the sun and surf alone. I came for Adventure! TM.
And that’s what’s up next ....