Terry’s Christmas Socks make their annual appearance

And now back to Hawaii…

I  have mentioned Todd, our hospitality and vacation ownership salesman. After we booked and paid for our snorkelling experience, the salesman asked if we would like to reduce the cost to $20. I said, “Where’s the timeshare?” We agreed to visit the resort in Kapalua – 8:00 Sunday morning “For no more that 90 minutes and likely less.” we are told. Hah!! We figured they would at least have a continental breakfast of coffee and muffins. No, they had coffee and either a granola bar or a small bag of potato chips. Some of Todd’s lines: “We don’t do high pressure here – we aren’t in Mexico”, “I am going to speak very quickly and you will be out of here in less than 90 minutes”, “If you say you just need to think about it, I hear ‘Give us more information’ ” “If you say you aren’t interested, I will say thanks for your time and we’ll go our separate ways”. After 2 hours – I think that that is more than 90 minutes, and after Terry said no three times, we finally got up to leave. “Could you please just spend 2 minutes with my boss answering a few questions on how the presentation was?” Half an hour later we got out. They were nice enough people but the concept of a. Time and b. No High Pressure were not ones they grasped.

From there it was back to Lahaina for a wonderful brunch at Koa. I thought we had returned to the 70s.

The juxtaposition of the hippie and the cell phone was, as they say, priceless.

Who knew Pete was in Hawaii when we were.

Peter’s Doppelgänger (Side note: those of you who don’t know Pete, that is him on the right – not in the middle or left.)

This may look like rich rich soil, but it is actually the lava field which flowed from Haleakala. The fields are now a preserve where vegetation is noticeable and black goats are, apparently,  repopulating the area. We never saw one.

Lava field

Looking up at Haleakala

When we took our helicopter tour, the pilot pointed out where Aunt Julia’s famous banana bread could be bought. We spent Sunday afternoon winding our way to Aunt Julia’s. Even if it was very good banana bread, it was not a fun drive for Terry. The road was very narrow for most of the 20 mile way, frequently being single lane.

Just another bucolic Hawaiian valley

It certainly makes the road to Hana seem like a leisurely drive through Stanley Park.Check out the video right at the end. I think the minivan went over the edge.

And back to Port Coquitlam for a couple of weeks

A local sushi restaurant takes me back to Chinglish/Janglish or whatever.

The Shoe Blog

And so it is Aloha Maui.  With a temperature of 82° at the airport, we spy this young lady. I hope she was going home to Alaska.

Ugg…

We are off for more travel adventures over the next six weeks – stay tuned.