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June 18, 2003 Maui: Makin' like Magnum (3) Before I begin this entry, I must make an editor's note to my previous Maui entry. In it I made reference to "the rickety roadside stands selling pineapple and questionable fish lunches to tourists". The (passionate) owner of one of those luncheon stands e-mailed me and let me know on no uncertain terms that it was unfair of me to make such a statement, having never tried the food. So, in the spirit of "don't knock it 'till you try it", the next time I'm in Makena I'll stop by her stand and have some lunch, and make an informed report regarding it. (Hover over images to see description.) So! Wednesday was the day we had planned to take a helicopter tour of the island. We were up and out of the hotel by 8:00 (this is the day I finally penned the postcards I wanted to send out on Monday), and went through Jack in the Box for a couple of breakfast croissants. Calvin and Marie were a little leery of greasy breakfast food - they're prone to motion sickness - but I tucked in with gusto. I don't know what it is about those things, but at the times that I crave them I MUST have one. About one every four months or so is good for me. I haven't had another one since then. But this entry isn't about Jack in the Box, which isn't unique to Hawaii at all. No, this is about our adventure with Alex Air. The heliport was back up toward the airport in Kahului, and as always, we got there early - by forty-five minutes. But hey, better than being late, right? Seems everything we went to do while in Maui (on Maui?), we were early. At any rate, we checked in, observed the other people hanging out waiting to go, and occupied ourselves watching a Maui promotional video in the lobby. We'd only been there a few minutes when a group landed from their tour and came in the back door. A family, with one small boy of about five. Who was completely thrilled with the fact that he made it almost all the way through the helicopter ride without throwing up! I can only imagine what it must have smelled like in that little cabin with five grown adults and a little boy making sick on his shoes. Poor kid! But he was certainly bouncy when they got out of the helicopter. He wasn't going to let a little thing like motion sickness slow him down for long. I got bored with watching the video after a while (come to find out later that we got a complimentary copy with our tour), so after taking several barely-tolerated pictures of Marie and Calvin... ...I wandered back down the hallway toward the front door. An immense map of the world was painted on one of the walls, and I amused myself with looking for all the places that I knew my friends to be at in the world. Dawn in Peru (although she actually went a week or two after we came home), a co-worker in Puerto Rico, another co-worker in Ireland, Jayne in Jersey, Anna in Australia, family members in Maine, Arizona, and California, and us in Hawaii. This big ol' world certainly supports a lot of spread-outedness. Finally, it was our turn to go. And we found out that the world is maybe not as big as we thought. We happened to be grouped with a young couple on their honeymoon, from Page, Arizona (sing it with me! "It's a small world after all..."). They were absolutely adorable, sitting hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder on the couch, fingers entwined, whispering in each other's ear. We all filed into the office and were instructed on the safety stuff, shown how to put on our inflatable floatation devices ("Don't pull the cord inside the helicopter!"), and were lined up according to the order we would be seated in the helicopter. Marie went first, followed by me - we were to sit up front with the pilot. Calvin and the young couple followed up the rear, and sat in the back of the six-seater. There was a bit of difficulty getting our limbs and camera equipment arranged, and the pilot made sure to point out to Marie (who was sitting beside him in the middle) what, specifically, not to touch or accidentally bump. He introduced himself as Gernaut (pronounced gear-not), and he was from Austria. Calvin admitted afterwards that he had to restrain himself from using his "Ahnold" voice during the flight. You know, the funny thing is that I could *feel* him thinking about it, there in the back seat. Gernaut got us arranged with our two-way headsets, and warned us that they were voice activated, so anything we said could be heard by the rest of the occupants. He piped through some music while he talked to the tower, and we lifted off to "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits. It was incredibly smooth - having never been in a helicopter before, I expected it to be jarring and all vibratey and whatnot. It would have been a lot louder, of course, were it not for the headsets. But really, it was like a meandering, smooth, mellow roller-coaster ride. I will admit that my favorite parts were when he banked hard, tilting the helicopter in order to change direction. Loved that. We listened to music throughout the ride - we'd booked a flight to circle the entire island. GnR's "Welcome to the Jungle" and "November Rain" (nod to the fact that it was misting in the higher elevations) got us up and over the dormant volcano. Enya's "Only Time" and Ray Charles' "Over the Rainbow" provided the background to some waterfall and rainbow sightings. Traditional Hawaiian music was sprinkled throughout. Hysterically, the