Right now I’m sitting on the balcony of our condo watching a kiteboarder and a fishing trawler. Here’s last night’s sunset from the same spot:

The trip did not begin auspiciously. I rode to the airport with my parents, then we split up: they needed to check bags, while I’d checked in online the previous night. I figured I’d see them at the gate, but I didn’t…and I didn’t see them on the plane…

When I got to San Francisco, I called my dad and learned that they’d spent 40 minutes in the check-in line and had missed the flight, so the airline re-routed them through Los Angeles. He told me to fly on to Kahalui Airport, as planned, and they’d see me when they got in about five hours later.

Courtyard in the airport:

I’m pretty much okay hanging out in airports for multi-hour stretches like that. Christmas ’06* was so incredibly dreadful that anything else is manageable. So I settled in for a good nap and waited for my parents to arrive.

*DIA closed due to blizzard. Two-day delay before I even left Savannah, re-routed via three flights on three different airlines. Mechanical problems on first flight. Arrived at Kansas City around 1 a.m., had to be in terminal for standby on 6 a.m. flight. Slept on terminal floor. No standby seats on 6 or 11 a.m. flights. Realized around this point that my medication was in my checked bag. Started going into severe withdrawal. Booked flight back to SAV. Got in as last seat on standby flight to Colorado just before SAV flight would have left. Got to DIA without my bag. Found my bag in the “unclaimed luggage” area six days later.

Proof that I can sleep anywhere:

I also did some reading and writing. My parents finally arrived, and we got the rental car and headed to our condo. And that was day .5 on Maui.

Saturday we drove down the fabled road to Hana. Now, I can’t discuss this without mentioning that I seem to have developed adult-onset motion sickness. I’m convinced it’s psychosomatic, but I can’t talk myself out of it, so maybe it’s not. Anyway, I downed enough Dramamine to stabilize a queasy elephant and still felt pretty nauseated along that winding, twisting, narrow road.

There were some cool bridges

and gorgeous waterfalls, as we’d been told,

and some amazing ocean vistas:

And who could forget the flowers?

African tulip tree

Not sure what this one is

Hibiscus

We have reached the end of my very limited knowledge of tropical flower names.

Coming up: Haleakala, Iao, Maui Ocean Center…Stay tuned!