Paradise

Aloha!

Earlier this month, Jason and I had the chance to spend a week in Maui. It was awesome! We'd been planning and saving for the past few years, so when a great deal appeared we were very excited. We'd been to Oahu 7 years ago, and we loved it. So this time around we decided to try Maui. It was beautiful weather, gorgeous scenery, and there was a ton to see and do.
And we owe a HUGE "thank you" to my mother-in-law, who served, watched, and entertained our children at home!

We took sooo many photos, that we tried to pare them down... but this is still a long post! Don't worry if you just skim past the travel log - I won't be offended! ;)


Leaving the Seattle airport... notice the gray, cloudy, cold, rainy sky.

When we landed in Kahului, it was only 1:00 in the afternoon. We picked up our car, stopped at Costco, and headed to our condo. We were staying about an hour from the airport in Kahana. At one point in our drive, we were following behind this truck. It was the first reminder that life is done differently in Hawaii... :)



The condo that we stayed at was perfect. Each unit has an ocean view. You could see both the islands of Molokai and Lanai from our deck. We loved to sit outside and eat our breakfast each morning.


We didn't want to waste any time, so after we settled in the first day, we grabbed some Subway sandwiches and headed to Kaanapali Beach to watch the sunset. It was warm and beautiful. We walked from one end of the beach to the other as the sun went down. What a great way to start our vacation, right? As we headed back to our car, we discovered that the gates of the public parking lot had been locked - with our car still inside (as well as a few others). Can you tell from the picture why it was a little confusing?


The next morning we couldn't wait to get outside. Along with the fact that Hawaii is 3 hours behind, we were awake by 6:30 AM. After eating breakfast and packing a picnic lunch, we found a shop that rented snorkel gear for a cheap weekly rate. We got outfitted and headed to Kapalua Beach, which is supposed to be one of the best beaches on the island. It was pretty nice.
We laid in the sun and snorkeled for 3 hours. We were trying to be cautious - we do have Washington skin, after all. Let's be careful and head inside early. As it turns out, we got BURNT! We were wearing sunscreen, but I think the snorkeling did us in. Our shoulders, backs, and legs were painfully red by evening time. We lathered up with aloe, headed to Lahaina to walk around town and drown our pain in ice cream.

While wandering through town, we found one of those deals: "If you come listen to our sales pitch for 2 hours, we will give you a great deal on adventure trips." So, we did it. We willingly gave away 2 hours of our life, and in exchange we were able to sign up for a Volcano Bike Adventure, as well as a catamaran snorkel trip.

One of the experiences that we had wanted to try was the Haleakala Sunrise Bike Tour. So, the next morning, after a restless, sun burnt, sleepless night, we got up at 1:30 AM to head off to our adventure. We drove to Paia to meet our bike tour by 3 AM. From there, the shuttle drives you 1 1/2 hours up to the top of Haleakala Crater, which is the world's largest dormant volcano. The elevation is over 10,000 feet. After watching the sunrise, you get on a bike and ride 26 miles down the side of the volcano, back to Paia where we had left our car. All of the tour guide books say, "If you haven't ridden a bike in the past 10 years, the top of the world's highest volcano is not the place to refresh your memory." Well, as I had not ridden a bike since middle school, this advice made me a little nervous. Jason assured me, "Ahhh, don't worry. You'll be fine." Very reassuring.

We arrived to the top by 5:30 AM. It was freezing cold at about 30 degrees and incredibly windy. Luckily for us, the sky was completely clear with the clouds below us. It was an amazing sunrise. You can see just a sliver of the silver moon.

This is a picture inside the main crater. It's 21 miles in circumference (which is large enough to contain Manhattan). You could see it clearly once the sun come up... unfortunately, I completely missed this portion of the trip. Just as the sun was about to break the horizon, I discovered something new about myself...

I guess I don't do well with quick, high elevation changes.

Yep! As I was standing at window inside the visitor center (which had just opened moments before), I started to feel sick to my stomach. I began to lose my hearing and my head was pounding. I didn't want to give up my spot at the window, but luckily I turned around and found Jason right about the time I blacked out. I have never fainted before in my life. I came to quickly, and then we spent the next 45 minutes being questioned by a paramedic. At one point I thought I was fine, but as I stood up to leave, all the symptoms came back again. By this time, they decided to put me on oxygen. Jason kept reassuring me that we didn't need to ride the bikes down the volcano, but I didn't want to miss out on our only chance. So, after almost 2 hours at the top, a park ranger drove us down to meet our shuttle driver at the starting point (luckily this was only at 7,000 ft elevation). Although I wasn't sure it was the best idea, I assured Jason that I was just fine to ride the 26 miles back to town.
Can you tell I was a little nervous still?

The road had 29 switchbacks (180 degrees) right from the start.

You see some amazing scenery, but I was too concentrated on watching the road ahead. At one point I asked Jason, "Do I look as tense as I feel?" His response was, "Uh, yeah."

