puppetartg

Europe, 2022, travel day one, quick visit to Vancouver, BC

I’m very excited. I’m sitting in the dinky little lounge at the Sacramento Airport as I write this.

I’ve been planning this trip since February and I can’t believe I’m finally sitting at the airport waiting for the first part of my journey to begin. Several years ago I decided I’d like to get to Europe every other year if possible. I’ve pretty much been meeting that goal. And sometimes exceeding it.

Itinerary

Technically it’s 3 countries in 9 days. Really it’s 2 full travel days, an overnight in Canada, and transit through France.

I start by flying to Vancouver. I’ll spend the afternoon and evening there. The next morning I’ll fly direct to Paris arriving around 8am local time. I’ll hop a train at the airport that takes me to one of my favorite spots on the planet, Gimmelwald, Switzerland. That will be my jumping off point to explore the Lauterbrunnen Valley and,perhaps, beyond…

Backstory

You may be thinking, “Wait! Weren’t you just in the Swiss Alps last September?” Why, yes, yes I was. I was also there in 2019 with Mike. Again, one of my favorite places on the planet.

You run into a weird crowd in Gimmelwald…

I subscribe to a email newsletter that sends out notifications when there is a good deal on business class seats for international flights. Back in February a deal came up for Air France, direct to Paris for around $1300 for a lie-flat business class seat which is basically a bed on a plane. Round trip. Considering an economy seat runs around $1000 round trip from the west coast, this was an amazing deal. Plus, I love flying in comfort. (Full disclosure, the actual price was a bit more when all was said and done, but still a remarkable deal.)

A question I get regularly: Is Mike going with you? Well, I suggested to Mike we get these tickets for late May and go to Europe together but we were both a bit concerned about the war in Ukraine so we opted to go to NYC for our May trip. I, however, grabbed a ticket for myself hoping Ukraine would be contained or resolved by September.

I would rather travel with my husband, but I don’t mind traveling by myself. I start to get homesick pretty quickly though, missing Mike and Lainey, thus a week or so trip usually is enough.

Steve and Ash (pictured above) did a lot while they were in Interlaken and it really inspired me to explore more of the Valley I’ll be staying in. There is so much to explore that I haven’t seen yet. I plan on doing a lot.

After a very busy summer I am ready for a nice recharge. And after flying with 5 bags and sooo much equipment to Puppet Festivals in Seattle and Iowa, I am thrilled to be traveling with just a backpack and small carry-on suitcase.

I love the challenge of traveling without checking bags. My friend Matt turned me on to it. Advantages:

No waiting for checked luggage at the airport. (Saves 20-40 minutes.)
No chance of lost luggage.
Forces me to pack light. In Europe being able to quickly and easily maneuver through streets and train stations is a must.

Despite the Self imposed “no checked bags” policy I did manage to pack a bunch including:

Clothing and toiletries for 8 days
My DJI Mini 2 Drone
Insta 360 camera and DJI Pocket 2 camera
Tripod
Hiking poles
iPad, iPhone, AirPods
A book (New Pair of Glasses, Chuck C.)
Warm jacket, hoodie and umbrella
Water bottle
Bose noise canceling headphones. (Takes up some space but really eases travel fatigue, especially on longer flights.)
Gifts for Tobias and his family (the very kind owner of Esther’s Guesthouse in Gimmelwald.) I’m bringing them lovely espresso cups thrown by Sacramento pottery artist Lindsay Dillon, 2 Folkmanis puppets for the kids and two CD’s, The Toy Box by Francie Dillon and Puppet Art’s Storytime CD.
Flip flops with arch support for the guest house. (No shoes allowed in the house. These flip flops are amazing!)
A day pack for hiking. (Folds up to a little 6” by 8” packet. First time using it.)

The plane was delayed by an hour. No biggie since I have no connections today.

For any of my plane nerd friends, I’m on an Air Canada Bombardier CRJ-900. Air Canada still requires everyone wear masks on board. I like this policy as the woman a row over just coughed and hacked into her mask.

