I'm just a cock-eyed pessimist

Man, they're going to revoke my goth card when I get back. Not that I'm goth or anything.

My butt is aching. I can't decide if it's because I improved my kick for snorkeling or from having the boat seat whack me when we were riding around yesterday.

I finally got to sleep in, but I'm still sleepy. Maybe I'm just lazy.

Looking forward to going home and looking forward to my next trip to London.

PS: I was vain and bought a red and black sarong yesterday.

First: anyone want to pick us up from the airport tomorrow night? Our flight arrives around 10:30. Let me know ...

I've spent the last hour and a half watching shadowdaddy and his uncle set up the little boat his uncle built and get ready to take it out on the water. (I've also been reading and cross stitching and such.) Part of this time was a sailing lesson for shadowdaddy. I would have considered this an "optional" activity since it's a two person boat (boo!), but it turns out Uncle Steve carved a new paddle for Jason so they could go out together, so, well, this is a "chill out" day for me now.

People are really excited about his boat and keep coming up to Steve to talk about it. It is pretty neat; you can switch which end of the boat the sail is "attached" to (very hard to describe but you basically lift it up, swing it around the side, and reattach it to the other end of the boat). Apparently this is the only boat like it on the whole island.

Steve's house is just up the road from the beach where the Maui Canoe Club is located; the beach in front of the launch site is covered with outriggers. I found out that tomorrow at 8 AM they have a beginner's mix-up where they pair people up and send them out on the boats. This sounds like it would be pretty fun to do.

I think this afternoon we might go to the aquarium, but we've finally got tickets to the Old Lahaina Luau. The trick is, apparently, to call them right after 10 AM, which is the final time for people to cancel their reservations and get their money back. Once again, I got a travel agent discount, which I'm very excited about. So my real goal today is to work up a pretty good appetite; I need to be able to fit all of that good food in.

Errr ... so after the boating wrapped up, we went into town on a short errand then headed toward Lahaina. We made two stops: the Sugar Cane Express (a train depot) and The Whaling Museum (umm, icky, to me whaling is like killing dogs), then headed to the Old Lahaina Luau.

The luau was fun (food tasty, dancing good, endless drinks a-okay), but once again I suffered from the excess of other tourists. The people at our table didn't really talk to us, and we had way more fun chatting with "Cat," the waitress. But, well, whatever, if they weren't pumping tourists through their milking machine, the event wouldn't have an excuse to exist. At least the hula was great (and seemed very authentic, nice to get a history of the dance) and all of the food was fresh and tasty. But really, did the people at our table have to act so put out about all of the food?

Afterwards we hit the Local Motion store (you can actually hear the waves crash behind them, SO COOL!) and I got a, er, red and black t-shirt with Chinese mythological animals on the front I saw someone wearing at the luau ("I had to get something to put over my bikini ..."). It wasn't a bad day, but this seems like a long time to be in any one place and I can't get a good vibe going here doing all of this stuff with, well, not ugly Americans, but, I don't know, clueless travellers. I'm looking forward to going home again and having a nice relaxing time seeing movies, plays, and ballet, and playing games until my head pops off.

Shall try to get in a final post tomorrow before we go to the airport. I need to hit the hay if I'm going to be paddling an outrigger at 8 AM.