Hawaii Trip Day 8: I'm In A Tin Can In The Sky

It's been several months since I posted last and my wife is very concerned that I am not going to get us home from Hawaii. The problem is that I didn't take notes on the last day and there are no photos from that last day as we had to pack everything into the suitcases before leaving the hotel. Since I can't give a blow by blow account, I will bridge the gap between day seven and arriving home with some of the highlights that happened during our last day on the island and our flight home. So without further adieu, and most in order I think, highlights from day 8 of our Hawaiian vacation.

-Saying goodbye to one of the most perfect places on earth I've ever been was brutal. Shannon and I woke up and went straight down to the beach for the last time. We played a bit and I finished our making our souvenir bottles of sand. I've never been so sad to leave a place that relentlessly put sand down my pants.

-Most of the day we spent shopping in Lahaina. As mentioned before, it is the neatest little town and we spent hours just walking from store to store on Front Street. We bought several last minute items for everyone back home and eventually we decided to eat in an upstairs cafe overlooking Front Street. Everything in Maui is open air and this cafe was no exception. It was themed as an old 50s style diner with all of the menu items named after old TV characters. Very cliche, but very good food.

-One observation about the shopping options in Lahaina. Shannon and I were both astounded at how much extremely expensive jewelry is apparently an impulse purchase in Hawaii. We must have passed 15 different jewelry stores minimum. It was very likely over 20.

-After shopping, we had a couple of hours to kill and so we decided to drive over to Wailea, which is other area on Maui that is a major resort area. Lahaina and Kaanapali beach, where we stayed, is referred to as the West side and Wailea and Kihei are the south side. There is a major resort that we wanted to see called the Grand Wailean. It is very deserving of its name. That had to be the grandest hotel I've ever been in. However, we were both struck as to why such a ritzy place would choose to decorate with sculptures of naked, fat Japanese midgets. To us, it didn't really add to the decor.

-The Grand Wailean had its own church. It was a little chapel for weddings and it sat a mere 20 yards from the beach. Now I think I understand why the Church doesn't build a temple right on the beach. It would be overwhelmed constantly with weddings. How could you beat wedding pictures taken at a temple on the beach. Short answer: You couldn't.

-All beaches in Hawaii are public and so in between the Grand Wailean and some other ridiculously large resort hotel was a little public bathroom building. Shannon had need of such facilities and went in. She came out almost immediately due to the topless woman taking up most of the area inside. That was just a little too much info for Shannon and she decided she could wait.

-We went to a little mall area next to the Grand Wailean and learned two things: One, Wailea is where the extremely wealthy must vacation on Maui and two, we are not extremely wealthy.

-We arrived back in Kahalui with about 30 minutes before we needed to be at the airport. We didn't want to eat at the airport itself so we searched for anything else. Keeping in mind that our first breakfast in Hawaii was at McDonald's, it seems rather sad to realize we never learned anything over the week we were there and ate our last meal in Hawaii at Wendy's. At least we got the Hawaiian experience of staring at chickens wandering through the parking lot while we ate.

-For whatever reason, we got to the airport about thirty minutes late and it was quickly apparent we were cutting it way too close. It was the first day that we experienced heavy humidity and the airport was packed. We got to baggage check in and we were over the 50 lbs. limit. I've never been so grateful for humidity in my life. We pulled the bag off to remove some items and try to stuff them in our carry-on when the airline lady said to forget it. It was just to hot to be worrying about that kind of stuff and she took our suitcases with out charging us extra for the additional weight we were over.

-When we were making our souvenir bottles of black and white beach sand we didn't take into account one somewhat important item. That would be that black sand resembles explosive gun powder. Already running late, we got pulled aside again at the security lane because there were four bottles with a suspicious substance inside them. It took about 20 minutes to get them out, explain what was in them and then get the ok to put them back. We were now within five minutes of our flight boarding and still had not reached the gate.

-Walked up to our gate and had enough time to tie my shoe before they called our boarding pass numbers. That was too close.

-The idea behind taking an overnight flight was that we could sleep. Yeahhh, that didn't work out so much. Shannon dozed here and there while I sat staring at a movie I didn't care about. At one point, I looked out of the window and stared out at an endless void. The moon was full and it was reflecting off of the clouds below us and that was all I could see. I've never been afraid of flying, but in that moment, I got a little scared. I was thousands of feet in the air with a couple hundred other people somewhere over the vast endless Pacific Ocean. I don't know how to describe it except to say, so many options of death seemed to surround me. I quickly went back to the movie I didn't care about.

-Landed in San Francisco at 4:00 a.m. local time. Not sure whose idea it was that the airport should be kept at a constant temperature of -10 degrees, but customer friendly it was not. At 5:00 a.m. a couple of food options opened up and Shannon and I got egg croissants.

-Our plane from San Francisco takes off at 6:10 a.m. and while we are ascending, Shannon's breakfast decides it doesn't agree with her. After arguing with me for several minutes on whether she should use the barf bag or chance running back to the restroom, she finally jumps up while the seat belt sign is still illuminated and makes a mad dash for the rear of the plane. The stewardess begins to chastise her as she approaches, but within seconds realizes what is happening and allows her to proceed. Shannon pukes.

-Landing in Phoenix, my lack of sleep coupled with the changes in time are really starting to affect me. Danae picked us up and we make it back to her place where I can't take it anymore and I pass out on Bryson's bed.

-We had a gift card to the Cheesecake Factory and so before heading home, we stop and have one last meal on our vacation. When we tell Abby where we ate, I'm not sure if she was more jealous of our trip to Hawaii or our lunch at Cheesecake Factory. Oh the priorities of youth.