Today was slated to be the last FULL DAY of our tropical vacation to Maui Hawaii. However, in the wee hours of the morning, we mutually decided to make it our last partial day in Hawaii and head home to Wisconsin a day earlier than planned, due to sh*tty weather precluding the maximum possible level of desired fun.
Deborah rebooked our flights out of Kahului Maui Hawaii. They were pretty much the same flights as before, just 24 hours earlier. There was a bit of finegling with United Airlines customer service, due to some perceived (and actual) overcharges on the new flights. But Deborah handled all that malarkey. I handled cooking and/or eating most of the remaining leftovers, and there were A LOT OF THEM. I made tofu steaks, to use up the remaining tofu. I ate one of the four remaining vegan burgers, but to eat any more than that would have overstuffed me, on top of the baseline cereal and fruit with soy milk, that I did consume. I had to trash the bulk of the stir fry that I made last night. I did not feel too bad about that. Deborah said it was one of my best stir fries, and that may have been due to the garam masala seasoning I used to flavor it (gives it a sweeter flavor profile than straight curry seasoning, due to garam masala's cinnamon and cardamom components). Deborah likes a sweeter edge on her food. I thought it was a fairly average stir fry, because I favor more savory spices. But it is what it is, as they say.
We both showered, packed our bags, and headed for the lobby of the resort to check out. The resort staff were persnickety in their refusal to grant us any rebates or reductions of our fees, due to leaving a day early. I'm not sure why, because this only hurts them from a marketing standpoint. The money they retain by shorting us doesn't make up for the revenue they'll lose when people ask us about our trip and we don't actively sing their praises (which we would do if they cut us some slack). Profits are not the be all end all in this modern age of online travel reviews (and this one is read FAR AND WIDE!). The good news for them is that they can remedy this AT ANY TIME. Whilst we shant speak ill of them, because they did provide us with ample accommodations and amenities, neither will we actively praise and recommend them above and beyond any other Maui resort unless and until they equitably compensate us. They get to profit from the bungalow we vacated by "double dipping" for the night we did not spend there and renting it out to another patron, which they no doubt will. They should recompense us for some of that "pure profit margin." They may not, and that will play out as it plays out, based on what I said above.
After checkout, we put our bags in the rental car and headed toward Kahului, where we would fly out of Maui's main airport (OGG) there later in the evening. We stopped at a pleasant seaside park en route and sat at a picnic table there, taking in the scenic and misty mountains of the island's interior on one side and to Pacific Ocean shoreline on the other. The park had a large number of feral chicken families - hens, roosters, and young chicks - scrabbling out a subsistence lifestyle. The cocks (roosters) were very colorful.
We proceeded on to Kahului, in search of a purported vegan food truck. We found the food truck lot and it was full of food trucks...but not the particular vegan one we sought. So we ended up going to a nearby Thai place with vegan friendly options. It was an interesting establishment, with a lot of 70s and 80s themed artwork and paraphenalia. We then stopped at a coffee shoppe to chillax for a bit, since it was still early afternoon and we did not need to drop of the rental car and check in at the airport for quite a while. But in due course, we did drive to the airport, drop off the car, and check in for our United Airlines flight. We glided through TSA Pre Check fairly expediently and the only snag was when we got our bags scanned for agricultural sh*t and apparently the tangerines I had in my carry on were a no no. I put them in the trash.
We filled our water bottles en route to our departure gate and then settled in at said gate to relax and mentally prep for the marathon of air travel ahead. We would be taking the "red eye" back to the mainland, but since it was only a six hour flight, the maximum possible amount of sleep we could get would be about four hours, and that was optimistic.
That being said, everything did go pretty well. We landed in Denver early in the morning, after the red eye flight. We had dozed a little bit on the plane, but not nearly enough, which was within expectations. We got vegan smoothies at Freshens in the Denver airport and drank them at our gate for the Madison flight, which departed a few hours later and was relatively uneventful. Upon arrival in Madison, after collecting our bags from baggage claim, we got lunch at the Green Owl vegan/vegetarian cafe. My goal was to push through the rest of the day and reset my biological clock with a good night of sleep. Deborah opted for a massive power nap in the afternoon. Either way, we got back into the swing of things pretty expediently.
I am not going to lie, it was a bit of an anticlimactic tropical vacation. Don't get me wrong, it WAS a vacation. But...Hawaii owes us three days of sunshine and tropical breezes.
