She talked for 5 hours straight

Posted by random olio

Somehow every time I come back from a trip I have annoying airplane stories. For my flights to/from Maui I think the worst was the woman sitting directly behind us on our way to Maui who literally (I am not exaggerating in the least) talked for the entire flight. How the poor woman sitting next to her made it through the flight I will never know. Chris kept offering me his noise canceling headphones but I do not think I should have to block it all out. Rather I think that individuals need to have more self-awareness! Especially when you have a high-pitched voice.

I did tell Chris that he can NEVER tell me I talk too much. I do not think I could ever talk for that long!

The next story has nothing to do with my trip but was an article I read last week about a man on a Portland bound Jet Blue flight that was sleeping and woke up and began peeing on neighboring passengers and their belongings. What, what, what? What is wrong with people these days? What has happened to the art of traveling, the luxury, and the excitement? We no longer seem to care about what is happening around us.

I definitely think a lot before traveling these days. What will my TSA experience be like? What will my overall travel experience be like, and how will the other passengers around me act? A colleague of mine’s spouse is a flight attendant, and they share horrifying stories about the things that people do on airplanes. We need to elevate our travel experiences both for ourselves and those around us.

Babymoon in Maui + Paia and Makawao

Posted by random olio

Chris and I just got back from a babymoon in Maui. Ah, it is so nice to be home, but ah, it was just so nice to be away.

The last time we were on that island, we were on our honeymoon 12 years ago. We found quite a few new areas that we fell in love with this time and asked ourselves why did we not find them before? Ah, yes, the Internet. After Chris and I ran off to Kauai all those years ago and got married on a beach, we spent a few hours posting photos from our wedding in Kauai to our website for friends and family to see. We remembered how slow it was and how long it took over what was not called dial-up but should have been, and how expensive it was because we were paying by the minute. Since the Internet was not a big thing in all Hawaii resorts at the time, we were at the mercy of guidebooks, maps, and word of mouth.

This time we had word of mouth from friends that frequent Maui often AND the Internet. We found two little towns on the road to Hana that were perfect for us. No, we did not drive the road all the way to Hana. I am not sure I could have handled it with how many times I have to pee per hour, and sometimes the winding turns makes my big belly a bit queasy. 12 years ago we never explored the east side of the island (only the west and south parts). This time we found: Paia and Makawao.

Paia is on the way to Hana and is on the Hana Highway. It is right on the water and the beaches that neighbor this small strip of a town are ones that in the winter have the massive waves that attract surfers from all over. So Paia could be called a surfer town, but without all the cheese and touristy feel of say a Lahaina (sorry for those of you Maui buffs that love Lahaina). It is an old sugar plantation town. I kept trying to rack my brain for what Paia felt like to me. It was like an Ojai, California in Hawaii with more shops and restaurants. It felt natural and real without the pretentiousness of the shops in Wailea that bring those from the neighboring Four Seasons resort. It inspired my senses and creativity.

Then we drove down Baldwin Ave to Makawao. I had heard about Makawao because of the famous “malasadas” known mostly in Honolulu at Leonard’s Bakery. Since we were not going to Honolulu, I wanted to try what I could in Maui. A little Internet research told me that T Komoda Bakery was one of the places to go to try their version. So of course I wanted to continue south on Baldwin to explore Makawao and get a malasada. I found another interesting little town, inland, but just as charming. Almost as though you were going to be in wine country, only you are actually in cattle country. Galleries, boutiques, and restaurants down another cute strip.

Oh, and guess what? T Komoda Bakery was on vacation from the day we arrived for 3 weeks. So no malasadas, but we found two great towns that will be on the list the next time we are back in Maui. And yes we still got malasadas – thank you to Home Maid Bakery. They do not start making their evening batch until 4 pm, and on our way back from Paia and Makawao were an hour early and they still made us a dozen!

I am glad to be home in my bed, but I do already miss paradise and my daily dose of shave ice!

#500

Posted by random olio

It was about two years ago that I was sitting on a beach in Maui talking to a family member about how I wanted to start a blog. When they asked me: “Well what would you write about each day?” I said: “I think it will be random every day. There are a variety of topics I can see writing about based on my many interests.” I had no idea I would still be writing this blog 500 posts later. Yes, today is my 500th blog post. It is just a few weeks shy of a 2 year anniversary for random olio.

There are days that I cannot imagine how I will have the time or inspiration to write another blog post, and there are other days that I have so many ideas that I often cannot decide what I want to write about for that day. Just to shed light on how often the ideas flow, I currently have 108 “blog drafts.” For those of you reading this that might not be WordPress bloggers, that would be like having 108 draft messages in your email client. Every once in a while I will go to the oldest drafts and see if I can resurrect the inspiration from my original idea.

random olio has been visited from 141 different countries, a shocking statistic for me. The top three are: United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, which makes sense. While I do not know how long I will continue to write blog posts, as long as random ideas continue to pour out of my fingertips, I will continue to share random olios! With appreciation to all who stop by and read a few, and especially to those of you who may have actually read all 500 blog posts. You probably know way too much about me, and potentially think I am insane.