Baker wrote:
Marin, I understand what you are saying....but variety is the spice of life....You say God got it right....I would agree with you if it were warmer. To me, Maui is where God got it right....
You're 100 percent right.* If everyone liked it up here, then they'd come here and there would be no more point in living here.* I am very grateful that most people are turned off by the overcast and rain and fog (and tons of debris in the water and 20-foot tidal ranges and 10-knot currents and swirling rapids and whirlpools) and so stay away.
Maui used to be my favorite island in Hawaii until they mucked it all up with hotels and condos and whatnot.* I used to like to*fly into the little airport at Kaanapali and stay in the Pioneer Inn next to the harbor in Lahaina.* Back then this was*only hotel in the town itself.* I don't even*know if it's still there being as how it was wood and had style.* It's probably been replaced by some concrete*condo abortion.**The last time I was on Maui I was there to direct a Bank of Hawaii commercial and there was a brand new*mall in Lahaina and the*whole area all the way down the west*coast*was rapidly going downhill under the developer's bulldozer blades.* The road to Hana is still wonderful if you can drive it when the tour busses aren't on it, if that's even possible anymore.* That was another of my favorite flying destinations-- the little airstrip at Hana.* In fact, I first soloed there during my first dual cross-country flight.
But as Maui succumbed to development in*the late '70s*I shifted my "favorite" island**over to the Big Island (Hawaii).* Far fewer people and a much wider variety of landscape.* My favorite area was what we called the Parker Ranch area, aka Kailua.
Molokai was a favorite, too, again because back then there were very few people on the island and only one low-rise, cabin-style hotel.* I used to fly in to the "inaccessible" leper colony (Kalaupapa)*on Molokai's north shore (see photo).* The colony is gone now but it was still active in the '70s.* They had a small runway way out on the point and while you couldn't go into the village you could park the plane and walk over to the beach next to the runway.* I'd take a girlfriend over and have a picnic--- we were usually the only ones there.* Other times I'd fly a Honolulu-based veterinarian into Kalaupapa to treat the residents' pets.* They'd bring their dogs and cats out to the airport and the vet would set up shop in the little wood building that served as the terminal.* Eventually he learned to fly and bought his own plane.
Kauai didn't do much for me.* There was a WWII fighter airstrip on the east shore next to a nice beach park that I'd go to fairly often but otherwise I found Kauai rather boring.
When we moved to Hawaii in 1955 there were just three hotels in Waikiki.* I left in 1979 but Boeing has sent me back twice, fortunately just for two or three days at a time.**Too*bad,*now,*to see how it's been developed and changed.* I don't miss it at all.
As to cold vs. warm, I learned a long time ago that if you're cold it's real easy to get warm.* Wear warmer clothes, build a fire, turn on the heat, whatever.* But if you're hot, it's impossible to get cool without mechanical assistance (aka air conditioning).* Works fine if you're inside but if you have to work outside as I did most of the time in Hawaii, you're screwed.* I'll take a cold climate any day.* And the PNW has another advantage--- relatively low humidity.* I've visited good friends who live in southwestern Virginia and North Carolina.* I don't know how they survive in that humidity.* It simply drains the will to live right out of you.* But I guess the folks who live there like it, so if it keeps them there and not here, seems like a win-win to me
-- Edited by Marin on Wednesday 27th of May 2009 12:17:42 PM