Smaller plane so I have a seat all to myself.

After a safe, smooth flight I quickly zipped through customs and caught the shuttle to the airport.

Huge carving in the Airport. Looks like a donut. (Foreshadowing.)

I did a quick meditation to recharge my batteries in the hotel room before heading out to Granville Island. The taxi driver gave me a guided tour of the city as we drove the 7.7km. He immigrated from Pakistan 14 years ago and became a citizen 11 years ago. He loves Canada and loves Vancouver. We talked nonstop for 25 minutes and it was great.

Granville Island reminded me a bit of Pike’s Market in Seattle. It’s got a touristy vibe. Lots of little shops and a nice market to walk around and grab a bite. I grabbed a rather disappointing Lobster Roll.

It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good either. The lobster was a little over cooked. It was…food.

On my way to the lobster roll place I passed by a long line of people waiting for something. It turned out to be a donut shop. What kind of idiots stand in line for a donut?

After the lobster roll I walked by the line again. There was no line at the lobster place. There was a long line here. I hopped in line.

The line was 30-40 people deep. I asked the guy in front of me what was so special about these donuts. He had no idea. It was his first time, too. His wife had him standing in line to get donuts for her. We started chatting about business and mentoring so the time in line flew by.

The donut was as good as the conversation. Light, not too sweet. Worth the wait.

I took the Aquabus across the water to Yaletown.

The boat driver directed me up the street to the train station. I wanted to take the subway back to the hotel. A couple of blocks up the street I started doubting the directions so I pulled out my little touristy map and started to check. A moment later I hear a woman’s say, “Are you lost?” She said she recognized the list look and kindly pointed me in the right direction. What a sweet lady. I’ve met some really nice people today.

The hotel was a quick 10 minute walk. When I made it to my room the lack of sleep I’ve had last night or two suddenly caught up with me. Nice timing.

As I’ve been typing this I’ve been watching planes land with a spectacular sunset background.

Nice start to the trip.

Thanks for reading.

Great Plains Puppet Train, final day and traveling home.

A decent nights sleep and a good breakfast made for a great start to the day. After repacking last night all I had to do was drive to the theater and pick up my puppet cases. I got this done and headed over to The Owl Glass Puppet Center to hang out with the festival goers and staff for a final chance to connect.

It was lovely to get some extended time with Pam, the artistic director of the festival. She made such great performance choices. This was a truly international puppet festival with some very high caliber performances. And a nice variety of styles, too.

The final performance of the festival was by a Bulgarian puppet troupe. They performed “Spas, the Tiger Cub.”

The Show was well rehearsed, clever and well directed. They didn’t lean too heavily on their use of balloon animals as puppets though they did capitalize on it. I was wondering if it was going to be too gimmicky. It was not. The same tale could have been told with regular puppets but they enhanced it with the clever use of balloons. They were very much physical comedians (Bill Irwin type clowns) but let the puppets have the primary focus most of the time. It was a really neat to see them give the puppets away to the audience at the end of the performance. Again, very clever.

It was also the first time they’ve ever performed outside of Bulgaria so that made it incredibly special. The audience was very impressed and showed their support in a way I think the performers could feel.

I took off right after the performance so I could have plenty of time to drop off the rental and make it to my flight on time. There was no need to rush as my flight is delayed so I am currently lounging on the outdoor “Porch” in the Airport. A nice place to peel off my mask and relax for a bit.

Real time update: Weather around Chicago has forced United to cancel my flight. The helpful United Agents got me on standby for a 5:24pm flight to Chicago. That gives me ample time to make my 8:50pm flight home. Fingers crossed.

Got on the flight to Chicago and made it in plenty of time. My bags did not come with me. They stayed in Iowa.

I’m glad to have United deliver those heavy cases to the house…

The flight from Chicago to Sacramento was uneventful. The greeting from my dog when I walked in the door a little after midnight was the best.

New York City, May, 2022

The trip started with me taking pictures of Mike at the airport and then air dropping them to him. I just want attention. He fired one back at me. We have another 10 hours of these shenanigans before we arrive in NYC.

