Travelogue Day 2 - Getting Oriented

Day two in Maui kicked off with me eating a breakfast of coffee and a peanut butter and jelly (PBJ) sandwich in our bungalow. The coffee was cheap assed hotel coffee, but the coffee maker was decently large, with a 10 cup stainless steel pot. I made a full pot, combining a filter bag of caffeinated coffee grounds with a filter bag of decaf for a richer, darker brew, despite a potentially diluted caffeine content. The PBJ sammie was one leftover from our travels the day prior. It was, as the saying goes, a "breakfast of champions."

Once Deborah was awake and abluted, we actually paid a visit to the resort's restaurant to assess its vegan offering. As expected and predicted, there were not many. Deborah had a $20 acai + granola + fruit bowl and I had just $16 overpriced dollars worth of fresh fruit (to be fair, it was high quality fruit, especially the pineapple).

"We should go to Safeway [a grocery store we knew was nearby because we had seen it on our drive to the resort from the airport] and get some meal fixings," I suggested. Deborah agreed. Our bungalow, as I believe I said in the prior post, was equipped with a functional, albeit basic, kitchenette, and we'd likely save a bundle on meals by prepping our own food than eating out all the time.

After leaving the restaurant, we did a short walk on the beach and then reposited ourselves on some reclining beach chairs near the sea, after obtaining some beach towels from the resort's beachside towel station, to relax.

After a time, I asked Deborah, "Do you care if I go on a longer walk?" She did not care, nor did she care to join me. So, in due course, I set off on foot in what I believed to be a north-northwesterly direction along the beach. The surf was pretty active in the Pacific Ocean, occasionally launching itself up the beach far enough to soak my feet and calves. I was wearing water sport shoes, so this was not a problem in and of itself, but said water sport shoes did begin to take on a not insignificant load of sand. The surf activity was also amenable to surfing and I saw a number of surf boarders doing this activity.

Far ahead of me, I could see that the beach curved away to the north. My intent was to make it to the large building that demarcated the curvature, and I achieved this. However, I became a little bit lost navigating my turnaround to head back to our resort, as I sought what I believed to be a paved "beach walk" behind the dunes that would take me back to the resort. As it turned out, the beach walk path did not appear to extend to where I was located, and after some wandering around in a labyrinth of hotel and resort public areas, I eventually found my way back to the beach path boardwalk and power walked back to where Deborah was still lounging by the beach. I had texted her to let her know I had gotten lost and was on my way back, so she would not worry.

Our intent for lunch was to find a vegan friendly place called the A'a Cafe, in a nearby strip mall. We drove the rental car there and found it...to be closed on Wednesdays (which it was). Luckily, we had a backup plan, and proceeded to another vegan friendly eatery called Miss Arepa, serving plant based (and conventional) Venezuelan arepas (by way of a quick stop at a coffee shoppe, where I scored a bag of ground kona coffee beans for the bungalow coffee maker, to replace the low budget hotel coffee). Arepas are some sort of crispy fried corn fritter enclosing a variety of savory fillings, in our case pulled jackfruit (plant based pulled pork), rice, beans, mushrooms, plantains, and probably other stuff. These were accompanied by both a mild and a hot sauce, in jars, to augment the foodstuffs. It was very tasty, albeit a little too salty and oily. 

We hit Safeway after that and procured some additional supplementals for our dietary needs for the rest of the week, including some vegan burgers and faux chicken patties.

The remainder of the day comprised more beach rest and relaxation, during which we saw some whales out in the bay, jumping and blowholing.

We got an early night, because on the morrow we would be getting up at the butt crack of dawn for a snorkeling excursion our travel agent had booked us for. Stay tuned for that travelogue post tomorrow!

Travelogue Day 1 - In Transit

"Gina!" I chirped, my voice cutting through the gentle din of Gate 6 at the Madison airport as I tested my hypothesis that the woman who had just entered the gate area with a younger female traveling companion was, in fact, a long time acquaintance and past band mate, one Gina Rehm.

