Day 1- Maui

I got a bad sunburn today. I blame Raymond Chandler.

Today was Maui, where we technically arrived last night, but didn’t really notice until this morning. Our visit began, as all tropical vacations must, at Walmart. We needed a few things, like lip balm and water and a hat and a power strip (our room, in a quaint, old fashioned touch, only has one outlet.)

Our chores taken care of, we piled back into the rental car and drove across the island, through some very California-esque landscape, to the western shore of Maui, which comes complete with palm trees, soft sandy beaches and blue, warm water. I’m still not convinced this is the same ocean we have back home.

We made a brief stop in Lahaina, a town positively bursting at the seams with cuteness, and also t-shirt stores, and then made our way to the beach recommended to us by my parents, who have been here twice before and are therefore experts. (See previous comment re: beaches for a description.) And this is where Mr. Chandler became a problem.

This year, as part of my ongoing quest to read the classics of detective fiction, I brought along The Long Goodbye as one of my books for the trip. So, when I got out of the lovely warm water after my nice swim I flopped myself down on my towel (recently purchased at Walmart, with a map of Hawaii on it) and settled in to read. And I was reading for a while, which probably would have been fine, except for the part where I forgot to put sunscreen on the backs of my legs. Or my back.

Today’s Lesson: Sunscreen only works in the places where you actually put it on.

But that particular downside didn’t make itself known for a while, which was a good thing, because there was snorkling to be done.

The snorkling spot was at the end of the beach looked small, and I was afraid that it might not be impressive enough to impress Megan, who was kind of dubious about the whole idea, but I needn’t have worried. There were triggerfish and angelfish and a bunch of other fish that I didn’t pick out on the card at the rental place, along with urchins and anenomies and brain coral that could win a Nobel. Megan was sufficiently impressed. In fact, I think I may have created a monster.

As the day was winding down and the sunstroke was starting to set in, we headed down the beach to the restaurant in front of one of the fancy hotels, for drinks and nibbles. (Well, I had a drink, anyway. Megan looked too young to be served alcohol without an ID.)