Getting to Maui during Covid

 Aloha!

If you follow my blog, you might know that I write blogs from Maui every year when I visit.

Last year was a pass because the week I was to fly, we got the Stay At Home order and I took that to heart, being  a rule follower and a good citizen.

I had a free ticket to use before June so as soon as I was vaccinated and past the 2 week mark, I booked the flight and told my best friend Lynn to expect a visitor. She's been on furlough from her hotel job and gardening for a year and boy does her yard reflect the 380 days she's spent there! Yowza. And like loads of us, her little poi rescue dog has gotten so needy and clingy!

To enter Hawaii these days, you need a negative COVID test done 72 hours before departure. That's 3 days for anyone  math challenged. If you want to get your test done at the airport, it's about $150. If you want to have the test done at your neighborhood lab, unless your doctor specifies you have symptoms, it's out of pocket for that same amount (in WA state.)

However, Walgreens does drive through testing for free and even though it took a few days to book an appointment in a town an hour away, I pulled up to the drive through on Sunday, was given a swab thing to do my own test,5 swirls inside my nostril, then sent my swab back through the chute and had negative results right after I arrived home. Then, I uploaded the lab results to Safe Travels as instructed by my airline. 

https://travel.hawaii.gov/#/welcome

I filled out the health questionnaire, got an email with a Q Code to use at the airport, to get my okie dokie wrist band to get on the plane and started packing. All checked in I got on the plane wearing 2 masks and reminded myself that everyone on the plane had had a COVID test in the last 72 hours except the small children who were maskless and several rows away.

 If you're planning on flying, be warned, masks are often worn below the nose by about 10% of the population traveling, even by one flight attendant who kept pulling it up over her nose as she served drinks. Blind faith, hope, and a month past the vaccine carried me to the Valley Isle where Lynn awaited in her Maui cruiser with her poi dog and off we went to Lahaina side to get groceries before we landed at her house in Kahana. As I said, her yard looks great, she has veggies growing everywhere as well as the papaya and plumeria, bananas, lemons and avocadoes. 

We talked almost non-stop until bedtime, even as we drove to Fleming Beach to walk the doggie who mostly meanders around sniffing, then back to the house for dinner on the lanai to watch the sun set. 

Talk continued like two friends who hadn't seen each other in a year, and carried on until 9 pm which was midnight for me) and off to bed we went. It was a joy to sleep with windows open and the cool Hawaiian trade wind floating through the bedroom. 

More from Maui later!

Aloha

KIM HORNSBY is a USA Today Bestselling Author of 15 novels as well as an award-winning screenwriter who has several movies in development with producers. She lives in the Seattle area where her office overlooks a tree-lined lake and has foot warming muses in the form of large, hairy rescue dogs.

Website: www.bit.ly/KimHornsby