A Rainy Day in Maui...

      is better than a snowy day in Ontario, or probably about any day anywhere. I got a pretty good sleep last night and Beth's was more broken, but we got up early and enjoyed some hot chocolate and leftover snacks which we had brought on the flight. We also woke up to rain and even some thunder. One correction from yesterday's post - apparently we are only 5 hours behind Kitchener time, not 7 as I had thought.
     We got oriented to the condo site (that basically means we were shown where the laundry facilities are) and then headed down to Lahaina, about 15 minutes south of us, to get some groceries at Safeway. Also had to buy a phone/ipad charger as I had left ours at home (fortunately had a portable power pack so could keep our stuff charged up short term).
      Then we headed to downtown historic Lahaina (once the capital of Hawaii, during the reigns of some of the kings). First we visited the Baldwin Home Museum which has been restored to reflect the 1839 home of the Rev. Dr. Dwight & Charlotte Baldwin and family who were one of the first missionary couples to come to Hawaii. We were impressed with the positive explanations which highlighted the missionaries contributions to healthcare, education and even political progress. The home and artifacts made some of what I read in James Michener's Hawaii historical novel come alive for me.
     We sat on the porch for a bit after our tour as the rain continued to come down pretty heavily, but we ventured out again walking down the main street and stopped in at one of the art galleries along the way. I was especially struck with the paintings of Robert Lyn Nelson as they had a display with some of his work visualizing Beatles songs. In talking with the owner of the gallery we found out that he lives in Maui and his painting for 'Blackbird' is owned by Paul McCartney. However, there were even more of his paintings in another room and we also learned that he was the innovator of the style where life above and below the waterline is portrayed. His work is beautiful and colourful - we often find going into these galleries to be quite therapeutic (especially on a dreary day like today). There was a notice that Robert Lyn Nelson will be at the gallery this Friday evening and I wanna go.
      Further on we visited the Wo Hing Museum which highlights the contributions of the Chinese people who came to Hawaii mostly in the last half of the 19th century to escape the unrest and violence in their homeland and to work on sugar cane plantations. Notably Sun Yat-sen (the founding father of the Republic of China), who I remember learning about in high school, spent many years in Maui before leading the Chinese Revolution in 1911. We also watched very old film footage of life in Hawaii from 1898 which was shot by Thomas Edison.
      Then we headed back to the parking lot in the rain and got stuck because there were piles of cars using this lot to pick up their children from the school across the street (just like at home!). When we got back to the condo Beth made a delicious spaghetti (early) supper and watched some of the Toronto Maple Leafs game. Beth said that the pineapple we had picked up tasted amazing. We saw some whales off in the distance several times, not real clearly but they were definitely there as we could see when they spouted and surfaced. The rain also stopped in time for us to enjoy an amazing sunset. I spent some time on the balcony watching and kept taking photos as the sky changed every 5 minutes. It truly was an art show like nothing we've ever seen before and it lasted for a full half hour! (I think if you click on the photos included here you will see larger versions)