Our Hawaiian Airline flight from Honolulu to Kahului was uneventful, which was sufficient to make me almost ecstatic. Within the nights earlier than the journey, I had fever goals of getting seated close to some violent anti-mask wingnut of the range that go immediately viral on social media. Please, no, I begged the Cosmos.
We boarded with out incident, folks had been nice (the workers and the passengers), and the cabin was at about 80% capability. No drawback! Bravo, Hawaiian Air. It’s been two years since I final took a flight. I gazed out of my window at Lanai slipping by, and up on the slopes of Haleakala as we approached OGG a bit of greater than 30 minutes after takeoff. Honorable Spouse Particular person is conscious of my childlike fascination with airplane window seats, one thing I don’t suppose that I’ll ever lose.
Selecting up the rental automobile was a breeze, as was discovering and checking into our lodging positioned between Kaanapali and Kapalua. We had arrived at time for dinner. Moderately than stopping for a chunk, we made a run to the Instances Grocery store in Kaanapali to top off on snacks, grownup drinks, and reef-safe sunscreen. We loved cocktails on the oceanfront lanai and determined to move into Lahaina for lunch the following day.
“Yeah, effectively,” I mentioned. “I suppose we type of have to do Lahaina, proper?”
I hadn’t been to Lahaina for the reason that late 1990’s, when my band on the time had a stint on the now long-gone Moose McGillycuddy’s. I’d been to Maui with Honorable Spouse Particular person for some golf at Maui Nui Golf Club and to hang around at Mulligan’s on the Blue whereas staying in Wailea in 2015. We by no means made it into Lahaina.
Lahaina hasn’t modified a lot in any respect since I used to be final there. Entrance Road continues to be a vacationer mecca, with all method of reward retailers, galleries, eating places, and tour operations lining the storied thoroughfare. It’s been that means for about 150 years, since again when Lahaina was the hub of the whaling business within the Pacific.
Whereas Honorable Spouse Particular person and the in-laws set out on a purchasing mission, I assumed I’d cease into Fleetwood’s on Front Street and have a quiet drink on the bar. After virtually 30 years within the rock and roll enterprise and being a fan of Mr. Fleetwood and his band’s work perpetually, I felt it was virtually an obligation.
A bronzed, blond haole woman of about sixty was minding the doorway. She might have come from Central Casting. “Hello!” I smiled cheerfully. “I assumed I’d are available in for a drink on the bar.”
“Terrific!” she smiled again. “We open at 3pm.” It was 11:30am.
“I suppose not then!” I smiled once more, considerably dejected and utterly shocked {that a} restaurant owned by one of the vital well-known rock musicians on the planet, who lives on Maui part-time, can be closed for lunch on a Saturday when Entrance Road was (almost) teeming with punters. Welp. Possibly subsequent, time, Mr. Fleetwood!
I settled onto a stool on the bar at Captain Jack’s, which doesn’t require proof of vaccination attributable to its completely open-air setup. That made me considerably uneasy at first. However I’ve been vaccinated, and the restaurant wasn’t busy, I’d reasoned earlier than ordering a double (whiskey and Coke).
My spouse and in-laws joined me 30 minutes later after a profitable purchasing journey (new bikini, surf swag for the nephews), and we loved a superb lunch. I excused myself and took a stroll right down to the Lahaina Harbor and Pioneer Inn.
A colossal dive/tour boat backed into its beginning as a twin-engine fishing boat chugged in after it. A small crowd waited for tables in a line outdoors Papa ‘Aina at The Pioneer Inn. Waves lapped alongside the seawall alongside the Lahaina Waterfront. Vacationers and locals sat within the shade beneath Lahaina’s famous banyan tree.
We stopped on the Ala Hele Mo’olelo O Lahaina historic web site, which is residence to centuries of Native Hawaiian historical past and tradition. It’s straightforward to miss when window purchasing or day-drinking simply a few blocks down Entrance Road. We advise making some extent to go to it.
Lahaina is as I keep in mind it: charming and tacky. It’s a vacationer lure, however Lahaina is trustworthy about it. The precise historical past of Lahaina speaks for itself and is alone well worth the go to. It’s straightforward to mock the drained Jimmy Buffet “Margaritaville” trope that Lahaina evokes. There are a lot of who purchased into it many years in the past, and so they’re nonetheless there. However the true, historic Lahaina is there for anybody prepared to hunt it out.
Posted by: Jamie Winpenny
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