From Upcountry to Up The Mountain.

Candace and I have settled into our new home in Kula.

Haiku was nice, but we have moved higher up the mountain and we could not be happier. Our commutes are full of driving through clouds, not below them. We are about 2,500 feet above sea level here, on the side of Haleakalā and overlooking the city of Kihei. The sunset is beautiful here, showing off all the reds and oranges right before dusk.

Since we are pretty far off of the beaten path, at night our surroundings turn into a zoo. Spiders, cockroaches, toads and all manner of creatures are all around us. The cacophony is hugely entertaining if you can quiet your thoughts enough to hear it. When there is a cat fight, you know. When someone comes home, you hear their car for about thirty seconds before you see them roll up the driveway. If an animal trespasses on a dog's territory, the barking and growling goes on for minutes at a time. The birds are countless and come by all day. They will forage in front of our little house in the morning and sing in the trees all afternoon. The spiders spin intricate webs in one night, snaring whoever is unlucky to wake up first and run into them on the way to the bathroom or the outdoor shower.

Speaking of the bathroom, it isn't your normal toilet. It is a composting toilet that we have to pour peet moss in every day. Surprisingly, there is no smell to talk about as long as you don't forget the daily maintenance. You also have to go outside to another door to get to it. Usually that's fine but with all the animals about it can be a tiny bit harrowing at 3 a.m. when you need to use it.

The family who owns the land we live on is interesting, to say the least. The story goes that their father made a nice living but passed away last year, leaving a mess of paperwork for his wife and daughters to tend to. Both daughters moved back to Maui after going to college on the mainland to help their mother through this difficult transition. Now they have a fledgling painting business and half of their land here is being used for farming under the name Cosmos Acres. The fact that my e-mail moniker is KingofCosmos amused the matriarch of the place greatly, which I think earned us major serendipity points with her. There are two other people living here in another cottage up the property, staying here and helping with the farm. 

The main point we learned when we were talking to everyone before moving in was that everyone likes their space. The previous tenant would come up to the ladies' main house unannounced and invite himself in for dinner, which infuriated them. Maybe he was dumb, or lonely. But we assured them we won't be coming up unannounced unless something catastrophic breaks down here.

The kitchen here is fully decked out and the ladies have told us if we need any random kitchen tools they probably have some in their house somewhere. They seem to collect high quality pots and pans during their frequent thrift store trips and refurbish them to their former glory. I think we'll be using our two-burner propane stove a lot to make all the interesting foods we find on the island.

This entry has gone on a bit too long, so I'll cut it off here. This post was a little more informational on where we are and what we're doing, so I hope you don't mind. I will be back to the more existential thoughts like my other entry tonight soon.

Change...Change Is Good.

Maui has changed me.

Today it was no more apparent than when I got off my shift at Whole Foods. I had two and a half hours to kill before Candace clocked out. Usually I would have rushed home to do some laundry and dishes, making sure everything was nice and tidy. But since home was a half hour away I decided to just stay in town. I grabbed my flip flops out of the back seat and rode down to Baldwin Beach Park.

I took off my shirt, sprayed on my sun screen and got down to the sand and just sat. I listened to the ocean. I listened to the random music floating through the air, drums and ukuleles and hand claps forming an odd rhythm with the tide. I watched the dogs roaming free up and down the beach, sniffing people and fetching sticks when their owners threw them. I watched the sun as it slowly set behind the clouds and the mountains, cooling the temperature by about fifteen degrees.

Certain people on Maui adopt a culture of "Ohana". That means "family" in Hawaiian, and when people get together at the same place day after day they become ohana. A young girl walking by called out to someone sitting near me. "Hey uncle!" she shouted. The man could have very well been this little girl's uncle, but I don't think so. Another woman passing by with her daughter stopped to give a greeting to another man near me. They greeted each other in a European fashion, kissing each cheek. After talking for a few minutes, the woman and her daughter made their way off of the beach. Watching all these people, I felt like an outsider of the highest degree. I don't know these people...yet. But as I stay here and co-exist with these people on this island I feel like I will get closer to becoming part of their family, their ohana.

The Agony and the Ecstasy: Car Edition

Today we finally retrieved our new(to us) car!

We started off the day running against the clock seeing as we were supposed to drop off our rental at 10 AM and had not contacted the Honda guys until 9 AM to see if the car was repaired. There was a transmission issue and they offered to fix it for free if we bought the car. Luckily, the car was ready and we arrived just in time to pick it up. We drove over in two cars to the airport to drop off the rental and it went off without a hitch, surprisingly. With our new chariot Candace and I decided we deserved a nice breakfast, so we headed over to Paia.

Once we were in Paia, we parked in the giant parking lot right inside the entrance to town. Apparently the streets were getting choked with tourists' cars so they built this lot right at the entrance to town for all the visitors to park in. After donating some change to the local homeless(who told me this parking lot was "their living room, man") we headed across the busy street to the Paia Bay Coffee Roasters. I decided to get a fully-loaded bagel with bacon, tomato, lettuce, and cream cheese and Candace opted for the fluffy scrambled egg plate with bread and fresh salsa. The food was delicious, proving my point that you have to be stellar to survive on Maui as a restaurant.

After our breakfast was gone, it was time to drop me off at work. Work went by pretty smoothly, although most of the workers there did not realize I was completely new to the region and assumed I knew what I was doing already. I mean I did know what I was doing, but not the way THEY do it.

