|
Finding love after 50. The website for middle aged singles and senior singles, providing information and dating advice for middle age dating and senior
dating. This column's topic: A trip together in Maui.
Wow-ee it's Maui
I've dated my girlfriend for nearly three years. We don't live together. We recently experienced what living together might be like by spending
five days in Maui.
The first thing we learned: if you fly Hawaiian Airlines, get pre-assigned seating when you book your flight. We arrived at LAX two hours early.
Hawaiian didn't give us seats until ten minutes before departure. Poor treatment for having booked in October.
Hertz didn't do much better. We arrived at their counter at 11 p.m. (1 a.m., our time). Six customers, two agents. One agent helped one person, and then
went home, leaving five of us for the remaining agent. They made it up somewhat by renting us a white Mustang convertible for the price of a sub-compact.
We stayed at a condo complex called Papakea, near Kaanapali: top floor, oceanfront (15 yards to the sand), side-unit, with a panoramic view of the island of
Molokai, ten miles across a rich blue ocean.
Humpback whales and Bacardi rum with orange juice don't normally mix. But, when you're sipping the drink and watching the whales from your deck, they go
together nicely. The Hawaiian Islands are the primary breeding and calving grounds of this endangered species.
One sunset, we watched over 200 humpbacks frolic in the ocean: first, you see what looks like a puff of steam, then the black tail, sometimes the entire body.
When we snorkeled, we could hear the whales communicating.
Lahaina has tons of restaurants. We tried the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., a San Clemente, Calif.-based chain, which
partnered with Paramount Pictures, to produce a Forrest Gump-themed restaurant. Enjoyed it so much we ate there twice.
Bubba Gump bartenders have an Orange County connection. Scott was a lifeguard at Salt Creek Beach for seven years; Dave surfs at Trestles when on
vacation; and Penny was raised in Southern California.
On the third day, I awoke with the flu-couldn't believe it, down for the count for 24 hours. When bad luck like that happens, you learn about your mate's
character. My girlfriend went from Gidget to nurse. Her tasty Campbell's tomato soup at night sped my recovery.
On a day trip to snorkel, with the convertible top down, feeling like kids, a hefty Hawaiian standing under a tree held up a cigar-shaped object and yelled, "Maui
Wow-ee for sale." We aren't into funny-cigars so we stopped at a papaya stand instead.
Maui singles deal with the same issues as Mainland singles. Available singles live there, but finding each other is a challenge.
My girlfriend's niece, Gina, is a single mom with two boys. They live in Makawao, a small town just off the road to Hana. Over lunch at Polli's, an authentic
Mexican restaurant, she told us many singles use the Internet to find other singles in Maui. Then, they meet at places like Starbucks and Borders.
In Hawaii, smoking in restaurants is permissible. You don't realize how irritating smoke is until you've been exposed to it again.
On some vacations, you're ready to go home. On this one, we weren't. We lived together perfectly for five days.
| 
