That’s about what it’s come down to, sitting here in the airport gate waiting for our flight to board. To add insult to injury, the plane that we will be leaving on just landed and everyone aboard just stepped foot on Maui soil for the beginning of their trip. They just probably put up a screen so people like us that are leaving can suffer in peace.

If it sounds like I’m being over dramatic, I probably am. You’d think after 3 trips to the Valley Isle, leaving would get at least a little easier. You’d think, or maybe it’s just us.

Anyway, I have a few post-vacation tasks that I’m hoping to finish up this weekend once we’re back home, including putting together a post with our Top 10 favorite moments of this trip and collating everything from our Maui Twitter into the Our Trips section. I’m hoping (at some point) to add various photos and links to the Twitter log archive do add more of a moment-to-moment feel to things. That’s the plan, anyway.

This being our third trip, it’s tempting to try and compare this one to the others and rate them as which was the best. That’s really hard to do, though, since there are good memories from each and there hasn’t been any (heaven forbid) catastrophic mishaps with any of them to isolate them as being awful. I think along with the Top 10 list from this trip, I might also work on a Top 10 all time, too.

If I haven’t mentioned it yet, this trip was absolutely wonderful and we’re leaving with so many more memories and experiences under our belts. By this point, we’ve set the bar pretty high for our next trip in February, but I don’t think it will be very hard.

Aloha Maui, and Mahalo to those of you that have been following along with us on our trip.

Where does the time go?

It Friday morning and our last day here on the wonderful island of Maui. Even though this was our third trip to the Valley Isle, we still had so many new experiences and memories this time that were so special. I will be working on a top 10 list from this trip during our travel back home and post it over the weekend.

We have a red-eye flight tonight, so technically we still have all day, so it’s not that bad.

Yesterday was pretty nice, although going home started to sink in for a few of us. We tried to do a little shopping in Lahaina, but like I posted yesterday, the cruise ship was in port and things were a little crowded. When we came back to the resort, Cindy and I walked over to Whalers and came back with these lovely white and yellow gold rings from Na Hoku, matching bands actually. I’ll post a photo over the weekend of the rings as well.

With the vog and the lack of trade winds the last day or two, it’s been hazing around the area. Last night’s sunset wasn’t very much of anything because of all the clouds, and while I was sitting out on the lanai late last night, you could barely see the boats out in the water or the lights from Molokai or Lanai. In fact, it looks like there were giant yellow fog lights out on the beach in front of the Westin that I hadn’t seen before. Probably not a bad idea to have, though.

We pack pretty much everything last night, so we’re just making our way down to breakfast and then checking out at noon. We don’t have much else planned for today, just slowly making our way towards Kahului and stopping at a few last shops and maybe a bite to eat. Not a very spectacular way to end just a wonderful vacation, but then again, we don’t really like to give going home too much attention.

Mahalo and Aloha Maui!!!

Boy, what a difference a day makes. For much of our day yesterday, beach hopping in South Maui, we had a decent amount a cloud cover. Today, however, staying nearby in Ka’anapali, the sun is bearing down full blast and making it a hot one in paradise.

Cindy’s down by the pool as I type, pretending like it’s only our second day here (we wish). Our plans of taking it easy and relaxing are pretty much in play right now. The only main activity we have planned for our last few days is our luau tonight here at the Sheraton. Unfortunately, our Tours of the Stars at the Hyatt last night was canceled yet again. We don’t have much time left, so we didn’t reschedule it for this trip and we’ll try again in February. From what it looks like, we’ll probably opt for a later viewing next year, perhaps the 9pm session instead of the 8 o’clock.

Cindy and I did head down to the beach briefly last night (around 10pm) and the skies were pretty much clear. We didn’t spend too much time, however, because as we were headed down there, we saw a few folks feeding three baby kittens that were just born here at the Sheraton and looked like they were starving. We had seen cats here on our previous trips, just wondering around various parts of the resort, and saw them last week, too. We didn’t see the black one for the last few days, and now we know why. It was a cute little scene and not something you’d expect to find here.

That’s about it for now. We still have two days left, and I don’t want to start sounding like the trip is over, but it’s been an exciting and fun time this year and has us totally stoked (excuse the surfer speak) about coming back here in February. It is a little too early to start that countdown, though.

Mahalo.