This trip will serve as our big together vacation for the summer even though it’s just a long weekend. We have so much Broadway packed into the trip. 5 shows in 3 days.

We are seeing A Strange Loop (11 Tony noms), POTUS, Funny Girl, Mr. Saturday Night, and Hadestown. I am most excited to see Hadestown again as it will be Andres De Shields final performance in the role he deservedly won a Tony for back in 2019. It is sure to be a special night and a special performance of what might be my favorite musical of all time.

We take a smaller jet (ERJ-175) to SFO where we catch a 777-300er to Newark. The SFO-Newark flight is overnight so we used some points to get lie-flat business class seats so we can hopefully get a few hours sleep on the plane.

Fast forward 8 hours. I did not get much sleep. There was moderate turbulence most of the flight. I didn’t do too bad considering the flight anxiety I sometimes experience. Still not much sleep. We got to our hotel around 10am, grabbed breakfast at our favorite Pret a Manger and then took a 4 hour nap.

We woke refreshed and went to grab a bite with our friend Nanci.

We headed back to the hotel where I crashed for another 45 minutes before heading off to our first show.

A Strange Loop was terrific but I think I had too high of expectations. It didn’t at all feel like a Broadway show. It felt far more like an Off-Broadway show. It used some classic (if not over used?) tropes, a writer writing a show about a writer writing a show. Mike and I didn’t quite relate to some of the themes. For example, the lead character’s family continued to be homophobic and abusive to him and both of our coming out processes, while not perfect weren’t nearly as horrific. (We both felt a lot of gratitude when discussing this.)

I was disappointed that my socks weren’t knocked off, but not disappointed that we saw this show.

We ended the night with a $.99 slice of pizza.

The next morning Mike went to get us breakfast and we dined in our room. This is how we ate our entire trip, either getting something to go or eating at a restaurant that had outside seating. COVID is still a thing and I know too many that have had both shots and the two boosters and have still gotten sick. Some precautions (masks when indoors, for example) still seem worth it to me.

POTUS is the only play (non-musical) that we saw this trip. It’s a farce about 7 women who are working hard to keep the President (who is an ass) from looking like an ass. All-star cast in this show was fantastic (Vanessa William, Rachel Dratch, Lea Delaria…) The show got more and more frantic and ridiculous as it went on. I particularly enjoyed Julie White as the White House Chief of Staff. She was brilliant. I’m really glad we saw this one. We laughed our butts off, especially when a latex glove broke accidentally and the cast broke character and cracked up a bit. Super fun.

It just so happened that a former La Mancha cast member was also seeing POTUS so we got to grab a bit with Kelsey and her boyfriend (husband…?) after the show.

What a treat to catch up with her!

Back to the hotel for a nap. We stay a a place on Broadway and 54th so it’s outside of the craziness of Time Square but only a 10-15 minute walk back the the room from most theaters in the theater district.

After naps, we headed to this show.

Gold star to you if you noticed this is the first mention of this show. We were scheduled to see Mr. Saturday Night…

…with Billy Crystal. Unfortunately, Billy Crystal tested positive for COVID and our performance was cancelled.

Beetlejuice was a fine replacement. It was frantically paced and was a bit exhausting as a result, but the staging, effects and performances were certainly Broadway caliber. Not likely a show I’ll remember for the rest of my life, but certainly glad we saw it.

A few mildly eventful things happened this day. First this blew through around 12:30pm:

Second, we visited the Playbill display on Times Square.

Another slice of pizza (I love NYC pizza) and then to bed.

Our final day started with a lovely stroll through Central Park with our friend Kirk.

Kirk is a talented puppeteer who has worked on a couple of projects with me. Mike tolerated much puppet talk as we sat by the duck pond.

After a lovely visit we were off to see Funny Girl.

