Journal Entries Keep Travel Memories Fresh
Many of us know Carroll, the Drive-By Blogger (there’s nothing to link to - she doesn’t have a blog of her own. Instead, she enlivens our comments sections with her itinerant conversation). She and spouse are off to Maui for the entire month of February, and after reading her email explaining why we won’t find her sacked out in our blog-basements, I started to reminisce about our own trips to the sun-splashed isles.
All three of our trips to Maui occurred before I had a digital camera, so the photos are squirrelled away somewhere in the hundreds of photo-processing envelopes filling our drawers and shelves. Too lazy to hunt for them, I did a report from Quicken filtered on “vacations”, and there they were, the trips from 1999 and 2000. I was transported back to the Old Lahaina Luau, the Paia Fish House, Haleakala National Park…
Boy, you know you’re an accountant when ledger entries make you nostalgic.
Hopefully Carroll will be visiting Patteran Towers when she makes her next trip, this time to the UK. A month in Hawai, a vacation in France & the UK, eh? We’ll be lucky to snatch 3 days in Brighton this summer..!
Oh, you guys! Dick, I’m feeling guilty enough about the “month in Hawaii” thing, but now you really have me blushing. I assure you, the great and numerous good fortunes are well-counted on a daily basis. I am looking at the current trip as “boot camp” preparation for the forthcoming Grand European Adventure as I need to really be sure my recovering broken ankle is up to the anticipated rigors. Where better to hike and wander than beachside on Maui, right? So, doctor’s orders! (adequate rationalization for you there?)
And, Phil…Mama’s Fish House…Mmmmm
I hadn’t heard about the European trip, Carroll. When is it?
And I’m certainly not trying to hang a guilt trip on you! I applaud you for making the plans and actually executing them.
We didn’t do Mama’s on any of our visits. I think you had to plan ahead, make reservations and drive there (it’s on the north side, as I remember, between Kahului and Paia). We just get so enervated when we’re there that we fully expect fish to swim up on the beach, cook themselves and flop onto a plate while we’re sitting there.
Oh, I misunderstood your reference to the Paia Fish House — you mean that cool funky little place on the corner in the center of town, don’t you — that’s much more our style too — Mama’s is great, but way pricey for what you get, and we’ve actually got a little hole inthe wall place very close to where we stay that’s presided over by a former chef from Mama’s — he decided he’d get much more satisfaction from providing “locals” (and tourists in the know) with fine quality meals at a fraction of the Mama’s price, so we feast on Mahi in lemon caper sauce out of styrofoam cartons on our lanai and save both the drive over to the other side of the island, and the $$. But yeah, that place right in Paia is great. We shared a table there once with one of the more colorful locals — an expat hippie poet from the 60’s in San Francisco — quite a character. We neither knew nor cared whether any of the stories he told us about his past life were for real. For a giant share of our basket of fries, he entertained us royally.
So, OK — come down and visit us in the Bay Area and I’ll cook you a close approximation of that feast, or join us over here next February, and we’ll do it as take-out!
As for the European junket…oh yes indeed I am excited! My friend Louise (with whom you are familiar from Birdie’s comments) and her husband and younger daughter, are going to visit older daughter, currently teaching English in France, in April. Naturally it evolved into an excellent idea for me to join them (for various really good reasons, my beloved husband is not the least bit interested in the hustle and bustle of city based travel experiences any more, so I’ll be on my own for that adventure) and, since I’ll be in the vicinity, why not pop over to meet Dick and explore his part of the world just a bit. Except for the “April in Paris” part, the timing of that jaunt is still a bit up in the air, but excited? You bet I already am!
OK, lest this somewhat flaky connection die in mid-stream on me here…
More anon