Like yesterday, this morning started with a work-related phone call followed by breakfast. I also discovered that Hertz overcharged me (by double!) for my rental car… and the Hertz customer service folks really pissed me off by not being able to correct it immediately, refusing to let me talk to a supervisor, and telling me it might take up to 7 days to correct. Well, having rented countless cars and spent thousands of dollars with Hertz, fuck them, I say. I cancelled my subsequent reservations and switched to National. This saved me a few hundred dollars in rental fees and took $1000 out of the pocket of Hertz.
We left our hotel around 7:30 for our brief (20 minute or so) flight to Maui. All was very smooth with Hawaiian Airlines. We arrived in a rainy Maui on time, grabbed our luggage, and picked up our rental car.
We then proceeded to get an awesome cup of coffee (Maui Red) at the Wailuku Coffee Company and picked up lunch for Emerson. To avoid the rain, we drove up the leeward side of the island to visit the town of Lahaina. Although windy (which amazingly drove a light rain from clouds seemingly miles away), Lahaina lived up to its reputation as a town bathed in sun. We visited the small museum in the courthouse, had some high quality ice cream, and generally strolled around the quaint but slightly touristy town.
Courthouse / Museum
Downtown
For dinner, we drove to Wailea for dinner at Migrant, a restaurant by Top Chef contestant Sheldon Simeon. The food was both inventive and outstanding with the highlight being the “bottom of the plate lunch” cabbage salad with puréed macaroni salad and kalua pork “chews.”
Fried Brussels Sprouts
Tocino, Filipino Sweet Pork
“Bottom of the Plate Lunch”