Aloha all!
By now, we’d be more than half way through our half year on the road in Joy. I would have written a dozen blog posts, each one of them filled with all kinds of experiences in all kinds of places. Every day a new adventure. But with the world as it is, Maui is our favorite place to be stuck. Instead of a six months road trip, we just finished a 6 week staycation in Lauiniopoko.
The time has dragged on like a flash. It seems like time flies by when the world stands still. Or in other words: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of cats, it was the age of luxury, it was the epoch of nothing, it was the epoch of everything, it was the season of sunsets, it was the season of infinity pools, this was the summer of this married pair: Did I confuse you enough what our summer vacation in Launiupoko was actually like? Take your pick:
Volunteering at the Cat Sanctuary
Pets are not allowed in our condo complex. And our nomad lifestyle makes having our own pet pretty much impossible anyway. But we love animals. So being stuck on Maui this summer, we jumped at the chance when we were offered volunteer positions for 6 weeks at Ute’s Cat Sanctuary in Launiupoko. The cottage we stayed in had 13 (!) cats, with some more to feed at the house next door. Cats might not always show their love the same enthusiastic way as dogs, but with 13 cuties around, there was always someone ready to be loved, cleaned up after, taken to the vet…or fed.
The time at the sanctuary really changed our mind: We’ll probably get a cat or a dog as soon as we lose our desire to take six months road trips every year and move into a house with a yard. I expect that to happen close to the middle of the century.
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| I tried to get all 13 in one picture, but it was like herding cats... |
Getting Fit on the Farm
After the lock down this spring, it was time to get fit. Our Fitness retreat in Launiupoko was just prefect for that. We swam laps in the infinity pool once or twice a day. I kept up my tennis games and actually played more Ultimate since Launiupoko is so much closer to the games. We walk around Launiupoko and even did a new hike in Olinda. Add to all that the fact that on a sixteen acre property, just getting to all the cat feeding stations is about a mile every day. With no restaurant in walking distance and fresh local produce delivered to the door, we even cooked for ourselves and ate reasonably healthy.
The time getting fit and eating healthy really changed our mind: We might keep up our exercise routine and healthy diet. Unless my buddies are available for a few hours of playing online games or the dish we order at the next restaurant outing just happens to come with a pile of french fries...
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| Hiking in Olinda |
Wasting Away in Launiupokoville
Since we didn’t get to go on our road trip this summer, a six week stay in Launiupoko seemed like a good idea as an alternative summer vacation. Little did we know that our six weeks there would go by in about four and a half days. I swear we just moved in. Maybe I played a couple of online games of “Settlers of Catan” with Bern and Terry and maybe Sandra read a few pages in a book before it was time to pack up again. How can that have been six weeks? I miss the time when a week still had seven days and a day was long enough to actually do anything. But I swear there was hardly enough time to go to the pool between breakfast and lunch with all that doing nothing in between. This place seems perfectly designed to make you lazy and we were very willing to comply.
The time in Launiupoko really changed our mind: Life is so much fuller on a road trip. We’ll fly over to Texas and take Joy for a spin as soon as that sounds like a reasonable thing to do. This might not be the case until next spring, but the way time flies by lately, that’s only a couple of weeks away.
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| Can you blame us for being lazy? |
The Hard Work of being Unemployed
Due to Covid travel restrictions to Hawaii, Sandra and I are both unemployed. So we jumped at the chance when we were asked to help out a friend taking care of her place and her cats for six weeks. I have to admit, we were not aware of all the chores involved, but given the fact that we had nothing else to do and nowhere to go, it was the ideal assignment for an unemployed couple. Pretty soon, we realized how spoiled we usually are. I swear we spend less time cleaning our own condo in a year than two days of cleaning up after all those cats. And that's not even counting the butt wiping for two of the cats that are too fat, too blind or too proud to do it themselves. And when one of the cats realized that we got used to the new work load, she decided to get a urine tract infection and piddled all over the place; careful to use new places whenever we found out about her favorite spots. We did about 865 loads of laundry before we learnt to keep her off the sofa.
We can't blame all the work on the cats. We also spent a day getting the place ready for a hurricane that luckily never came. Instead of destruction, it did not even bring any rain, just a beautiful sunset in the aftermath.
The time of this “working vacation” really changed our mind: We've been lazy long enough. We are ready to get back to work in our regular jobs. We just don’t have any clue when that might happen.
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| A rare moment of rest after this sunset was all we got from the predicted hurricane |
Living the Life of Luxury at the Magical Mansion
Due to Covid restrictions, we’ve spent a lot of time in our condo recently. Being used to our nomad lifestyle of traveling for six month every summer made us feel even more confined. So we jumped at the chance when we were offered to stay for 6 weeks at Ute’s Magical Mansion in Lauiniopoko. Our retreat sat on 16 acres (!) of land, with a citrus plantation, a scenic outdoor shower, a high-end home theater system and sweeping tri-island & sunset views. The main mansion has an infinity pool and hot tub, making it the ideal getaway for a couple in love. When the regular relaxing, swimming and hot tubbing was not enough, the fun town of Lahaina or even the frisbee fields and golf courses in Central Maui were only a short drive away. Oh sweet life of luxury!
The time at the Magical Mansion really changed our mind: We’ll probably sell our condo and move into a house with a big yard as soon as we can afford this kind of mansion and can still take a six months road trip every year. I expect that to happen as soon as the stock of Apple jumps to $10,000 a share when the iphone 42 comes out.
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| The entrance to our sixteen acre estate |
Whichever of these five perspectives you choose to believe, they have one thing in common: We had a good time in Launiupoko, but can't wait to travel again. We miss road tripping in Joy and can't wait to visit our family in Europe again. But until then, we enjoy our golden cage called Maui. Still our favorite place if we have to stay in one place.
Aloha from Maui,
Chris & Sandra