There has been much Broadway gossip about this show and the casting of Beanie Feldstein as Fanny Brice. This show hasn’t been revived on Broadway since it was first on Broadway with Barbra Streisand. I mean, who would want to follow Babs in such an iconic roll? I loved Beanie in Ladybird (the movie that she played Ladybird’s best friend) but the girl can’t sing. I mean, she just can’t sing. And she didn’t pull the comedy off very well either. It was puzzling (and at times cringeworthy) that she got cast in a roll that so many others could have knocked out of the park. We left the show enjoying it for the most park but just completely puzzled by the casting choice. Everyone and everything else was wonderful.

Back the the room for a quick nap and then off to the reason (at least for me) of coming to NYC this time.

When planning this trip Mike discovered that May 29th would be Andre DeShields’ final performance as Hermes, the roll he won a Tony for in 2019. I saw this show for the first time last November and fell in love with it and his performance. (Really, the entire cast is stellar.) The chance to see a historic performance was just too much to pass up. Mike bought me a ticket for my birthday since the show was on the same day as my birthday!

Mr. DeShields walks on stage at the beginning of the show and immediately the audience jumped to its feet and gave him a standing ovation that lasted for a full five minutes. It was beautiful. This is one of 4 or 5 standing ovations he received during the first act. It was magical to be a part of. And I’ve course, the rest of the cast fed off of the energy of the audience and gave a brilliant performance. It is so clear to me why this clever, heart wrenching show took home the Tony for Best Musical.

At the curtain call Andre DeShields was told by the mayor of NYC that this day would now be Andre DeShields day. (I am really happy my birthday is now Andre DeShields Day.)

Everyone called for a speech from Andre and instead of giving some speech he generously sang “Believe” from The Wiz (he originated the roll of the Tin Man on Broadway.) Magical.

Seeing this show again and seeing Andre DeShields’ final performance was the most magical theatrical experience I’ve ever had as an audience member. I will never forget it.

Eyes swollen from sobbing through a beautiful show and an amazing experience. I’m not crying…YOU’RE crying…

We split pub fish and chips and a Caesar as we basked in the afterglow of such a beautiful experience.

NYC from New Jersey on the way to the airport.

After a good night sleep we hung out in the hotel (thank you late check out until it was time to pack up and head to the airport. Now we sit in the United lounge and wait for our direct flight to Sacramento. (Airbus 320.)

A slight delay of our flight gets us in to Sacramento at around 11:30pm. I have an early morning show with Rachel (who has been taking such good care of our dog) in Napa tomorrow so I’m already looking forward to a nap after the show.

Thanks for for reading and joining Mike and me on this little journey. ❤️

Concert Trip, May, 2022, Day 3

I knew this was gonna be a long day. Today I was attending the Cruel World Music Festival in Pasadena, CA. This is a two day event (same bands both days so you only had to go one day to see it all.) Sunday was my day fortunately, since Saturday the temps were in the mid 90’s. Sunday we lucked out with mid 80’s temps. 80’s being the appropriate temperature for a bunch of bands that were famous in the 1980’s.

I went to see Missing Persons, Violent Femmes, Bauhaus, and The Psychedelic Furs. I saw all of these along with Black Marble, English Beat (which were brilliant!), The Damned, Blaqk Audio, and Morrisey.

If none of these bands ring a bell for you, you may want to stop reading now…or maybe check out a few of the videos and see if you recognize the music?

The biggest surprise for me was English Beat. They only played 4 songs but I got completely overwhelmed by the music, their talent and the energy of the crowd when they played Tenderness.

I’m on a Facebook group for the Cruel World Music Festival for several weeks and it’s been full of thousands of people around my age deciding what goth outfit to wear, or what band t-shirt from the 80’s they were going to wear and whether or not to wear sensible shoes of Doc’s. It’s been a really fun way to anticipate the concert with 1000’s of other like musically-minded people.

Missing Persons was terrific. I managed to wiggle my way to the front of the stage to see them. The bass player is the bass player from The Knack (My Sharona.) They rocked it!

Most of the bands I came to see, with a few exceptions, had 2 or 3 songs that I knew and loved. They were the sound track of my jr. high and high school experience.

