OFF TO MAUI!
Oct 6
We had a good travel day on Tuesday, with a stopover for the night in Seattle. The one casualty was my toe. I was moving around the wheelchair to push Bill onto the plane, and I kicked the side of the wheel with my big toe. It split my nail all the way across and bled like crazy. When we got onto the plane, one of the flight attendants brought me three band aids. It didn't hurt much after that.
We went to dinner at Gregories, which was recommended by the shuttle driver. It was quite good. Neither of us slept very well, but mostly that was excitement.
Wednesday morning, we got to the airport well before our flight and got through security with no trouble. One of the Hawai'ian staff pushed Bill all the way to the gate.
Once we were settled in our seats, we were served a delicious glass of ice cold POG. The lunch options were not great - appetizers were salmon pate' or shrimp and scallops salad; main course was duck, mahi, or vegetable pastries (choose two) and dessert was carrot cake (delicious.) I enjoyed several Kahulua and cremes and Bill had two cognacs. We had digi-players, so we both watched two movies and one Big Bang Theory, as well as listening to some lovely Hawai'ian music.
When we arrived, Bill was feeling good, although tired. There was a wheelchair waiting for us. When we got off the elevator heading toward baggage claim, there were Joe and Gee, waiting for us with fresh leis! We were so surprised, and happy. I had been fretting about how we were going to get the three suitcases and three carry-ons to the rental car shuttle.
Gee went with me to get the car, and Joe waited with Bill at the luggage carousel. We got to the condo around 2:00 and they helped us get organized, and then we thought we'd go to the pool for the Mai Tai party. We enjoy the music so much, and the ukulele group plays and sings several traditional Hawai'ian songs. But, Joe and Gee went over to see if there were any chairs in the shade, and there weren't, so we ended up sitting on our lanai, enjoying the music and visiting until 6:30. The had gone to the store on Tuesday to get us groceries so we had plenty of food in the house, but neither of us wanted any dinner, and Bill was starting to get cramps, so we went to bed at 7:30, but we didn't get much sleep because he was up most of the night with diarrhea. Thursday, he felt terrible all day, spending most of the day between the bathroom, the recliner and the bed. I think the travel days just wore him out.
We both fell asleep shortly after 8:00 Thursday night. I woke up at 5 and started working in the kitchen. I woke him at 7:00 and he felt good enough to go to the pool with me, to read, while I swam with all our friends. We read, and relaxed most of the day. The washer/dryer was delivered around 2:00, so after that, we walked over to see Joe and Gee, and that night, they brought roast, rice, corn and bread over to our place to share with us for dinner. Bill was feeling very good, and he ate a good amount of dinner. He has been very good about drinking lots of Gatorade, juice, water, and tea, so I'm sure he's getting enough liquids. When we did our first load of laundry, we discovered that the appliance movers broke one of the valves to the washer so we have scheduled our maintenance man to fix it on Monday. What a pain. I'm going to call the moving company to file a complaint, but they probably won't do anything because I signed off on the job. And I even gave those guys a tip.
Not a great look for a lanai
Today was another good day. Bill even went into the pool for a half hour to exercise with us. I stayed in for another 40 minutes, and then we read the paper and talked to Carolee. For breakfast we had a protein shake, an egg, bacon and toast. We went up to see some old friends, George and Janet who live two floors up from us. He broke his back seven months ago, so they have spent the whole time here, instead of going home to Boston in April, as they normally do. The people we gave the washer to came to get it so our lanai is now back to normal. It is going to a family who needs help, so we're happy we were able to find them, instead of just having Home Depot haul it off.
We had leftovers from last night, so that's what we had for lunch. It was as delicious as it was last night.
Enjoying the day
This afternoon we read and relaxed with a quick time out for me to paint the area around the new washer, because we had to remove the laundry room door, and the wall looked icky.
Oct 10
It's Wednesday morning already. We've been here for one week, and we have one week left. Since Bill has been feeling so much better, we've been having a great time, mostly relaxing. We walked down to the beach and found a shark. The artist was still there, so we talked with him for a few minutes. He said his therapist had suggested he do sculpting so he has made it into a hobby.
On Monday morning, after our swim Carolee and I went to the farmer's market to buy some fresh produce, and then we got a movie at the Redbox station in FoodIand. We went back to Carolee's for fresh banana bread, muffins and wine and enjoyed a chick flick. It was very good, but I can't remember the name of it. Only in Maui would I have wine with a movie at 11 am.
