Maui on our Minds

As the summer ended, John anxiously waited for the brochure to come from Symposium Medicus for the annual OB/Gyn conference in Grand Cayman.  For reasons unknown, they decided to no longer host that conference in Cayman but instead hosted one in Hawaii.  John thought it was really one half dozen or the other, but I remembered that Hawaii isn't nearly as easy for us to reach as Cayman is.  Nevertheless, he signed up, and I put it on the calendar.

Our last experience in Hawaii wasn't the best...although to be fair I don't really remember it at all....which is why it wasn't really the best.  Unbeknownst to me, I was a month away from my first back surgery, the result of a herniated disc.  Being yet undiagnosed but in terrible pain, I was sent on my first trip to Hawaii with a bunch of muscle relaxers and pain medication which led to me not remembering pretty much anything we did there.  I hoped this trip would be different.

On August 8, 2023, the historic district of Lahaina (on the island of Maui) was destroyed by fire.  I thought that we should cancel our trip to Hawaii because it felt disrespectful to be vacationing right next to where people had lost their homes and others had lost their lives.  However, we received an email asking us to still come--that the tourism industry was taking a huge hit, and the best way we could support the people of Maui was by keeping them employed.

Because I had just started working, the trip snuck up on me, and we ended up just kind of throwing things in our bags the night before and heading out.  We left the animals with Frank.  We flew from DTW to Seattle, a 4.5 hour trip, and then we flew from Seattle to Maui, a 6.5 hour trip.  Man, that's a lot of flying.  John got us a fun red Jeep for a rental car, and we drove off into the night to the Ritz-Carlton.

I don't know if it was Hawaii, or if it was the Ritz-Carlton, but being welcomed with leis and POG (passion fruit/orange/guava juice) was a slice of paradise.

The next morning, John and I were both up at 4 a.m.--he went running, and I started a book I had brought along (Thunderstruck by Erik Larson).  We decided to take it easy that day, but we reserved places that evening at the luau on the resort.

From our first visit, I DO remember where the luau was that we attended, and I figured out that it was the Lahaina luau...which of course wasn't happening.  I didn't think there would be much difference, but there was.  The dancers and the music for this luau were unbelievably beautiful, but we were in a pavilion, not under the stars as the first time, and the food wasn't quite as good.  But the musicians were unbelievable--two young people, one on guitar/ukelele, and the other on an electric bass.  They ended up singing for about five hours, and I didn't hear a bad note!  And hula is really so beautiful--it just mesmerizes me.  The story of the evening was about the Creation, and many of the phrases used sounded very familiar.  Like temple familiar.  And we wondered if a member of the church had helped write the script.

John and I each got our tattoos for the evening as well as more leis.

And the rest of the week was just about relaxing.  John went running each morning, and I went for a sunrise walk.  We would meet for breakfast around 9:30.  I spent the morning and early afternoon around the pool (I knew just where to sit so that I was shaded the entire time), and then we would head out and find somewhere to eat.  TV for a couple of hours and then to bed early (we tried to stay on EST throughout the week).

For some strange reason, I was craving a good burger for several days, so we found The Burger Shack right there on the resort, down by the beach.  We just went in our swimsuits and got some pretty fantastic burgers and shakes.  John wanted to get in the water, and while I thought he would dive UNDER the big wave, he just walked into it...and got knocked over.  Of course I got it all on film ;-)

The one conference day when John didn't have classes until the afternoon, we decided to head to Haleakalā National Park on Maui.  We left early in the morning because it's a 90 minute drive just to the park entrance, and another 30 minutes past that to the crater.  It was a beautiful drive across Maui although we came to appreciate the drought that Maui is currently experiencing as we drove past so much brown, dried grass.  But holy smokes, the drive UP TO the crater was CRAZY! Switchbacks that make the ones in Germany blush with embarrassment, and views that were unreal!

Once in the park, I got my Junior Ranger booklet and we were off.

There's really only one trail to take in the park, and after hiking several miles on that trail, there are other trails that branch off of it (but that can't be accessed any other way).  And in true national park fashion, the trail heads down at first, giving one the feeling that it is easy.  However, hiking at 10,000+ feet, I was leery of walking too far, knowing that my lungs would need to get me back up the trail.  So we went about a mile out, and while I sat down to fill out my packet, John went a little further.

As it turns out, we earned the following certificate:  "I survived the 37-mile drive up from sea level to the summit of Haleakalā volcano (10,023 ft), one of the greatest elevation gains in the shortest distance in the world!"  This may sound impressive, but I tell you, we were feeling it.  Altitude sickness is no joke, and the headaches and dizziness were real.

I had a really beautiful moment sitting there on my rock, looking at over the crater.  Between the few crowds that were there and the admonition to be quiet because it's sacred ground for the Hawaiians, it was one of the quietest moments I think I've ever had in my life.  No traffic. No air traffic.  No conversation.  Not even birds.  Just the wind and me.

And for the last couple thousand feet, we had been perched above the clouds, so there I am in this stillness, looking over the clouds.  I couldn't help but think about my dad.  Being a glider pilot, he spent so much time in the clouds, and in that moment I felt just a bit closer to heaven.  I had tears rolling down my cheeks as John came back up the trail....with RUSH blasting out of the phone speaker on his hip....

Getting back up the trail was indeed difficult, but we just pushed through.  I turned in my packet and took the pledge, asking if we could say some of it in Hawaiian.  We stopped for Chick-fil-a on the way home because we were so hungry!  

We ate and drank more pineapple than we had ever seen before in our lives and loved it all.  We went to dinner at an Italian restaurant one night, and ordered in pizza another.  We did things on our own schedule and just leaned into really relaxing.

With that, the benchmark of 34 years of marriage is approaching in five days.  It doesn't seem possible that we have been married that long because life is still so much fun with John.  He is my dearest friend <3