I was chatting with a couple of women and I ask one, “what’s that fenced off area over there?” She said, “ I don’t know, I’ll go ask.” She did and found out that it was the Clubhouse section (I was VIP which is one step below Clubhouse) and then she said the guard would let us in if we wanted. So I headed into the Clubhouse section right to the front of the stage and enjoyed a great show by the Violent Femmes.

Bonus points to you if you noticed in the video or picture above that the drummer is playing a Webber BBQ as part of his kit. Brilliant.

I had tickets for the Violent Femmes show several months ago in Sacramento but gave them away since my sister and my mom took me to see the Eagles on the same night VF were playing. Worth giving up the tickets because seeing the Eagles with my mom was the best experience ever.

I was glowing from finally getting to see the Femmes AND I was in the Clubhouse section in the very front of the stage. I wanted to run over and see Devo on the main stage but The Psychedelic Furs we’re playing in 1/2 an hour and I had a front row spot! I decided to stay put.

And I’m so glad I did.

They sounded great.

The t-shirt line was crazy long all day long. There was finally a bit of a shorter line after the Furs played so I grabbed a couple of shirts, one Bauhaus and one Cruel World Festival shirt.

Everyone raved online about Bauhaus’s performance. While they did give a powerful show I still really only know one of there songs. It was well done!

This was on regular rotation at the new wave clubs back when I was in High School. It was neat to get to experience it live.

Morrisey came on at 9:50pm and I reluctantly stayed to watch a few songs. I am a huge Smiths fan but never really enjoyed his solo works. And his politics are…questionable… Still he was in fine voice and quite a showman. I departed after a couple of songs. From his Saturday setlist he didn’t play any songs from the Smiths until 10-12 songs in so I left after 2 songs. Unfortunately he played How Soon is Now when I made it to the parking lot! I got to hear some of it from there. Wish I’d stayed for one more song!

I am so grateful I got to experience some really stellar performances of bands I’ve never seen before. I’m also grateful for the kindness and friendliness of the people around me and online. We had a real sense of fellowship with the music being our common bond.

The flight home was uneventful and the dog went nuts when I walked in the door. She’s sitting crushed up against me as I write this. And all is right with the world.

Concert Trip, May, 2022, day 1&2

Back in March I began returning regularly to see concerts. Pre-pandemic, I was going to shows regularly, sometimes flying to a city where a band I wanted to see was playing.

In March I flew to Las Vegas to see Incubus play. I saw them two nights in a row and loved both shows.

A couple of weeks ago I went to see Jerry Cantrell of Alice In Chains at Ace of Spades in Sacramento.

This weekend I flew into LAX then drove to Santa Barbara to see Smashing Pumpkins at the Santa Barbara Bowl. I’ve seen SP twice before, first back in the early 90’s and then 5-6 years ago. Both shows were great and I am a fan of a bunch of their music. That combined with my love for seeing shows at the Santa Barbara Bowl (arguably one of the best places to see a concert) and the fact that I am going to an 80’s music festival in Pasadena on Sunday made grabbing tickets to see the Pumpkins an easy choice.

A 6am (too early) flight had me from Sacramento to LAX in a little over an hour. I stopped by the Centurion Lounge on the way out since is was 8:30am and time for breakfast and more coffee.

Yummy breakfast. Thank you Lounge Access.

I grabbed my rental car and zipped to Santa Barbara, a two hour drive. I was too early to check into my hotel so I took a drive down to a beach (Arroyo Burro Beach) my family used to go to when I was between 6-8 yeas old.

I started getting hungry so I went to the returns right on the beach and had this.

Then I went and sat on the beach and meditated. It was lovely.

Still too early to head back to the hotel I headed over to the house we lived in back in 1876-1978. Our school was behind the house, just down a little path through a park. There’s a mosaic my sister and a bunch of 4th graders made back then that’s still on the front of the school.

I was exhausted and it was finally time to check into my room so I made it back the the hotel and took a lobster roll/every morning flight induced 2 1/2 hour nap. Then I headed over to the Santa Barbara Bowl.

