Going crazy on her old job, my wife planned a trip to Maui with her two sisters over a long President’s Day break from school. Long after booking the trip, she received a “Godfather”-like offer. No horse heads were involved, but it was a deal so sweet that she couldn’t refuse, because it combined a substantial pay increase with, although definitely not a stress-free environment, at least a different asylum. After due deliberation, we moved to Los Angeles County from our much beloved San Diego on February 1, 2001.
While her new job accepted that she would be on vacation shortly after starting, the new schools Jay and Amy attended didn’t have the same school break, but the non-refundable air had been ticketed and two other families were also scheduled to go, so we braved the ire of their new schools.
In my sock drawer, I found some notes I took about this trip, and I thought perhaps it was time to share them with the world. For some reason I am missing my account of the first day, but I remember we flew to Maui uneventfully, picked up our car and drove to the Aston Ka’anapali Villas, a comfortable condominium complex (say that three times really fast), located on Ka’anapali Beach north of the Black Rock outcropping.
I’ve never been to Hawaii when there weren’t a few drops of rain at some point in the trip, but I also had never been in a storm until this trip. On the day we arrived, the strong wind had the rain blowing sideways as we enjoyed dinner with the rest of the family at the oceanfront restaurant on the Ka’anapali Villas grounds. I can’t remember what we ate, but I know it must have been some kind of early bird special, or knowing my wife and me, we would have gone elsewhere.
