Reunited And It Feels So Good

Finally, after only one failed attempt, we picked up our car from the shipper's today!

We'd been told on our first visit to Matson Shipping that our car, which we'd thought would have arrived by then, would more likely arrive Sunday for a Monday pickup. That was today, and a text arrived in early morning saying the car was, indeed, here on Maui.

However, having previously wasted a trip, we decided to not rush there. Instead we drove the other direction, to Hana, to check on the mail. And then, since we got to the Post Office before the mail had been placed into the post office boxes, we checked out Hana Bay Beach. Today was to be a rainy day over much of Maui, but the foreboding skies lent a very dramatic quality to the picturd I took.

Eventually the mail arrived (some sunglasses for Keith, who insists on calling them "shades") and we headed to Kahului and the Matson port.

The island is still more or less closed to mainland visitors (they must remain in quarantine for two weeks, and that is enforced); so the fields near the rental car agencies are still overflowing with unrented automobiles. And our route to the port took us by hundreds of them.

When we reached the road to Matson's auto pickup yard, the right hand lane was packed with Matson trucks, not moving. A guy in a golf cart rolled along and told us to drive in on the left lane…but to be careful, because exiting trucks would also be sharing it.

Keith was driving, and, sure enough, he had to weave between parked trucks on the right whenever an exiting truck demanded its share of the left lane.

But, other than that, actually getting the car turned out to be simple and easy. In fact, the hardest part was me trying to recognize the car I received for Christmas, 2019, and only drove three months before leaving it behind when Keith and I moved here in March. Luckily, my name was printed on a label on the side of it.

We only had a few other chores to do. I had to get my ID from Costco, which I did, and promptly lost; so I had to get them to make me another one. This time the bemused membership lady, in addition to making a duplicate ID card, hooked me up with a Costco app on my phone that had the ability to show my ID right there on the phone, and also a key fob that would work at the Costco gas pumps (where, here in Maui, the gas is almost a dollar cheaper per gallon than at most other gas stations).

We also made stops at Target (a dish rack), Walmart (a few groceries and soap), Lowe's (hydraulic fluid for Zach's excavator), and Safeway, where gas is ten cents more expensive per gallon than at Costco, but it's more conveniently located for filling up the gas tanks for the generator on our way back to Hana. Because of the high cost of fuel here, I don't want to leave the gas tanks filled and in the back of the truck while Keith and I shop; so we save that for last.

Since it was after six o'clock, we also picked up a sub sandwich, which we split. That meant that, when we met up (Keith drove the SUV; I drove the truck) at Ho'okipa Beach for our traditional pee stop, the sun was setting on some surfers hoping to get in that last, great wave.

So now, we're home and we have our car with us at last. The dogs weren't allowed in Zach's truck but we've never been that fussy so if it's nice tomorrow, or whenever it's nice next, we'll be able to bring them to swim in a waterfall.

Hey, I might even do a little DoorDashing for some extra cash. Surely, in the Time of Coronavirus, many people are staying home and ordering food deliveries, right?