I love living in Kansas City, but I probably love it the least in January. You’ll get one or two 60-degree days, but mostly it’s just the kind of cold and dark that makes you want to go to bed early. You can go weeks without seeing the sun as one frigid, blah, gray day runs into the next. The only thing to really break it up is the Chiefs winning all the playoff games. And going to the Super Bowl for the fourth time in five years. But I digress.
One of the best things you can do in Kansas City in January is leave it. So I did! My husband and I celebrated our 15th anniversary last November, and a friend was getting married on the island of Maui in Hawaii on Jan. 13. We decided we’d combine the two celebrations and stay for a week. The grandparents were gracious enough to watch the kids during this time.
We picked the BEST WEEK EVER to flee the Midwest. It was a frozen hellscape in our absence. It snowed about six inches the day before we left. The Chiefs game at Arrowhead Stadium was the 4th-coldest in NFL history, starting at -4 degrees (Fahrenheit because America) and dropping to -7. And yes, I still had plenty of friends who went. They strapped hand warmers all over their bodies, stood on cardboard and drank beer until they were all warm and fuzzy, in their brains at least. We had a record low of -16, and I had serious concerns about whether my car would start upon our return to the airport.
But in Maui - oh glorious Maui - it was between 75 and 80 degrees every day. The humidity (which disappears in a Midwest winter and over-appears in a Midwest summer) was enough so I didn’t have to moisturize anything but not at all oppressive. The air-conditioning at our resort went out just a couple days into our stay due to what we were informed was a “fire in the chiller,” and it was only a little stuffy. Hardly unpleasant. Meanwhile, I scrolled through social media posts of friends back home featuring the newest ice storm and bursting pipes. Then I went back to reading my book on the beach.
Let’s talk about the beach in Hawaii. My only experience with the Pacific Ocean up to this point was in Southern California. It is COLD there. I remember feeling so betrayed. A beautiful, sunny day in June - I’ll just run right in! And then I immediately turned around squealing when the icy water hit my ankles. But in Maui, the temperature of the water matched the beauty of the day. I was so excited. Until the ocean tried to kill me.
Cliche as it may be, it turns out I like long walks on the beach. Maybe because it’s such a novelty to a Midwest girl. My husband doesn’t like the feeling of sand on his feet, but I love it! The beach was maybe 100 to 200 feet from our room at the resort. I walked on it alone frequently. Sometimes the waves would rush up higher than expected and soak my shorts, but it was part of the fun. Then I decided I wanted to frolic in the waves. I have the most experience with wave pools at water parks, where it beeps before the waves come on and then you bob up and down, bumping into all the inner tubes full of people with much more body confidence than me, based on their size relative to the size of swimsuits they’re wearing. Then you can lay in bed at night, still feeling that wavy feeling. That’s what I wanted, and this beautiful, uncrowded beach offered it. I tried so hard to frolic, but the ocean was not having it. It would suck me under, drag me on the sandy bottom, then throw me back on shore. Over and over. (Because I was stupid enough to keep trying it over and over.) It went like this in my head:
1. “This is so fun!”
2. “Oh God, that’s stronger than I thought it would be.”
3. “I’m drowning! I’m drowning!”
4. Thud - back on land.
I saw other people doing it and couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t. I’m a decent swimmer. A woman who was at least my mother’s age or older said, “You have to time it right,” then she ran in with aplomb. But my cornfed brain could not get the timing right. Literally bloody and bruised, I finally gave up. I had sand in every possible orifice. My bikini bottom was like a loaded diaper. More than two weeks after our return, I discovered some grains of sand still in my ear. I will now confine my wave frolicking to much more controlled, amusement park environments.
I expected lovely beaches in Hawaii. What I did not expect were the abundance of feral chickens. They were EVERYWHERE. In the grocery store and gas station parking lots. In the outdoor shopping malls. Strutting along the side of the highway. We also saw a lot of stray cats, all of whom seemed fat and happy. I expect there’s a correlation there somewhere.
Other than failing at wave frolicking, the most terrifying thing I did in Maui was drive from the west side of it to the east side. We agreed I would drive the whole time we were there because I freak out way less driving in unfamiliar environments. I’m glad my husband has finally come to terms with this fact. The drive to the Pipiwai Trail in Haleakala National Park involved going across numerous cow grates, stopping to avoid aforementioned cows, and going on one-lane roads that wound along the sides of cliffs that plunged to the sea and ancient volcanic rock hundreds of feet below. My husband kept saying, “Oh God! It’s so far down! Oh God! Oh God!” If I had taken my eyes off the road to look, I probably would have felt the same way and killed us both. And if a car came at you around the bend, there was nowhere you could go. Someone had to back up until there was a semblance of a shoulder.
All in all, however, it was an amazing, childless vacation. We hadn’t been together without the kids for more than 24 hours for at least five years. I got to see some of my favorites friends from around the country who were there for the wedding. My husband and I went horseback-riding in the mountains. We saw baby humpback whales breaching alongside their mothers. We didn’t have to care for our own children. We visited tropical gardens, and I ate probably the weight of my head in tropical fruit. There were no kids. We slept whenever we wanted. We got massages. My work phone was dead. The kids weren’t with us.
We were, however, right down the road from where the wildfires struck in August. We saw the devastation and memorials. We encountered numerous Red Cross and FEMA workers. Several of the guests at our resort were housed there because their homes had been destroyed. So many of the surviving businesses had signs up saying, “We are open! Please come in!” We did our part in stimulating their economy, but they still need a lot of help. Here’s a great, legit place you can donate:
Coming home was sad. The USDA screener at the airport made me throw away the apple I’d gotten at the grocery store as part of their rule that you can’t take Hawaii fruits back to the continental U.S. The apple still had the store’s sticker on it saying it had come from California. I’m still mad about it.
After a full day of travel, we arrived back in Kansas City. We’d arrived on a lucky day - the temperature had spiked to 30 degrees! My car started. Unfortunately, it had gotten some ice on it in our absence, and I’d left the scraper in a different car. As a Midwesterner, however, I’m prepared for just about any weather situation (except hurricanes). I whipped out a gift card I had for a free Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich. My husband didn’t believe it would work, but I knew better. He was pleasantly surprised by how that sucker scraped the ice right off. (This is the same man who didn’t believe bread bags could turn any shoes into snow boots. I have so much left to teach him.)
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