Island Time

Not even sure what time zone my body thinks it's in so I am just going to string a few a words together with a few pictures and get to bed. No, vacation doesn't wear a person out so much as traveling. Been up over 30 hours with a 3-hour nap on the plane, so sleep will come first and vacation photos and interesting narrative will come second.

Here's a bit about where we stayed and how we got there.

First of all, when you're boarding a plane for Hawaii, you don't need to hear surf music and see island video highlights to get in the mood to go.

A quick look at the current temperature was all we needed. Let's get this plane in the air!

I am not a completely comfortable flyer. I need to either read or watch the featured movie or sleep so I don't have to think about the thousands and thousands of feet up in the air we are. Normally, the mention of the seat cushion serving as a flotation device goes right over my head. But this time, I was like, wow, we are going to be flying over water for a long, long time. Uff da. Good thing I brought along some good distracting Christmas books to read!

We landed in Honolulu and then hopped over the Maui. You can see that the Big Island is very populated! It was so cool to fly over a volcano crater without being charged extra. Ha.

Very pleasant to arrive on Maui with an updated forecast that included less rain than initially stated. Felt bad for those suffering the snow and cold back home but, dang, did we have good timing to escape or what?

Our home for 5 nights was Ka'anapali Shores on the west end of Maui.

A view from our ocean-facing suite. We were on the 9th floor and I even dared to go out on the balcony every day!

We had a kitchenette, too, but really enjoyed almost all of our meals out – immersing ourselves in the island flavor!

This is the view from our balcony. There were two pools, the second closer to the beach on the other side of the short "beach club bar" building.

And just beyond the pools... the beach! It was windy and high tide so the beach area sort of disappeared. But we found a spot further down when we needed it!

View from our balcony at night.

... And at 4:30 a.m. when you wake up on Wisconsin time!

The view from the backside faced east so we could see the sunrise over one of the "mountains." Didn't have any spectacular colors the mornings I was up early enough to view!

All the resorts were getting excited for Christmas, their busiest week of the year. So weird to see holiday decorations without snow. That took a lot of getting used to.

Oh, and here is the view of our room/balcony from the pool, where a desperate Wisconsin woman was trying to get the last rays of sun on a very cloudy day before heading to the airport!

It was tough to say goodbye and it seemed like the travel gods didn't want us to go either. Had very turbulent flight from Maui to Phoenix (so no sleep there). Then got delayed in Phoenix until 2:30 a.m. Mountain Time. Finally got to Minneapolis before 8 a.m. and home to Wisconsin Rapids around noon.

Time went so quickly but we squeezed in sightseeing, an island tour, a whale-watching excursion, an outstanding luau and swimming in the ocean. More to come. Not to rub it in, but to show you and teach you a little bit about one of our 50 states I never thought I'd cross off my "must see" bucket list.

Aloha!