While I was out having fun, Bill was stuck at home with our maintenance man trying to repair our leak. After four hours and two trips to Ace Hardware, Pat still hadn't finished, and he had to leave, so we were still unable to do laundry.
After coming home from Carolee's, I made bread, because Gee had been wanting to have my homemade bread since reading our travel blog. I also made Porcupines, which I probably haven't made for 30 years. We had found corn on the cob at the farmers market, so we had a wonderful dinner on the lanai, and then we played our new word game, Quiddler. We stayed up until way past 10, so we had to whisper on the lanai because we didn't want security to pay us a visit for noise. They took our entire dirty clothes pile home with them to wash for us.
Tuesday, after exercise, we drove into Kahului to go to several stores. Bill had an idea for how to close off our old water heater area in order to have a little more storage. We bought wood, paint and some trim, and we'll work on it this afternoon. When we were done with our shopping, we went to Rubies for lunch - they have delicious salads. Then we drove to Ho'okipa to see the 20 to 30 foot waves that were caused by a lingering storm to the north.
Ho'okipa is one of the places we always go to because it so beautiful. Usually, we climb down to the bottom, but, mostly out of respect for the unpredictability of the waves, we chose to stay at the top. The vog has been very heavy this week, so we couldn't even see the west Maui mountains, or Kahului, but the waves were fantastic.
Last night, on the way home from Ko'okipa, we stopped at Kamaole 3 park to watch the sunset. We took our chairs and set them up in a lovely grassy spot, about 25 minutes before sunset. Suddenly, both of us jumped up and started slapping our feet and legs. There were ants all over us, and the bottoms of our chairs. We picked up the chairs as we ran and slapped at ourselves. I'm sure it was comical to the people nearby, but we weren't having any fun. We had welt on our feet from the bites. Carolee thinks we got into a nest of fire ants. We sat at a picnic table far from the ant colony to watch sunset, but it wasn't much to see due to the vog.
When we got home, we found that the Weckerlee Laundry Service had delivered our folded laundry. I'm going to have to let them know that the next time, they should put it all away for us. After a dinner of popcorn and iced tea, we sat on the lanai reading until we couldn't keep our eyes open. It turned out to be only 8:30. We thought we'd be acclimated to the time change by now.
Today, we hung around the house and did stuff. I finished painting the hallway. Woo hoo! We finally got the water lines repaired so we can do our own laundry in our beautiful new machine. I went to the Mai Tai party for a little while, when I heard the ukulele group start to play and sing. They are very good, and the guests really seemed to enjoy the entertainment. They also had several different hula dancers.
Darren has been dancing hula at our parties for several years
We went to the Tiki Lounge last night with Gee, Joe, Barbara, who we've known for several years, and Heidi, Barbara's daughter-in-law. There was live music and we had a very good time. Despite my reservations, we had pizza, which was too basilly for me, but Bill enjoyed it.
October 11
We exercised extra hard today to make up for having pizza last night.
We met with our friends from Reno, Allen and Valerie for lunch at the golf course at Waikapu. We never see them there due to all our busy lives, but we were able to get together for a lovely lunch overlooking Ma'alaea, Kihei, and Haleakala.
After lunch, we got all our errands done in town. We bought a vacuum, a sheets set to replace one that was damaged, and stuff to repair the wall that was damaged by the water repair. When we got home I put the sheets in the washer, and discovered that the cold and hot water fillers were reversed, so we now have to hire someone to come out to change them. Bill could do the fix, but I refused to let him tackle pulling it out from the wall. We walked over to Joe and Gee's for a drink and to talk for a few minutes, which turned into two hours.They teased him about his shirt. He has had it for at least ten years, and it is falling apart but he loves wearing it.
Bill's good shirt and Joe wondering where he can get one just like it
I had trouble walking home because I've had a nagging pain in my side/stomach/back for several days. I plan to see my doctor about it when get home.
October 12
We started out this morning in the ER at Maui Memorial today, but for a change, it wasn't Bill who was the patient. I've been having some stomach pain for several days, and thought I would wait until we get home to see my doctor, but last night it was so bad that I had to walk bent over, so we decided we couldn't wait any longer. He got to see what it's like to be in the chair, and I got to see what it's like to have needles stuck in my arms. After several tests, and some very good pain meds, that had me flying around the room, there was no diagnosis. They ruled out appendicitis and infections. It might be a kidney stone or a hernia. I came home with Vicodin and instructions to go back if it gets worse. I was very unhappy with that because I wanted them to tell me what is wrong and give me some antibiotics to fix it.