Candace had her adventure down at the Baldwin Park Beach getting slammed by the waves, but that wasn't the end of her story. On her way home, one of the tires on the car blew out on her! Luckily she was near to a pull-off spot and got out of the way of traffic. After trying to get the spare out, she called AAA to come help her. Since she was pretty far out of town, she had to wait about two hours for them to show up. Lucky for her, there was an amazing sunset going on and she had a front row seat. Eventually, a tow truck got to her and had to saw off the spare tire's nut with a hacksaw! Apparently it hadn't been used all that often and was stripped. Funny thing about the driver, though: He had lived in Austin for over a decade before coming out to Hawaii. What are the odds, eh?

With a warning to get the tire replaced ASAP, Candace set off to retrieve me from work and we drove back home for the evening. At least she got to see some amazing sights and I have something to do tomorrow on my day off. Costco Tire Center here I come!

(P.S. Candace wanted me to add that the tow truck guy was really nice and made it up to her within twenty minutes of her calling. The real reason she had to wait was for the OTHER tow truck guy who had the hacksaw. My bad.)

First Day of Work: Maui Edition

Today was our first day at Whole Foods in Maui.

I was nervous for a little while before clocking in and getting everything underway, but I soon realized that the Maui store has more in common with my old store than I thought. There are still the same satisfying interactions with people, but also the same problems everyone runs into.

Today I was mostly doing paperwork and getting informed on all the different policies, since I moved to a different region. But once that was done, I got right into bagging. Helped a ton of people outside, talked to them about Maui and got back into my groove. I see myself fitting in well with my team and I'm back to bagging early in the morning tomorrow.

As for Candace, she was hard at work almost immediately. The former Wine Specialist has been gone doing his art gig for the past two weeks, so she had to go through a bunch of backstock and figure out how to make all the new displays. I did not see her at all for eight hours, but from what I hear everyone loves her at the new store and they are super excited to have her. Also apparently her whole Specialty Team lives near us in Haiku so we have already been invited to the next get-together when they are all off of work. Score!

After work, Candace and I took the back way home towards Paia, a nice little plantation town that has recently gotten a bit more touristy and boutique-filled. We stopped at this pizza place called The Flatbread Company, who ironically are known for their amazing organic salad. We got a share-able plate of salad and their special flatbread pizza of the day which had bacon, parmesan, mozzarella, caramelized onions, and local onion marmalade. It was probably the first or second-best pizza I have ever had. Maui does NOT mess around when it comes to food. The restaurants have to be stellar or they just do not survive.

After scarfing down the whole pizza between the two of us, we made our way home in the dark. Driving upcountry is a little scary at night! There are zero lights around so you have to be very careful to not hit any wildlife or miss your turns. Luckily with Candace's navigation I made it home safe and sound. Now after putting in some dishes to be washed I decided to write an entry for y'all and then head to bed since I have to get up super early. Good night!

From Hotel To House

Life is good.

Candace and I woke up this morning craving a beach. We decided to go down two miles to the Kahana Beach Park and were pleasantly surprised when we were the only people on the beach. After our breakfast of banana bread, we got in the water and marveled at the views. You could see the huge mountains to the west and the expanse of the ocean in front of you. After getting our fill of the beach, we went back to the hotel and checked out. We were scheduled to meet the couple we are renting a cottage from for the month so we headed out to Haiku to check it out.

We met up with Katheryn and Zam, our fun-loving homeowners who are on vacation for the next month. They gave us a brief tour and bid us adieu. The house we are staying in is truly beautiful. We've got about two acres total of land here to ourselves, and we've been informed that we can explore to our hearts' content. The house has a big window right in the main living area that gets all the perfect ocean breezes, meaning we don't have to run any fans or air conditioning. You just have to be quick when the rain comes since it can happen without much warning!

We ventured into Kahului for our errands this afternoon. We needed groceries first off because Candace misses cooking her own meals. After having to keep our kitchen clean and traveling, we've had our fill of takeout food. Of course, this created a perfect opportunity to go see the new Whole Foods we are working at starting on Tuesday. The store is beautiful, with plenty of outdoor seating and a HUGE produce section. After meeting the produce guy Rob, we left with a veritable cornucopia of fruit. As a plus, almost all of it was grown on Maui.

The first thing about produce in Maui is that if you buy local everything is inexpensive. The dream of 99 cent pineapples is real, so we picked one up straight away. We were also tipped off about canary melons, which I have had before but they were super expensive back in Texas. Here they were about three dollars for the whole thing. Not too shabby! We also picked up some strawberry papaya, a giant avocado that has a great nutty flavor to it, and some asparagus to go with the local Kajiki fillets(blue marlin) we bought for dinner. The fish is plentiful and looks amazing in Maui, so we are going to work our way through it all one fillet at a time.

The next stop was Starbucks, as Candace was getting a bit decaffeinated through our shopping. With our coffees in hand, we set off for more supplies at the local Kmart. You know, all that stuff you realize you can't live without once you arrive. Our main goal was the firmest pillows possible, as the ones left with us were way too squishy for my giant head.

After grabbing that, we headed back to the house and have settled in for a relaxing evening. Tomorrow we'll get back to the job of setting up for semi-permanent life on Maui. Tonight though, we will just bask in the beauty we have lucked ourselves into and hope we can keep it going as long as possible.

And with that, I think I will grab a local brew and relax listening to the birds and breezes of mountain life in Maui.