OK, first and foremost, this isn’t going to be an in-depth, expert, evaluation of road cycling on Maui … it’s just my impressions and opinions. If you want something more, I suggest you take a look at Tom Meloy’s very nice writeup from a few years ago.
On a recent vacation to Maui, I decided to rent a bike and try some cycling. I did, and here’s what I found…
As many of you probably know … I’m a shutterbug … I put myself in the ‘serious amateur’ category.
My camera of choice is a Canon 7D … and I have two lenses currently. A Canon 70-300 zoom and the lens that came with the camera and a Canon 28-135 “kit” lens. Both have in lens image stabilization and are quite adequate for my uses.
That said … I’ve heard great things about Canon’s “L” line of lenses. These are higher end lenses that have better quality optics.
For my current trip to Hawaii, I planned on taking a lot of pictures of surfers and whales (it is whale season in Maui). In the past, I’ve had reasonably good results with my current lenses, but wanted to try out some a higher end lens.
A bit of digging around on the internet and I found LensRentals.com … they had a wide range of lenses available and, as an added bonus, they would ship the lens you rented direct to your destination.
Ha! I’ll bet you thought the Mauipocolypse odyssey was over?
Not by a long shot!
I’m sure you all heard about the tsunami that hit Hawaii.
Well, this threw the entire air traffic transportation system for a loop … at least in relation to travel to & from the islands.
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Well this is a fine capper for the vacation … at 6am this morning we were woken up to the sound of the Tsunami alert siren.
The earth quake in Chile caused a tsunami wave that’s going to hit the Hawiian islands. Current estimates are that a 6′ to 8′ wave will be here around 11am local time.
We’re currently camped out at the Kiehi Luthern Church parking lot, well away from the shore. Lots of people with the same idea too.
Hopefully our flight won’t be delayed. But, just in case, I’m glad we brought extra supplies.
Kind of blows our original plans for the day … We were going to head to the up country and Halleakela national park, before going to the airport. Looks like were staying put for the time being.
No trip to Hawaii would be complete without a Luau … and this trip is no different.
Ginny and I went to see the Wailea Marriott’s Luau titled Honua’ula.
We’ve been to a number of luau’s in the past … some good, some not so good.
We’ve actually been to this Luau in the past … and it’s totally different than before. Much better and, in my opinion, one of the best we’ve been to.
We went to see the Slack Key Guitar concert again … this is a very enjoyable concert series that we’ve been attending for a number of years.
This concert featured ‘Uncle’ Richard Hoopii, who is a a leo kiekie (falsetto) singer.
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Off we go on another adventure.
Well, ‘adventure’ is a strong word … as we’re going back to Maui … an island we’ve been to a number of times.
None the less … a much needed, and well deserved, vacation.
Unfortunately, the trip didn’t start out that well … a series of very bad airline events gave a somewhat bad flavor to the first day.
Today was our first full day on Maui … I woke up really early … around 2am Hawaiian time (due to the time change). Dinked around with the computer a bit (of course I brought it along). Around 4am I made coffee for Ginny and I and we watched the day break.
Ginny and I went for a walk on the beach with our cameras … nothing amazing to see though. Ginny decided to go to church, so I was on my own for a few hours. I sent for another walk on the beach with my camera … tried to get some longish exposure shots of the waves breaking over rocks. I haven’t downloaded those pictures though … so I’m not sure how they came out.
After Ginny got back we went snorkeling … the water was kind of rough by then, but we gave it a go. It was kind of cloudy in the water, but not too bad. I managed to get a really cool video of a turtle though.
(sidenote: A bit of an observation … this is the first video I’ve uploaded to YouTube … and I noticed that, in a lot of the similar videos (of turtles in Maui), the videographers got REALLY close to the animal. This is expressly forbidden by the Fish & Wildlife authorities in the islands.)
After snorkeling, and rinsing off, we wandered around Kihei and grabbed lunch. Then it was back to the condo for some serious relaxing.
For dinner we’re going to try and grill some fresh tuna we bought at Safeway yesterday.
Well, here we are again on a plane going to Maui. It’s Ginny’s birthday in about a week and we’re going to celebrate. I’m not going to say how old she’s going to be, but I’ll give you a hint it starts with 5 and ends with 0. You do the math.
Our flight was entirely reasonable leaving at 10am, so we only had to wake up at 6am so we could be on the road by 7am. As usual, the cab arrived about 20 minutes early but we didn’t try to rush. Riley wasn’t happy, but that was to be expected.
I checked us in using United’s website seemed like a good idea. The only problems occurred when we checked our bags. First we had to hike down to the other end of the terminal to get to the “United.com bag check area and the barcode scanners at the bag check stations couldn’t read our boarding passes. I think they were broken though as two other people had trouble using the scanners.
Once our bags were checked, we went through security. I really hate the security check even though I know and understand the need for them. I wish they had a longer run-out after the x-ray machine. If people are the slightest bit slow getting stuff off the table, things get jammed up. It would also be nice if you didn’t have to take off your shoes.
Because we arrived at the airport so early, we had some time to kill. We picked up some coffee and muffins for breakfast and I wandered around a bit and picked up a book and a copy of Wired magazine (I only read Wired when I’m traveling).
I did see something interesting in the airport terminal so sponsored kiosks that were nothing more than really small carrels with power outlets. One was sponsored by Verizon (advertising their wireless broadband service, but there was no wireless broadband service available there) and another sponsored by Principal Financial Services. They both were basically just billboards. Nice idea though. I also noticed a distinct lack of available power outlets in the terminal seating area. Ginny ran out and picked us up some sandwiches for the flight. I’m not sure what’s better, buying in flight or before we leave. The meals they have in flight are only $5, but I suspect the fare you can buy in the terminal is better quality.
No big problems boarding the plane Ginny asked if there was any possibility of getting upgraded to economy plus, but the flight was completely booked. Considering how many open seats I saw when I checked us in, I was quite surprised they weren’t asking for people to volunteer to take a later flight.
So far no big problems on the flight it’s a little bumpy, but nothing too bad. Sometimes Ginny gets nervous when the flight is bumpy, but she’s fine.
We’ve been feet wet for a while it’s 11:47 HDT (4:48 CDT) so we have about 2 hours of flying time left. The flight crew reported we may arrive a little early, so that’s nice.
About 3 hours ago I realized I had forgotten my camera tripod at home I always forget something. I’m going to see if Steve can send it over. Not sure what the cost would be, but I suspect it would be cheaper than buying a new one. Of course our walking sticks (which I didn’t forget) have camera mounts in the head but that’s only good for short term stabilization not enough for long exposure. Of course there’s always the option of asking Steve to just get it to my mom & dad, since they are joining us in 5 days. That would probably be harder to manage than just having Steve ship it to us.
Ok, I just found another nice feature of this laptop (Dell Latitude D630) the screen is a little shorter than my Inspiron 600m was (because it’s a wide screen), so it fits better on the airplane tray without bumping into the seat in front.