View from the top of the Santa Barbara Bowl.

The Smashing pumpkins did not disappoint.

Here’s a few photos.

I’ve experienced such a since of fellowship with the people who’ve sat around me at the last few concerts. This one was no different. Even got a random hug after one of the songs from the gal in the row behind me. It was kinda sweet.

A band called Bones UK opened for the Smashing Pumpkins. I’ve seen them once before when I saw Bush, The Cult and Stone Temple Pilots a few years ago. They were impressive live but I’ve tried to listen to their recorded music and it’s somehow less impressive.

The concert ended at 10pm, strangely, no encore. Still great show and wonderful venue.

After a decent night’s sleep I headed off to Los Angeles. In a Tesla. Did I mention the Tesla…?

I rented a Tesla. I’d yet to drive an all electric vehicle despise wanting to try it out so this was as good a time as any, gas prices being in the $6.30+ range.

I got a Tesla 3 and it’s pretty fun to drive. It reminds me of the slot cars I used to play with as a kid. You can hit the gas (hit the electric…?) and it goes like a bullet, take your foot off the accelerator and it doesn’t coast, it begins to slow.

I don’t think I’d get a 3 if I were to get an all electric car. First, the all glass roof is like a radiator in 90 degree heat, quite hot to the touch. I couldn’t find a way to shade the roof (the Ionic 5 has a shade you can pull across it’s giant glass roof) so I think it would be an impractical car in Sacramento. Also, the cargo space is a little tight for touring puppet shows. Still, fun to drive.

I check into my hotel in LA and headed over to the Fabric District in the downtown area. As a puppeteer this place is magical.

Block after block of small fabric vendors. So much sparkle.

I’ve come here before and gone crazy with fabric purchases but since I only have one suitcase I stuck to a very specific shopping list. I escaped with around 24 yards of fabric.

Stick a fork in me I’m done. Time to rest up for tomorrow’s music festival…The Cruel World Festival in Pasadena with The Church, Blondie, Missing Persons, Violet Femmes, Psychedelic Furs, Berlin, Morrisey and more.

Maui, 2022—Day 2

Woke up early to go to a zoom meeting at my home group and then make a little breakfast.

I made rolls from scratch. They were just ok. The oven in the condo is very different from our home oven. The rest is eggs, bacon and Maui Gold pineapple Mike chopped up for us.

We hung out on the Lanai (Hawaiian for balcony) and whale watched for several hours. Mike got some great pictures with his nice camera. I took a turn and got these shots of a whale’s tail.

It was ridiculously fun trying to predict when the whale would show it’s tail. Mike got some great shots of the tail with water cascading off of it.

And above is some video Mike shot on his iPhone from our Lanai. And speaking of, here’s the view of Lanai (the island, not our balcony) from our Lanai (our balcony, not the island.)

And to the right, the island of Molokai.

It’s lovely to watch the light and clouds change these views throughout the day. Mike caught this rainbow in front of Molokai this morning.

After breakfast and whale watching we took a long walk on the beach. We fantasized about owning one of the beautiful Villas we passed on Kaanapali. “Oh Mike, it’s a little smokey is Sacramento. Let’s head over to our Villa for a few weeks.”

Lunch was fish tacos from one of our regular haunts. We brought it back to the condo to eat. They weren’t the best we’ve ever had but they were good enough.

After a long nap we watched the whales for a while again. We had one smaller whale breech (jump halfway out of the water) right in front of our condo. We’d seen plenty of this out in the distance but it was really cool to see it up close.

Tonight’s sunset was less that spectacular but the whales put on another nice show. And the company was just perfect.

We were both still pretty full from lunch so we split some yummy fish and chips from the food truck village just down the road from us.

I have my first of two scuba diving days tomorrow so we went over to the ABC Store to grab a couple of snacks for the boat ride. Usually they provide sandwiches but since COVID they just do granola bars.

