A Sweet Day

      Laid low yesterday (Friday) morning as well, getting away by 11:15 to visit the Kahului area. It's in the middle of the northern part of the island, where we flew into, and is a bit bigger town with all the amenities (including Costco and Walmart, not that we went there). Outside of town is the Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum, and we had free admission because we bought a little "passport to the past" when we visited the Baldwin home earlier this week. It had lots of interesting information and exhibits (did you know that part of the harvesting process actually involves burning the plant?). Alexander & Baldwin were sons of missionaries who went into business together , in the 1830's, to harvest sugar cane, which became a very big operation with immigration to provide workers and later unionization unrest. I was again glad to have read James Michener's book as he captured some of that history well. It was also interesting to speak briefly with the lady who was the ticket taker as she grew up with (Japanese) parents and grandparents working the fields. She explained how her husband was of Norwegian descent as his grandmother (Japanese) fell in love with one of the European overseers on the planation. This kind of thing happened throughout Hawaii and has resulted in a very ethnically diverse population. The last plantation was closed in 2016. Its not cost effective to produce it here anymore, as it has to be shipped to mainland to be refined, then shipped back here again.
      Then we headed into Kahului and got lunch at iHop (Beth had a coupon, however it was only good for after 4:00, but she was hungry so we went in anyway). Afterwards we walked around the little strip mall, and even though we were very full, we found the local Krispy Kreme. I find it funny that Beth has such a craving for these sugary delights whenever we are in the US (and it was especially appropriate after visiting a 'sugar' museum of course). BTW, I don't mind the donuts too much myself.
      Next we drove over to the Maui Tropical Plantation where we took a 45 minute guided tour around the farm. We learned lots of interesting facts about the various fruit & nut plants and trees, like bananas, papaya, pineapple, that are grown on Maui. Our excellent guide even demonstrated how to open a coconut. We were surprised to learn how long it takes for many of the species to begin producing fruit and that 150 people per year are killed by having coconuts fall on their heads (a fact I later checked online and found out is way overinflated). Afterwards we browsed around their large gift shop and Beth got a couple pieces of jewellery.
      Then we headed back home for a quick break and for Beth to put on long pants before driving back down to Lahaina (about 10 minutes away) to meet the artist Robert Lyn Nelson at the gallery we  had visited earlier. We got to chat with him for a few minutes and he seemed pretty down to earth, but definitely a driven individual - he has produced about 10,000 paintings! He showed us some recent works on his phone and had brought a large canvas along with a Beatles tribute painting called 'Come Together' that he had just completed that day (the one I've included here is 'Magical Mystery Tour' - also at the gallery). Before heading back to the condo we stopped in at one of the tourist gift shops (ABC store) and picked up a few souvenirs.
       I waited until this morning (Saturday) to write and have been sitting on the balcony while working on this journal entry. Right now it is just after 11:00 and with us facing the west side of the the sun is just now coming around to our side of the building. But the view, again, is phenomenal and there have been literally dozens of whales visible, including many that are breaching out of the water and, one of them pretty close to shore.