Posted by Boone in Travel

Its essential stuff that makes you shop. (Does the house have decent shingles….check. Is the exterior in good shape…check. Will the cabin be pressurized during flight…check.)

Shopping is great, but its the small things that make you buy. You can purchase a house with almond appliances, Formica counter-tops, and wall-to-wall linoleum and it will still provide you shelter. Show me a house with all stainless appliances, concrete counter-tops, and solid oak floors and you might very well be writing an offer that afternoon. (If you like the sound of that home, our townhouse will be on the market starting in July…but I digress.)

Now, bring me a cookie instead of pretzels, an extra soda (ginger ale, please), and show me a movie that’s, for Pete’s sake, at least PG-13 and I will be singing your praises like an under-educated American at a Sarah Palin rally. (yeah, yeah…Madison liberal hippie. I know.)

Its all about the little things. As was the case recently on a flight home from Chicago. They over-filled the plane with fuel, so besides now being ‘extra’ flammable, the weight of the extra fuel could cause landing problems. We had to sit tight while the tank was siphoned down. A ‘voice from above’ explained that the fuel tanks are pumped full at about 500 gallons per minute and emptied about as fast as your normal gas station fuel pump. The siphoning was so slow it was as if our plane was the brunt of a rural high school prank and Cletus Ray Johnson was taking a long draw from a garden hose quietly fed down the gas tank of our International Harvester pickup truck (no offense Michael Perry).

After our fuel was back in the normal range, we were again delayed take-off due to bad weather around Milwaukee. So, our 29 minute flight from Chicago to Madison had turned into almost a 2 hour sit…with take-off looking bleak. (I, being heads down into my Greek Mythology book, was enjoying the extra reading time. But, I was was of the few, the proud, the unwavering literate.)

On top of the long sit, our plane was quite small (1 and 2 seating). A small plane for a small trip, and thus, no beverage/meal service supplies aboard. The natives were getting restless. The pilot came on and to say that, like a 1960s fallout shelter, he has some granola bars secretly stashed in the back and thanked us for our patience. The lone steward proceeded to hand us all these frighteningly simple, no label (or writing of any kind), white-plastic packaged granola bars. The natives subsided and we all enjoyed a quick snack before getting airborne a few minutes later.

This small gesture by the airline was thoughtful and unexpected, turning a ‘could-be’ bad situation into very positive experience.

Like I said, its the little things that make the biggest difference. Try and do a little something nice for someone today. Karma will thank you later.

Posted by Jess in General,Travel

Aloha and mahalo for reading! We made the long trip to Maui in early July to enjoy the wedding of our good friends Jon & Mel (hooray!). It was a beautiful wedding indeed. The vacation had some good parts and some bad parts, but over all we had a good time.

Good parts:

The wedding (duh).

Sunrise over the volcano Haleakala.

Surviving the road to Hana which is 52 miles and 3 hours of curves, one lanes bridges, and beautiful scenery. We hiked a bamboo forest and saw a waterfall off the side of the highway.

Touring Lahina, an old whaling town and the former center of the Hawaiin royalty.

All you can eat and drink luau with dances from across Polynesia.

Lots of beach time without a major sunburn (whoohoo!).

Traveling with really awesome people

Bad parts:

Two cases of car theft, including our backpack. Luckly no money was in it; just socks, sunscreen, granola bars, and our keys from back here in WI (which unluckily are really expensive to replace).

A somewhat tempermental condo that included a broken toliet, AC, and a fan that made a ticking noise most of the time. Again, everything was fixed and Boone got to play MacGyver in his attempts to make the fan stop ticking.

It was really hot the whole time- like close to 90 most days. Good thing the wedding was at sunset!

On a snorkling trip, Boone and I spent most of the time green with sea sickness.

On the morning we left, Boone took a surf board to the ribs when surfing. That made a few uncomfortable plane rights and a week away from the gym.

Oh well- a bad day in Maui is still a day in Maui, There is a page on the right with some pictures from the trip. Enjoy and aloha!

Also, congrats to Boone’s cousin Erin and her new husband Johannas, and our friends Scott and Kristin. We attended their weddings right after we got back from Maui, so the celebrations continued well into July.