theme song to "Magnum P.I." came on at one point (I commented, "Grammy would have loved this!"), and Calvin and I started cracking up. Marie just stared at us, wanting to know what was so funny. So we had to explain the whole thing about Magnum/private eye/T.C./helicopter tours turned investigative adventures/whatnot. She still didn't get it. And that, my friends, just made me feel plain old. There was very little turbulence, and Gernaut made sure to angle back and forth so folks sitting on either side of the helicopter could see the views and get pictures. We saw countless waterfalls. They weren't running as hard, since it was the dry season - but I think the silver threads of water among the greenery were every bit as dramatic. There was a veritable jungle of what Marie dubbed "Broccoli Trees", and old lava tubes left over from the once-active volcano. We flew above parts of the Road to Hana, and over the absolutely amazing estate of George Harrison (now his widow's) - acres and acres of manicured landscape on the north coast of Maui. Now *that*, my friends, wouldn't suck. Gernaut kept up a running commentary of what we were seeing - "Jurassic Rock", where they filmed the opening sequence to the movie, local historical sites, the differences in plant life at different elevations, and interesting anecdotes about the local culture. Everything was incredibly beautiful - we were mostly silent over the headsets, and Gernaut checked a couple of times to make sure that it was because we were speechless, not sick. The sixty-five minute trip went by incredibly fast, and before we knew it we were headed back down toward the heliport. I'd been filming video like a mad thing - I think I got 3/4 of the entire trip on film - and Calvin went through almost two rolls of film with the 35mm. Even over and above that, we bought a picture CD in case some of the ones we took didn't come out. Back at Kihei, we stopped at Kalama Village - a open air shopping village - and went crazy. Marie went hog-wild with her money burning a hole in her pocket, and dragged her dad after her (patient guy!). I made two full circuits of the place buying souvenirs for myself and the gang in Maine that I'd be seeing in a couple of weeks. A sarong, a pair of shorts, a spaghetti-strap top, and a silver necklace with a little charm shaped like a flip-flop became so mine. I bought an ornament and a sarong for my sister, an old wooden surfer dude for my sister's husband, shot glasses for the both of them (and some for us!), and a blue teardrop of blown glass to hang in the truck's mirror (which it turned out would have certainly BROKE in short order had we left it there, so now it's hanging on our bedroom lamp). We went next door to Life's a Beach to get some burgers and beer (well, Calvin had a chimi, and Marie had Coke). The graffiti in the bathroom is something to be seen, let me tell you! Burgers definitely weren't bad, though - and the place has a hoppin' night life (we observed as driving by several times at night). Stuffed, we waddled back to the car and headed back to the hotel. We sat by the pool for a bit, then were good kids and did a couple of loads of laundry. We showered up and made ourselves presentable amid checking the dryer a few times, then went out again to do some evening-time exploring. Top down, we played Journey at high volume and thoroughly embarrassed Marie. Jay-Z, Eminem, or J-Lo maybe, but not Journey. Not trapped in the car with your parents. NOT with the top down so everyone can hear, and (worse) see your parents singing along. Heh. She's just lucky we didn't break out KC and the Sunshine Band. We headed down to The Shops at Wailea, having passed it during our adventures in Makena. Fancy-shmancy place! Fendi and Tiffany's and Gucci and Cartier, Louis Vuitton (one of my work girlfriends would be so jealous - she lusts over their handbags. Has ANYONE ever spent $1500 on a PURSE???). This was the upper level - we felt MUCH more at home in the lower level, with Banana Republic, The Gap, Pac Sun, and Tommy Bahama's. A quartet was setting up near the fountain, and three singers stepped up to the microphones. Lo, we were regaled with operatic renditions of songs from The Sound of Music. Having had the pleasure (read: torture) of actually performing in my high school's production of TSoM (I was Brigitta!!), I had no choice but to sing along (quietly) to "Hills", and "Do-Re-Me", and "The Lonely Goatherd" (complete with yodels). Marie's eyes bugged as she demanded to know, "How do you know these songs???" We placed our names at Cheeseburgers, Mai Tais, and Rock-n-Roll, sister restaurant to Cheeseburger in Paradise. We spent about a half-hour wandering among the shops before checking back in with the hostess and getting seated. Ready for the menu run-down? I had a chicken salad sandwich made with pineapple and mango salsa. Marie had the most enormous chili cheese dog I've ever seen in my life - and I've seen some big 'uns. Calvin got a chicken breast sandwich. I had a passable pina colada, but I was still searching for something that compared to the one I had at The Blue Lagoon on Monday. Standard wrap-up for the day - we moo'ed out of the restaurant, got back to the hotel, and crashed. I was going to write about Thursday too (Oahu), but I think I need to break these picture-heavy things into more manageable chunks. <- <- Go to Part One of the Hawaii Entry <- <- Go to Part Two of the Hawaii Entry

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