Tomorrow’s dive site is just off of Lanai (again, the Island, not…you know) and it is known as The Cathedrals because the lava formations look a little like the windows of a cathedral. Supposedly. Its not my favorite dive site but it’s a good place to get my feet wet before tomorrow’s more adventurous dive. It’s also a good place to try out my new waterproof case for my 360 camera. I should hopefully come back with some fun footage.

To end the evening we somehow found ourselves back at the gelato shop.

Not bad for just another day in paradise.

Thanks for following along…

Maui, 2022 — the trip home and final thoughts

I had to get up early for a Zoom Meeting Service commitment. I woke up to an amazing full moon reflecting off the ocean. Beautiful.

We were already packed except for toiletries. We cleaned up the condo a bit and then hit the road to the airport.

It’s been our tradition to listen to radio station KPOA when driving around the island. It is all Hawaiian music all the time. We listened to a song in the Hawaiian language and we were sure they were singing about “Cow Pie”.

It’s a fun mix of classic Hawaiian music to the latest. It’s not something I would listen to regularly but it sure does set the mood when in Maui.

A final picture from our lanai. Until next time!

Plane nerds, we are flying in a Boeing 717 from Maui to Honolulu. Why? Because we found a deal on lie Flat seats from Honolulu to SFO on this Boeing 777-300er.

Tiny little Hawaiian Air Lounge in Maui.

Much larger lounge in Honolulu, right above our gate! Convenient!

Mike snuck several bags of these into his backpack.

We had a little sandwich and some snacks in the United Lounge. enough to hold us over until the meal on the flight.

Final thoughts.

1. I’ve been coming to Hawaii now for nearly 30 years which means I’ve been here around twenty times. I never had a desire to come here before I came here. My low impression of Hawaii was completely based on the Brady Bunch Hawaiian episode. An ex of mine really wanted to go so I reluctantly went along. I fell in love with the place the moment I stepped off the plane. I love adventurous vacations but I also love our retreats to Maui where we just chill out in a very familiar and relaxing tropical paradise. We keep saying we are going to try the Big Island one of these days. We will see.

2. I didn’t get to swim with a green sea turtle this trip. It may be one of the first times that this didn’t happen. We did see several from our lanai.

3. I’m so glad we got to try several different food places as well and returning to a few favorites. I am in love with Lava Lava Shrimp. Here’s the video that steered us to the great eateries.

4. I am so happy I finally did the hammerhead scuba dive. It feels great to be in good enough shape to do an adventurous and strenuous dive like that with confidence and relative ease.

5. I never need to dive the Cathedrals off Lanai again. I get why people like it. Neat lava formations and all but I want to see sharks and turtles and big stuff. I’ve never seen any of that at the Cathedrals. Glad I did it to refresh my diving skills before the hammerhead dive.

6. Sitting on the lanai with Mike watching whales and watching the sunset is a very special time for me. He is such a great guy to be with and laugh with. He made me laugh and smile so many times on the trip. I am fortunate.

7. Time on the beach under the rental umbrella is so relaxing. I just love it.

8. I worked a little too much on this trip. There were a ton of emails that were coming in for the puppet business. The plus of running your own business is that you can do to admin. work from anywhere. The minus is you can don the admin. work from anywhere. Rachel was busy at home watching our dog and doing lots of shows. Yay Rachel!! I so appreciate her taking such good care of Lainey while we’re gone.

9. I miss our dog.

Here’s our timelapse takeoff and landing from OGG to HNL.

We have middle seats so I won’t be able to video our takeoff and landing from HNL to SFO. We do have comfy lie flats so hopefully I’ll get a nap since I didn’t sleep nearly enough last night.

Just landed in SFO. Watched Jungle Cruise with Mike on the plane. Sooo many dad jokes. Right in my wheelhouse.

Here’s our last plane coming in from Reno. It’s an Embraer ERJ-175. She’ll take us home with a 57 minute flight.

And home.❤️♥️❤️

I really missed her.

Thanks for coming along on our trip. Aloha.🌺

Maui, 2022–Day 7

The morning started with a beautiful full moon on the horizon. The picture above doesn’t really do it justice. Still, nice way to start the day. After breakfast we packed up the cabana chairs and umbrella and headed out the door to drop them off on our way to our 10am whale watching cruise.

