Molokai - Day Seven (Jay's 39th Birthday!)

Happy birthday, Jay! Tour of Coffees of Hawaii - including a mule-drawn wagon ride through the coffee plantation which the girls freakin' loved. Even Maggie was laughing and talking despite herself. Ellie, of course, wanted to sit up front and pet the mules.


Worth the cost and effort to go over to the center of the island. In fact, it was probably the best factory tour I've ever been on - very small and intimate - they even ended it with a session in their tasting room. By then, though, the girls (Ellie) had had enough, and despite the best efforts by our guide to entertain her, the bottom line is that a fussy toddler and cups of recently boiling water on a spinning table are simply not a good combination. (The post-a-nut touristy thing, not so worth it - at least for us. At one post office, they were all out of nuts, so they sent us to another that was closed for lunch from 12 to 12:30. As we put off naptime to sit and wait for the post office person to return from lunch, we got a little impatient and drove off at 12:38. I get the whole "Slow down, it's Molokai" philosophy, but I still really believe in answering the phone and being open when you're supposed to be. It's hard to hang loose with two tired kids in the car.)

A lovely late afternoon ride in the car to dinner and sunset at Hotel Molokai (where a reservation was recommended, although there were maybe oh, 20 free tables around us - and where we finally gave up trying to make a reservation over the phone because they NEVER answered...) - awesome sunset, good music, decent food, not bad service. Stray cats. Stray dog. Fidgety kids - but I have seen them behave MUCH worse, and besides, we'd snuck some more grown-up time while the kids watched Looney Tunes earlier in the day. So, really, all was fine.