The woman looked up and over at us at the sound of my voice, confirming my surmise, and a look of recognition spread across her face as she took in the visages of Deborah and me.

"Oh, my gosh...HI!" said Gina.

"Wow, you know everyone," said Gina's traveling companion.

"Oh, I know, honey, it's OK," Gina said, patting her companion on the shoulder before heading toward us.

Gina bantered with us a spell. She was also flying to Denver on the same flight as us, en route to Sacramento for the unfortunate funeral of the grandfather of her traveling companion, who turned out to be Gina's niece, who we'll call Samantha for lack of recall of her actual name and perhaps to anonymize the innocent.

It should be noted at this point that I almost never see people I know at the airport, despite Madison Wisconsin being a fairly small city, as city sizes go.

This episode punctuated the initial stages of the tropical adventure for which this travelogue is intended to document AND also set the general tone of laid back ease that I hoped to manifest for the entire week ahead. Prior to the random encounter with Gina our morning had proceeded as most mornings preambling air travel typically do. We woke up earlier than we normally would have on most weekdays (this being a Tuesday), abluted, dressed, and downed whatever sustenance we deemed necessary for burling through the cumbersome American air transportation system.

We were bound for Maui Hawaii, via Denver. Once through the anxiety stage of TSA Security - which was fairly minimal as state-sponsored anxieties go - and immersed in the relative safety of the airport concourse, we relaxed somewhat.

"Can we choose to live in the universe in which everything goes perfectly smoothly on this trip?" I asked Deborah. She nodded her acceptance of the proposal and, mentally, we set about structurally reorienting the Cosmos to our desires. We filled our water bottles and I procured a cup of coffee from the overpriced Ancora coffee shoppe in the airport concourse, slowly sipping it as we awaited our departure.

Both flights were on time and proceeded smoothly and without incident. So anxiety-free was I that I didn't even notice the first flight had landed until the plane's wheels touched down on the tarmac at Denver International. In fact, when it did, I thought initially it was just unexpected turbulence. But there you go!

We had about a two hour layover in Denver before boarding the flight to Kaluhui on Maui in Hawaii. En route from Concourse A (where we landed) to Concourse B (where our second flight would depart from), we passed a smoothie place that we had researched ahead of time and hoped to stumble upon without too much effort, per our earlier intentional prayer to the Cosmos. We procured a couple fruit smoothies and sipped the wholesomeness of them into our bodies at the departure gate.

I'm not gonna lie, the seven hour flight from Denver to Maui was a marathon of patience. I spent the time listening to audio books, reading an actual book, and formulating the initial paragraphs of this post. We were served a vegan meal on this flight, per our request during booking of the United Airlines flights. As modern society has not embraced the awesomeness of veganism yet, it was sparse and average quality fare (but I commend their effort). Anticipating this, however, we had packed some snacks and PB&J sammies in our carry on bags, the latter of which we consumed to supplement our nutritional needs.

The landing in Maui was smooth and upon exiting the plane, Deborah and I changed into climate-appropriate attire (shorts, tee shirts, and sandals) that we had also had the foresight to stash in our carry ons. We scored our suitcases from baggage claim and mosied over to the rental car station to get our transportation for the week, a Chevy something-or-other midsized sedan from Enterprise. On the way out of Kaluhui, we stopped at a Whole Foods grocery store and secured a stash of...well...whole foods. We would be staying in a bungalow at a resort in Lahaina Maui HI (the Royal Lahaina Resort and Bungalows, in fact) about 45 minutes drive from the airport, and said bungalow was (we were told) equipped with a full kitchenette. We planned to make some of our own meals during the vacation week, to ensure vegan fare and also cut costs on dining out (point of fact: bowl of assorted fruit at the resort restaurant = $16!!!). We got some stir fry and salad fixings, as well as some fruit, cereal, and snacks.

On the drive to Lahaina, I was surprised to see that one can see the neighboring islands of Lanai and Moloka'i from Maui. I did not realize they were so close or so visible. And perhaps they aren't that close...but they are mountainous and thus rise well above the horizon established by the curvature of the Earth, appearing - perhaps deceptively - to be nearby.