Art and Mike on the Pacific whale Foundation’s catamaran “Spirit”.

The two hour cruise was incredible. We saw a baby and mother humpback swimming together. The baby must have jumped out of the water 16 times while we watched. The baby was somewhere between 15-30 days old. We also saw a group of 9-10 males fighting for the attention of a female. Here’s a video Mike shot and put together.

After the cruise we went back to Down The Hatch for another round of lava Lava Shrimp, Brussels Spouts, and a Crab and Lobster Grill cheese. It was nap inducing.

Before the nap I cranked out another batch of rolls. These came out much better.

After a nearly 3 hour nap it was time to pack since we have an early morning.

Dinner was leftovers, fresh rolls and some salami and cheese.

This has been an amazing trip. I am looking forward to seeing the dog tomorrow.

Thanks for following along!

Maui, 2022–Day 6

Breakfast on the lanai with this view is how we started our day. It’s the first (and last) day where we had nothing planned. That was a great plan.

We spent around 3 hours just sitting on the beach watching whales and relaxing. It was perfect.

Here’s several minutes of whales. We were convinced two of them were mating. They were all over each other.

On advice of the YouTube guy who’s sent us to several great restaurants, and one of Mike’s colleagues, we visited Leoda’s Pie Shop. Mike saved us some time by ordering lunch and a little pie online while we were driving there.

Thank god he did because the line was looooong. (Look closely and you can see Mike at the “pick up online orders” window with no line.) We’ve driven by this place every time we’ve been on the island and never stopped. I can’t imagine we’ll ever not stop again.

There’s always chickens hanging around at Leoda’s. This rooster said hi to me.

https://youtube.com/shorts/yW-kmysRYBI?feature=share

We came back to the condo and took a lovely nap, then went down to the pool and played Corn Hole (Mike kicked my butt), darts and ping pong. We are clearly triathletes.

Sunset had some potential but didn’t really pop tonight.

We kept dinner simple at the food truck village and split broccoli beef with some crispy spring rolls. It was just enough.

Tomorrow is our last full day on the island. I’m looking forward to it but I miss the dog.

Thanks for following along!

Maui, 2022, day 5

It was really nice to have nothing scheduled to do this morning. Mike and I got up and made some breakfast which we ate on the lanai while whale watching. We then headed out to the beach and sat in the rented lounge chairs under our rented umbrella. That little cabana set up has been a game changer. Neither of us are looking to get tan (I just burn) so going to the beach meant slathering down in sunblock and wearing hats and long sleeves. Now we sit under an umbrella, relax and people watch.

Mike spotted a beach kitty and said, “do you know how they say hi to the tourists? They say, ‘Welcome to Meowi!” 🤦‍♂️

We headed back to the room to freshen up before having lunch with Mike’s colleague Brian and his wife Brandy. We are at Hula Grill and had a yummy Caesar salad with fresh fish and crab wontons. I was so hungry I forgot to take pictures. We also stopped by the ABC Store and grabbed a few things to bring home.

Before I get to tonight’s sunset let me catch up on some of my diving from yesterday. First, this is what our dive master called fish rain.

Here’s a hammerhead shark. (It’s pretty grainy on video but it was cool to see!)

And here’s a coral head.

I have more video of the dive but less is more…?

Ok, a couple more. This one is a bait ball of sardines. If you watch closely you can see a larger fish hunting within the ball.

Sunset was a bit of a bust but the whale action was spectacular. Mike caught a couple of whales breaching after two big whales jumped out of the water. here’s his video. (And that’s me squealing in the background.)

Here’s the view from the other side of our condo.

For dinner we headed to the food truck parking lot behind our condo. Mike had fish and chips and I had a delicious shrimp and Opakapaka fish plate from the Vietnamese food truck. It was yummy!

Mike brought our Apple TV so we are watching West Side Story before bed. A great day on the island.

Thanks for following along!