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robxmas19-2

Photos: Rob & Christina’s Christmas Vacation 2019 – Round 2

January 16, 2020/Photo Gallery

Back in Maui for our Christmas, my wife Christina has fully immersed herself in looking the part (all it takes is a flower in the ear)

At first we were shocked to even see a phone booth while we were out…we were more shocked when we tried to use it!

One of the many amazing foods in Hawaii is Huli-huli chicken, which is a grilled chicken dish prepared by barbecuing a chicken over mesquite wood, and basting it with a sweet huli-huli sauce. This one in Maui opens only two days per week and has a line forever long within 30 minutes of opening

And there it is

Lots of places in Hawaii are like this…you pull up, grab your food and then you’re on your own. So we popped open the back of our SUV and ate there

This was our view while eating chicken in the back of the SUV…not bad

Our only complaint about the chicken was that they literally gave us 1 (ONE!!!) napkin and there were no utensils. Fortunately we had hotel towels with us for the beach so they took the brunt of the grease

Christina was stationed in Oahu for a few years where she fell in love with shaved ice…exactly what it looks like. Super sweet flavored ice. Available in something like 73 different varieties. We went with grape/cherry to keep it basic

While we were running errands, I was lucky enough to meet their local enforcement. Apparently they frown on going 73 in a 45 zone. No word on why their tickets resemble CVS receipts

Don’t believe me? Look closely in the rearview mirror to see the cop preparing my citation. Aloha my butt.

This was the most exhilarating thing we did by far during our vacation…a doors off private helicopter ride over Maui and Molokai

Need a better idea? That’s my leg, and that’s the Pacific Ocean and yes it’s as harrowing as it looks (in fact there’s no way a picture can possible capture what this experience is like).

To make things more interesting, there is literally nowhere to put your hands…nothing to hold on to or hang on to, so for the first few minutes we used the empty seat next to the pilot to get our bearings (I would say we were white knuckling it for the first few minutes but my wife literally can’t pull that off)

All women with long hair have to put their hair up for a doors off ride…halfway through our trip, Christina’s knot slipped and she had to re-tie it at 3,000 feet

Girl problems

By 10 minutes into the trip we were totally comfortable and our amazing pilot, Richie, could tell. So when he spotted whales below us, he turned the copter almost sideways so we could down right at them…now that’s a wild feeling…being essentially parallel to the ocean in a helicopter looking right down at whales. And yes, trust me that’s a whale. I was a little too pre-occupied to take a good picture

When we landed and removed our helmets, Christina was mortified with her hair. I did not have such problems

How do you unwind from a wild helicopter ride? You go to dinner at Wolfgang Punk’s Spago!

Dinner was good, maybe even very good, but not great. These poke cones as appetizers were the star

My steak was cooked perfectly but was just ok

The chocolate souffle for dessert was pretty damn good

Of course we made plenty of trips to the beach

And even though we didn’t go whale watching, we did see a few

We did the infamous Road to Hana, a legendary cliffside drive with amazing views and dozens of near death moments. Along the way, while stopped at a turnout we asked a lady to take our picture. What the hell is this? She was young, too…how does she not know how to take a picture?

One of the things that sold Christina on spending a half day doing the drive was getting to Hana to meet the Huli Huli Chicken guy we had seen profiled on a Gordon Ramsay show a few weeks earlier

The chicken guy was super nice, and more importantly, the chicken was incredibly moist (and there was plenty of it)

The best part, though, was of course our amazing ocean front table. Sitting there with almost no one around eating lunch was surreal.

Easily one of the most beautiful things on the planet (and the view behind her is pretty amazing too).

After lunch we walked along the shore as you are literally right there at the Ocean’s end and almost entirely alone (depending on when you go)

If you ever go to Maui and do the Road to Hana, do it first thing in the morning; you’ll avoid the crowds and will live to tell about it because people are horrifically stupid on the drive

Back safely from Hana, a friend recommended 5 Palms, this ocean front restaurant

We were there for sunset, and usual the people were more fun to watch. Notice the lawn …not a soul on it as the sun goes down

Within seconds, every idiot and his brother swarms in from all angles to take pictures of the sunset

And as soon as the sun was gone, so were they…

As the trip wound down, we spent a day shopping

By the end of the trip, we had gorged ourselves on local Hawaiian fare and were actually craving something familiar, so Ruth’s Chris is was!

We still had seafood, though…a whole tower of it before gnawing on red meat. This should prove to be the most triggering caption to our Vegan fans

We spent our last morning as we spent many of them, having room service breakfast with our horrible view

Christina slept almost the entire flight home. I did not, thus I was awake to take this picture

We rang in the New Year back home at Steampunk Cigar in downtown Sacramento, where we are members

One of our favorite people, fellow member Kevin, helped us celebrate

Happy New Year!

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