KS Band Maui Tour - Day 1

The band went to Maui during the school fall break, Thursday through Sunday. We flew over in three groups on Hawaiian Air. The band and chaperones stayed on the KS Maui Campus at Pukalani (no, we did not chaperone this time!) We were asked to chaperone, but since we didn't want to sleep on the gym floor (and no one needs to hear me snore!), we were excused. Whew!

We stayed at Maui Beach Hotel in Kahului instead, which was ok. Room was small, but we hardly spent time there. The bathroom looked newly renovated, but it was soooo tiny, got claustrophobic. At least it was clean...some of the TripAdvisor reviews, pre-reno, were kind of nasty about how dirty it was.

KS Maui is such a beautiful campus!

As soon as we arrived, we picked up our car and headed to campus to help serve lunch to the kids, who caught the bus from the airport. Saw my first "whirlwind" or funnel cloud of dirt on the way up to Pukalani. It caught my eye from faraway and I asked Darrell what it was, because I'd never seen anything like it before. He laughed and told me it was a "whirlwind," something he saw often on Molokai, where there's a lot of dirt! The wind had gathered up the dirt in the empty sugar cane or pineapple field and made a mini-tornado! I was so excited, I couldn't get my camera out in time to take a picture! So tourist.

We spent most of the time in the Keku'iapoiwa Nui Performing Arts Building in the high school. The girls slept in the band/orchestra rooms and we were able to use the faculty lounge downstairs to prepare meals. The boys slept in the wrestling room in the Ka'ulaheanuiokamoku Building (the KS Maui campus has long names for buildings! so hard, or maybe we're just not used to them). The kids practiced in the Kana'iaupuni Stadium, which was like a mini-Kunuiakea Stadium, just like the Kapalama campus. The view was awesome!

After lunch, the kids played football, explored the campus and watched Maui High School's band practice on the field. Ryan was impressed that they work so hard...only 30-second breaks to drink some water that the kids brought themselves. Not like our kids, who get juice and water and snacks provided by the booster club. Yes, they are spoiled, but at least they now know it, seeing that other bands don't get the same thing.

That evening, both bands took turns sharing their field shows with each other. It's too bad we missed it, but this was the only chance we had to see some friends.

Darrell and I left after lunch to check in to the hotel and rested. Then we headed out to Lahaina to have dinner with some old friends that I knew from work...Shelley and Jenny. We were all assistant controllers at the same time at different hotels in the same chain and it was great to bounce things off each other. When we moved to Kauai to work, we took over the house that Shelley rented because she was moving to Oahu to take my place at my former hotel. Jenny and I traveled together on a peer audit review to Brunei and Singapore (with an added vacation side trip to Japan) in 1990. And she just moved to Maui, taking Shelley's place at a Kaanapali hotel. Now we are all controllers, working at different companies, but we've kept in touch over the years, and it was great to see them again.

Lahaina was surprisingly quiet...usually Front Street is bustling, but there weren't many people on the street. The slowdown in tourism is really evident here...