We found the resort on the west coast of Maui with minimal difficulty and checked in. Our bungalow was some distance from the main entrance to the resort. So we had to park the rental car in the guest parking lot near the entrance and then a bellhop drove us, our bags, and our groceries to our bungalow in a large golf cart. The bellhop pointed out some of the various resort amenities that typical resort guests care about, en route. As atypical guests, we made note of the ice machine and water dispenser, and paid less heed to the bars and live music options. Live music and bars are totally fine and sometimes even good and desirable, but they were not our priorities on this tropical vacation. Our priorities were primarily relaxation, sunshine, and more relaxation, punctuated by some good plant based eats from time to time, and of course HYDRATION. We also prioritized beach walks by the Pacific Ocean (a large body of water that is hard to miss no matter where you are in Hawaii). Beach walks would likely be my main source of exercise on this trip.

Once in our bungalow, we unpacked and put the groceries away. Deborah was pretty pooped from all the day's travel and relaxed on the bed. Marginally more motivated and energized, I set about making a small dinner of sauteed tofu and potatoes, which we ate before retiring for a deep and restful sleep. It was only about 9 pm Hawaii time when we got done with the meal. But that equates to 1 am and FAR PAST OUR BEDTIME in the time zone of Wisconsin, from whence we came.

That being said, I woke up at about 6 am Hawaii time (10 am Wisconsin time) the next morning, feeling very well rejuvenated and (hopefully) jet lag free. The adventures of our first FULL DAY in Hawaii will be recounted in tomorrow's installment of this travelogue.

Stay tuned!

Boycott Time

There is an effective solution to all the chaos and toxicity going on in the world right now. It's not an easy solution, but it's very doable if you are passionate, purposeful, and motivated to create change.

It's time for those of us who want the world to be better, more joyous, and positive to BOYCOTT ALL SOCIAL AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA. Just turn it off for a few weeks or months. You can pop in on it from time to time, but don't stay engaged with it in any meaningful or indeterminate way. We now know that ATTENTION is inversely correlated with CREDIBLE INFORMATION. The more attention grabbing social media information is, the less credible it is. Fact.

The reason this kind of mass boycott can work to change the world - if enough people do it - is that in our electronically connected (and often addicted) world, ATTENTION is a valuable commodity. Huge corporate profits are made by keeping YOUR eyeballs on screens. It may not seem like it when you are in it...but consider WHY IS MOST SOCIAL MEDIA FREE? Someone's paying for it. But not you. Because...and this is true...YOU ARE THE PRODUCT BEING BOUGHT AND SOLD (or more precisely your attention is being bought and sold). Advertisers are paying the social media platforms and underwriting their tech because they know that can get your eyeballs locked onto the very screens that bring them profits. They don't actually care about the validity or credibility of the information you are seeing on social media. They just want you to relentlessly consume it.

If 25% of the population suddenly WITHHELD its attention (the profitable commodity we are all the fungible tokens of), these technology corporations would feel the hit financially. They would then complain to their political policy makers and demand changes to end the boycott.

The main obstacle to this solution is ADDICTION. Social media (and to some extent mainstream media) are ridiculously addictive and hard to quit. But people quit addictions all the time...usually because they have a WHY.

If you knew for certain that intentionally boycotting social and mainstream media could affect positive change, would you do it? Well, it can. So do it.

It might be good to have your WHY in mind, and it helps if your WHY is shared with a lot of other people. My WHY is to keep toxic grievance and vitriol out of my life and since I have eliminated social and mainstream media from my life, 99.9% of all that negativity is OUT OF MY LIFE. I am not going to consume social and mainstream media until those media do a better job at detoxifying themselves.

I encourage you to go 100% media free for a minimum of two weeks and ideally one month. You'll be shocked and pleasantly surprised how much more positive, happy, and smart you become when the "fake news" is out of your life.

The End.