Maui 2012

We’re home! I know we’re home because it’s cold, dark, gloomy, and pouring down rain.
The only good thing I can say about coming home to rain is that it’s not snow. Wait.
Scratch that. It IS snow. That's the crazy thing about living in the great northwest;
give the weather five minutes and it will change its mind five times. You have to feel
sorry for the forecasters in this area because they are always WRONG.

Maui however rarely changes, even during the winter months, the weather remains the same:
Sunny, partly cloudy, hot, and sunny. These are the four seasons in Maui. You can make plans
each day - every day, and the weather will rarely, if ever force you to change them. When it
rains in Maui, it’s like a gentle mist coming off the ocean, and it feels good, like
Mother Nature just did you a favor.

Even the fourteen days at the airport is tolerable when Maui is involved. Wait, did I say
fourteen days? I meant fourteen hours. Even though it feels like fourteen days when
you take a red-eye, which I’ve most recently decided, I’m too old to ever do again.
It’s a little like staying up all night partying, only without the booze. And without the
music. Babies are crying. Nobody is laughing, and after sitting at attention all night in
a chair thirty-thousand feet above the earth, I would have an overwhelming desire to punch
someone if they laughed anyway. And recline? Is that what that round silver button on my cold
metal arm rest is for? Because I’m pretty sure it just made me sit up straighter.

Totally could’ve used the booze.

Scott and I checked out a few new places on the Island - stopped in at a few old
places to say hello to friends we’d made on past trips, like Sam and Missy at the
Hard Rock Café on Front street in Maui.

Sam was still Sam, while Missy was sporting a brand new lime green Mohawk, several
new piercings, and a few more tattoos then she had had the year before. She is like
a beautiful piece of art. It kind of makes you want to bring her home and hang her in
your entryway. She could even greet your guests for you - or scare the hell out of them.

“Hi Mom, meet my new piece of art. Touch her Mohawk. No, it won’t cut you.”

It’s great to meet so many people on the Island. Finding out where they’re originally
from. What brought them to the island? What keeps them there… hello?

People are interesting. What drives them? What motivates them? What keeps them content?
The human experience is just different. For every single one of us…

Thank God.

And I can’t help but think… New writing material!

Here are a few of the photos I took throughout the week. Most of these photos were
taken with my phone. Yes. My phone. Don't you just love the twenty-first century?