“It took an hour, maybe a day
But once I really listened, the noise just went away.”
-Liz Phair
Today we launch for a new kind of vacation, 8 days to see the sights, and take our time, and just settle into a place so beautiful, people come from all over the world to see it. I’m sure it’s not an original observation, but the idea of recreation, that you could go a place that gives you a new vision for what life can be and get unmade and come out reborn, really feels potent to me today. I hope to be recreated on this trip.
But how wildly fortunate I am to have a life that I will truly miss. I know it’s good for me (and everyone else) if I shut work down for a little, and things have been pretty full-throttle for summertime. Would I be able to turn it off? But my routines I feel great about, my sweet kitty friends, my work that I’m so passionate about, my beautiful, beautiful Oregon – I am wistful to leave it, and will be excited to return. I will miss the kitties the most. Aw Ethel… We’ll be back for you soon!
But not today! We made it to our flight. I didn’t break a leg in the days before the trip, or come down with Covid, or any of the dozen things that could have derailed us. Honestly getting derailed is so common that I expect derailment, more than expecting things to just go to plan. Every time travel actually goes the way it’s supposed to, I feel like I’ve gotten away with something, like I snuck the candy out of the store without paying. But we got to our plane just fine, and everything went like clockwork.
On one of my Traveling While Fat blogs, I got a pro tip that we were testing out for the first time: if you’re traveling as a pair, when you select seats, put one of you on the aisle, and one by the window, leaving the middle seat open. People are less likely to select the middle seat, and you just might end up with an empty seat for all the glorious room you want. If someone does come to claim their middle seat, you beg them to trade, and they will be only to happy to upgrade to the aisle and NOT sit next to the fat person – everyone wins. But hopefully you just get an empty middle seat.
Which we did! I could not believe our luck on this very full flight.
This happy moment brought to you by Fat Hacks.
We flew into a bank of clouds for a bit and I was afraid huge legs of the flight would be a gray window into nothing, but eventually we were in clouds that were putting on quite a show. We flew off the western edge of the earth and sailed into open water. Really, these clouds…
And I saw some extra cool stuff – the sun shining off the Pacific:
Dare I say my first rainbow of the trip? A colorful corona:
And I don’t recall that I’ve had a window seat over open ocean, so the white reflections of the clouds from the surface of the sun were new to me:
And I even saw a boat from 30,000 feet! To be seen from that distance, it was probably a giant cruise ship, looking so tiny down there. But in 2,600 miles of open ocean, to see a tiny atom of human life, this pinprick of civilization in a vast sea, felt like finding a single star in the vast cosmos.
After an exceedingly pleasant flight, the Maui volcano Haleakala humped into the distance, and we saw land after infinite ocean. And then we were right over the island! Look at how this volcano just dumps lava into the sea, creating such an interesting coastline:
And that was it! We were on the ground in Kahalui, on the island of Maui, on a vacation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We picked up our Turo rental car without issues, and Dan saw a Long’s Drugs, with an original sign, the likes he hadn’t seen in decades:
Were there chickens in town? Yes, really pretty chickens.
We headed immediately for Tin Roof, a takeout window that came recommended by my colleague Ariel. She sent us there for “garlic noodles that will change your life,” which I’m sure she meant would make us more grateful people who see only good in the world. It turns out that they’re so good, that we now have a heroin addict-level fixation. We are going to leave our gainful employment and stable home to beg for quarters on the side of the road in Kahalui because we only ever want to eat these garlic noodles for the rest of our days, and can think of nothing else. We ate them at Keopuolani Regional Park with its view of the ocean.
Well, we did think of going to Costco. My other work friend Kelsey, whose Costco expertise is renowned throughout KinderCare, recommended the Kahalui Costco for its magnificent collection of Hawaii-themed foods, and it did not disappoint. If we can get our purchases into our suitcase, we look forward to bringing them home.
We drove through the dry countryside, with its views of the volcano.
And the excellent Kelsey recs kept coming! We headed to Kihei to swing into Maui Pie, where we picked up a savory pot pie and a sweet pie for later.
