Maui or Bust!

Left a chilly MSP, to which we were given a ride by Nelson, Kate, Cindy, mom and dad, after serendipitously seeing all but Cindy a second time inside the terminal, en route for Seattle.

Made it to Seattle, thanks to some napping, with enough energy to enjoy a three-hour layover -- eating (chowder/salad, fish and chips) in front of the main terminal's giant wall of windows, and shopping at a Patina lookalike. Wherever you are, you're near a Patina.

One more plane ride later, broken up by more napping, a movie of questionable plane-viewing taste (and certainly not on full screen mode), Forgetting Sarah Marshall, still more napping, and we touched down at the first of many am-I-pronouncing-this-right? Hawaiian destinations: Kaului.

As an aside, the nice thing about the Hawaiian language is that all of the vowels are sounded out. The downside? Sheer volume of vowels. Some words aren't so much words as winding labyrinths through which sounds must navigate. For instance: humuhumunukunuku'apua'a. Just pulled that up under the Yahoo! search "long hawaiian words."

Moving on ...

We met up with Neal, our chatty cabbie, who took us the 20-odd miles south along the coast and dropped us off at our home away from home: Condo #202 at Wailea Point Village. Door open ... jaw drop. Stunning location, great view, thankful vacationers. The Pacific looms, a wide expanse fills the long bay window, with West Maui anchoring the view to the north and the shoreline resorts lining the coastline to the immediate right.

Fly-in took place around 6 o'clock in the evening Hawaii time, and it was well past 7 by the time we were settled, meaning midnight in the Twin Cities, so our next decision -- where to eat -- was made without the benefit of clear heads.

We hit the walking trail just in front of the condo, took a right and, groggy and hungry, picked the nearest eatery -- a nicely appointed place with a view. The Four Seasons. This being the Four Seasons, we paid two arms and two legs, but we did tip the proper amount to our waiter from Wisconsin -- we overtipped Neal -- a small miracle considering the sticker price.

Lesson learned.

Still, it was delicious, veal/risotto on one side and chicken/polenta on the other.

Sometime near 2 a.m. body clock time, we went to bed.