Saturday, December 22, 2007

Day Two - Lesson Learned: ASK FIRST

It's ridiculously expensive here, and I know this! I've traveled here many many times before so of all people, I should know this! Call it a temporary lapse in judgement, or maybe it was just that my brain couldn't function in the heat and humidity. I took Kaitlyn and Julia and Kaden down to the "old town" part of Lahaina. It's one of the trendy touristy places to go. There are several art galleries down there and I wanted to find something special for my parents that would remind them of this trip as an anniversary gift. This is where, for those of you who've been to my house, I purchased my beautiful "cubist face" that hangs over my fireplace. Here's a picture of that.
















Anyway - back to the story. We were hot and had been walking up and down the street and saw a small family with these really cool drinks in plastic pineapple shaped cups. We finally found out that they came from the restaurant "Cheeseburger in Paradise" so we hoofed it over there. The gal behind the counter looked like, as my colleague Brad would say, a toad blinking in a hail storm. Lets just say customer service was not her forte. I asked her about the cool cups we'd seen, and she looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. Then I spied one on her counter and pointed to them. I told her we wanted them with some sort of foo-foo drink with pineapple - more blank stares. After trying to explain what a foo-foo drink was, mercilessly the bartender overheard me and told her what to ring up. Finally - our need for tropical drinks would be met!


















However, I about had a heart attack when she rang it up! Oh My God! I could feed a dozen people at McDonalds for what I just paid for these three drinks: $37.98! Moral of the story - ASK FIRST, THEN PURCHASE!

The rest of the day was a day of acclimation. We frolicked in the ocean and pool. Chris and Julia and Kelsey went on the sunrise bike tour of Haleakala (Kaitlyn wasn't feeling well so stayed behind with me). They had a wonderful time and said it was worth getting up at 2:30am and being sleep deprived. Basically, they get hauled up to the top of the crater, to 10,000 feet, and watch the sunrise. Then they bike down the mountain. The whole thing takes several hours. They got back here to our condo about noon. Here are some pictures:















As I sit here here typing this, the three girls are all sitting on the couch watching Cars. We all got up about 6am this morning.


















And I would be remiss if I didn't share at least one picture of what we see off of our Lanai - I just took this, it's as the sun is rising behind us. I'll post better pictures later with the sun shining :)

2 comments:

Jon said...

Oh, I wish I could have warned you about that tourist trap in Lahaina!

My favorite Lahaina drinking place? The back deck of Kimo's. Have a "tropical itch". Make sure Chris has two or three of them! There's a wonderful jewelry store right next to Kimo's!

(That's how I got my diamond ring.) The Asian lady who was working in the store at the time tried to get us to buy the matching diamond bracelet. She said, "It's okay. You credit card still good!"

Aloha!

Iguana Banana said...

I am so JEALOUS! It snowed here - again - today.
Thanks for taking the time to post all the photos. It's really fun to see what you are up to.
I just got a new camera, so I will start dropping some photos into my blog again soon.
Kiss your whole family from us in frozen Minnesota - drink something and eat lots and lots of macadamia nuts for me, 'K?
Travel safely.
Cant' wait to see what's up next.
A