Then we hit the road for Napili, where we had rented a condo. Along the way, we stopped at a waypoint where we met some friendly folks who needed our help re-creating a photo from their past. They had a Polaroid! And took a photo of us and gave us a print then and there! Here’s the view from the viewpoint, Polaroid coming soon to Portland.
We wound up the dry countryside along the stunning coast, with its interesting and exotic trees, bushes and plants. We passed through Lahaina, where they are still digging out from fire damage. We saw some areas heavily under construction, but overall, it’s still a totally thriving area. What a resilient place. But it’s horrifyingly easy to imagine getting pinned by fire in this place, with cars jamming the one narrow highway, with no other outlets but to flee toward the ocean. I read a completely harrowing account of the fires that my mom recommended in Best American Science and Nature Writing, and people ended up jumping into the ocean with exploding cinders raining all around them. It’s horrifying to picture in this tranquil place, but it really happened. You’d never believe it was only two years ago. We look forward to returning.
All of this takes nothing from the drive, which was truly beautiful, with its flowering oleander and silk trees, the Cook pines and some really fascinating trees with enormous trunks whose canopies hugged the road and created an enchanted tunnel. And a literal tunnel!
We’ll try to get more photos. Dan said the views of Molokai were the best he’d ever seen.
And at the end – our condo! This was the same complex where Daniel had stayed at age 10ish, and at age 36ish with his family. Napili Point!
The exterior; we’re in the ground unit:
The interior of the place is a hall of mirrors, with giant full-wall mirrors on not one, not two, but three walls.
Completely unacceptable, but I knew this from the listing, and came prepared. While I was still staggered by the sheer square footage of mirrors, we did end up having just enough green plastic sheeting to cover them all. So now it looks like a movie set green screen instead of a horror movie funhouse. I’ll take it.
But we picked this place for the location, not the decor. Check out the view from the lanai!
The listing didn’t trumpet the best feature – a very, very friendly neighbor cat!
We are obviously going to be friends. We can call him up on this push button land line phone:
We checked out the cove with so many sea turtles we stopped counting.
We had just enough time before dark to head over to Napili Beach for Stef’s first (quick) swim in the oceans of Hawaii. We clambered over lava rock for a bit, taking in the coastline – stunning. Then this!
The water was a really satisfying temperature, and the waves were assertive but not dangerous. We had a lovely dunk, then headed back to eat pot pie and watch the sunset. From our lanai, where I did yoga that fulfilled every fantasy a yoga-doer ever had – the whispering leaves, the stunning setting, the feeling of total peace. And what a sunset. How did my life get this good? And that was before the pot pie, which was so good I lack the words.
The nearly-full moon:
Truly, there are times I cannot believe this is my life. In a couple of different ways, it seemed unlikely I would get to this kind of place, living this long. This whole trip is kicking off an embarrassingly decadent birthday season for me, rolling into my second half-century. Hawaii is the first leg, but there are lots of legs to this celebration of 50.
I have some wise older people in my life. I asked my mom a few months ago how I should use my money, if I should do practical things, or do things I love, like travel. She didn’t hesitate – money comes and goes, but travel experiences are forever. Travel. Celebrate life. My friend Georgann thought she would travel in retirement. But although her pitched battle with cancer didn’t kill her, it didn’t make her stronger; the pain of the resulting spinal stenosis means her traveling days are limited. I’m listening. Travel, while I know I can.
We’re all living in a kind of contest with time, aren’t we? What will we do with the time we’ve been given, however much or little that could be? In my work with proposals, everything revolves around deadlines. Tick, tick, tick. But this is a moment to recreate my relationship with time. With days, with years. Savoring this time.
This months-long birthday celebration is, in some ways, inspired by my friend Sarah, who died too soon. Birthdays are better than funerals. I don’t want a milestone like turning 50 to slip by without acknowledging how extraordinary it is to still be here. I survived, even though there were times when I felt like my life didn’t matter. I’ve created a life I love so much, and just when I thought I couldn’t love it more, I went to paradise.
