This American Infidel has returned from my annual, since 1994, Mecca to Maui.
Chris and I usually use it as a time to recharge the batteries and escape from winter.
Apparently 3 weeks wasn't nearly long enough!
Imagine my delight when I watched the snow fly outside my window, and pile up.
Damn you Gore-bull Warming!
A guy could definitely get used to sunshine and 80s everyday and thanks to that this hoale isn't as pale as when he left.
We just did the usual for the first 10 days, reading on the putting green of a lawn at the condo we rent.
I read a book on Babe Ruth and one on Roberto Clemente.
I also read a couple of bad books.
One was by former Baseball Commissioner Faye Vincent who videotaped interviews with former major league players from the 40s and 50s and then turned the transcripts of those interviews into a book.
The bad part was the they copied the transcripts verbatim from the interview and it doesn't work because of the rambling thoughts of 80+ year old men.
The other bad book was about General George S. Patton and The Desert Fox Erwin Rommel.
That author said he wasn't going to make it a technical book, it had technicalities in it.
Also, it was poorly edited with numerous pages having mis-spelled words.
I also got half way through a book on Mao tse-tung, I believe it's the same one that the President read, what a bastard!
In learning of some of his beliefs, I'd swear they're the same as Fiberal Dummycrats!
That'll be the end of the political comments I'll make, I didn't watch much television in those 3 weeks and I never picked up a newspaper or went online.
That was VERY nice.
My mom and older sister came over for the remainder of the trip so Chris and I acted like tour guides.
This is my mom's second straight year there, but she had just finished radiation for the metastatic breast cancer that had broken her pelvis last year and wasn't up to doing a whole whale of a lot.
We went on a humpback whale watching excursion and were "mugged" by a mom and her calf.
A "mugging" occurs when they come up to the boat, by law boats cannot get closer than 100 yards however these huge mammals are allowed to go wherever they want.
My 72 year old mother went snorkeling for the first time and she took a pounding from a few waves as she was trying to get in. I was amazed knowing how much pain she's in from the effects cancer has had on her body.
She out snorkeled my 52 year old sister and did 10 times better than my twin sister did last year, she couldn't stand having the mask on her face so she stayed in shallow water and would put it to her face when face swam by.
For the second, and final time in this lifetime, I drove the Road to Hana. My mom wanted to see Charles Lindbergh's grave, which is a few miles past Hana.
It's only 53 miles long, but entails 600 switchbacks, quite a few hair pin curves and 54 one lane bridges.
The trip takes about 3 hours, ONE WAY!
On the way back I filled the car up at a cost of $3.89 per gallon, that's Hana Highway Robbery (the rest of the island was $3.23).
By the way, when the hell are the damn dummycrats going to do something about the cost of gasoline?
Oops, I digress and violated my earlier no political statement.
I blame jet lag.
The east side of Maui is a rain forest and there are a lot of waterfalls and beautiful ocean views.
I was hoping we could go all the way around the island, but because of last fall's earthquake they closed the road for fear of falling rock.
The views there are jaw dropping, but the road looks like charcoal briquettes and feels like it too and that was before the earthquake.
The only thing we couldn't accomplish on my mother's list was para sailing, they don't allow it while the humpbacks are there.
I'm ready for Maui 2008!