We got nothing done at the condo today except for one load of laundry. When we got home from the hospital at 2:00, Bill prepared a wonderful lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches on sour dough bread with cucumbers and Bugles. He even cut the peels off the cucumbers the way I like them. We read on the lanai until the pain meds made impossible for me to keep my eyes open so we took a nap until 4:30. The trade winds came up this afternoon, making the weather perfect. We're going try to take a walk, now and I plan to swim tomorrow morning, as long as I can walk as far as the pool.
Oct 13
Sunset from our lanai
I felt worse this morning, but Bill was having some bathroom issues, so our friend Gee took me to the ER for some more fun. After four hours, the results were the same, so we came home and I've been trying to get by with only Tylenol. I hate being doped up on pain meds. Bill was feeling good so we had a nice afternoon of reading on the lanai. The sunset was a good one.
Oct 15
Bill just couldn't stand for letting me get some of the attention, so he had to do something dramatic. Around 1:30 in yesterday afternoon, his heart rate suddenly shot up to 195 -210 so I calmly got him into the car and started driving to the ER. I thought it would get back to normal on the way, but that didn't happen. When I got him there and out of the car, he started passing out, so, with me grabbing his arm, holding him up, and trying to stuff him back into the car so I could get a wheelchair, someone saw what was happening and rushed a wheelchair over to us. They pushed him past the full waiting room into triage and started an EKG while I got him checked in.
When I got to the ICU, he had 7 people working on him. They had already taken blood, started two IV lines, and given him another EKG. At one point, while I was watching, the doctor walked away from the table and tripped on some tubes on the floor, and everyone gasped. Later, one of the nurses asked another nurse what happened to Bill's second IV. The answer was that it had been ripped out when the doctor tripped. Another time, a nurse tripped as she was walking away, and ripped off five of the leads for the EKG machine. She quipped, "Well, that's one way to take them off."
A few minutes later, they gave him a miracle drug that immediately brought his rate back to normal. Basically, they stopped his heart for two beats, and got it into the correct rhythm. He felt perfectly normal after that. They observed him for two hours and sent him home with a prescription for a channel blocker so this doesn't happen again. We were worried that it would happen on the way home. They are going to release him soon. Dr. suggested a medication that we can keep with us for if it happens again, especially on the plane. We already had plans to follow up with his cardiologist.
We got out of the hospital in time to watch the sunset on the way home. This morning, we went to the pool as usual. But, it must have looked funny to anyone watching because I left Bill behind walking slowly, carrying the pool bag and coffees while I zoomed ahead so I could get to a chair before the pain started. We had a nice time visiting with our friends, and the pool felt wonderful, once I got past the point where I had to walk.
Our friend Carolee took us to the Fairmont Ke Lani for lunch today. What a beautiful setting, and, of course, I forgot to take any pictures. Bill did get one of me waiting to be driven to the restaurant in style.
Lunch was delicious, and the company was wonderful. Roy and Carol joined us. They are still newlyweds. She is 84 and he is 91, and they recently went to Bora Bora on their honeymoon. He was a minister and he had some fascinating stories about his adventures traveling all over the world before he and Carol met.
Joe had to fly to Sacramento on Friday to bid on a condo at an auction and we found out this morning that he got the one they wanted. So, now they will have a home base instead of being full time RVers. Gee came over this morning and vacuumed the condo for me, while Bill was at the pharmacy picking up his new medication. She is having us over to her place for dinner tonight for spaghetti. I made her a loaf of bread while sitting on a bar stool at the counter, so I wouldn't have to stand up.
We only have two full days left here. We're trying to pack and put our things away in the closet, but Bill is having to do most of the work. I hate that!
Oct 22
We reluctantly said goodbye to our friends. Carolee was sad but she was going to get back to her painting, which has come such a long way in just a few years. She painted our palm tree trivet so we can use it as a napkin holder. It was so pretty that I would rather have brought it home with us, but that would have been silly. It will be waiting for us for our next trip.
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| Made by Carolee |
We had a good trip home, even with the overnight in Seattle. Bill felt very good and he enjoyed the drinks and meals in first class on Hawai'ian Airlines. We still have over 130,000 miles left so we have enough miles for two round trip flights, but we are thinking of using Alaska the next time because it flies out of Reno so there would be no overnight stay anywhere.
Kathy and Bailey picked us up at the airport on Friday afternoon. We came home to find two very excited dogs. There was also a special welcome home present for us, hand painted by Kathy.
Palm Trees are our favorite
She has been making the bottles for a couple of weeks, and she has gotten very good at it. Mostly they are Halloween bottles, so that makes ours extra special.
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| She is so talented! |
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