10. Island Hopping

On Saturday, we traveled from Honolulu to the island of Maui. While waiting for our boarding time in Honolulu, an airport announcement indicated that several seats were available on another flight one hour earlier than ours. So we jumped at the chance to leave a bit earlier, which meant that we arrived earlier than our baggage, which was already checked on the later flight. So, after landing, I dropped off our party at a Wal-Mart store near the airport, and returned to collect our bags, while the rest of the troupe bought our groceries and other supplies for our week on Maui. From the airport in Kahului, we then drove across the “Island of the Valley” to find our three separate resorts on the West Maui coastline near Lahaina. Lorita is staying at the Westin Kaanapali Ocean Resort, the Browns are in the Kahana Beach Club in the village of Kahana, and Cynthia and John are at the Maui Marriott, located in the heart of the Kaanapali Resort area. All three resorts are within a couple of miles of each other, so it will be easy to move back and forth between the lodging places, and still have several of our meals together in and around the old whaling village of Lahaina. The contrast is already obvious from the bustling big-city atmosphere of Honolulu and Waikiki Beach to the much more laid-back, slower pace of the island of Maui. It will be another wonderful week of island living as we spend the next several days exploring our second of the Hawaiian Islands.