It was a fun bike ride. We went though Kula which is a town in Upcountry where all the rich people buy mansions. We stopped outside Tom Selleck's old home when he was filming Magnum, P.I. and somewhere around there Oprah has a vacation home. It is also known as cowboy town up there. After grabbing a bite of lunch, we made it the rest of the way down. I was relieved to see our car!

The next day we went for a nice drive around the Northern part of the island. It has scary one lane roads in many parts, with a steep drop off on your left side and road signs warning you that the 30 foot rock wall to your other side produces falling rocks. But we found some awesome views that made this drive our favorite one of the entire trip.

Somewhere near Mokolea Point, we found this short hike that leads to a blowhole. We decided to venture out and see if we could find it. We took a scenic route, and wandered through an area that was described as an "acid field". All of the rocks had been eaten away by the salt water mist, it created rock formations which resembled black Swiss cheese.
We did find the blowhole. It shot about 30 feet up in the air. Jason decided to go down and get a closer look...




The next morning was our snorkel trip to Molokini Crater. We had to be at the Maalaea Harbor by 7:45 AM to board our boat (along with 100 other people). The crew was rather entertaining though, so it was a fun boat ride. They take you out to Molokini Crater which is reviewed as being one of Maui's best snorkel spots. The coral was pretty spectacular, but the fish weren't any better than we had seen as local beaches.

They also take you to Turtle Town and let you get off and snorkel there as well. We saw 3 huge turtles, and one of them swam so close you could reach out and touch him (although that would incur you a $100,000 fine for harassment of these protected creatures). Their shells were literally about 5 feet across.


After getting off the boat, we headed up to the Hana Highway. Everyone who goes to Maui says that you must drive the Road to Hana: "Going to Hana is a journey, not a destination." It winds 50 miles of narrow road along steep coastal views, past waterfall pools, and even through a tropical rain forest. We did stop at a few places along the drive.

Jason skipped rocks into the Honomanu Bay.

This was a triple waterfall nicknamed "The Three Bears."


Here is an old lava tube. It really is amazing when you stop the think about how Hawaii was formed.


One of the activities that Jason was intent on doing while in Hawaii was camping on the beach. When we finally made it to Hana, we were planning on setting up camp and staying there. But we discovered that we weren't allowed to due to a lack of permit. So, we continued on another 45 minutes to Oheo Gulch. Here we were able to stay at a National Campground. While the idea of staying on the beach sounds rather romantic, it turned out to be rather uncomfortable. It was so windy that we had to take the rain fly off the tent because it was ripping so hard as the gusts came through. And then, of course, it started to rain...

And, did I mention that there is NO food service within 3 hours of this stop? Yep, we came through Hana too late for dinner (they close at 8 PM). So our dinner consisted of Chips, bananas, granola bars, and a few Starbursts for dessert. As we ate by the light of the parking lot lights (Did I also mention that we didn't come prepared with a flashlight either?), we even had a few officers stop by to check and see what we had in our cooler. They weren't expecting to find Capri Suns, that's for sure!
But, with the dawn of morning, I awoke on my 31st birthday on a Hawaiian beach. Trying to ignore our sore muscles, sunburnt skin, and hungry stomachs, we headed off on a hike to one of the Seven Sacred Pools. There are actually more than 7 pools, and it turns out there is nothing really sacred about them (it was all a marketing ploy in the '60s), but what could be better than swimming in a sacred pool on my birthday?
Partway through the hike we wandered through a bamboo forest. Not only was the sight amazing, but the sound of the wind blowing through the bamboo was awesome! It was a fun experience.

This was one of the many smaller pools along the way.


Our hike led us to the Waimoku Falls. We had seen quite a few waterfalls on our trip, and I had mentioned to Jason that, having grown up near Snoqualmie Falls, they weren't really too impressive. This waterfall was spectaular! So big that I couldn't even fit the whole thing in my camera lens. It's 400 feet tall, and the best part is that you can swim right up to the bottom of it.

Here I am, about to take a dip in my sacred pool...

but Jason said it didn't count unless I got all the way in the water.


So, he got to take a nice cool plunge as well
.
As we headed back to Kahana, we drove all the way along the southeast side of the island. It was a primitive road in many spots, and it felt nice to make it back to civilization. One of the neatest things we saw was all the sugar cane. We had an impromptu lesson about how they burn the fields and it begins to crytalize the sugar inside the cane before it's harvested. We decided to take a picture of me with my favorite food in it's most raw form.


One of the best deals that we found when we were planning our trip was for our rental car. We found a "word-of-mouth" outfit that rents cars for way cheaper than the regular companies. So, we opted to get a convertible while we were in Hawaii. It was THE BEST decision. We spent so much time driving that it was nice to not miss out on the sun during that time (although I do regocnize the fact that we had to sunscreen up everytime we got in the car).


Some of the beautiful views in upcountry Maui.

On our last full day in Hawaii, we decided that we wanted to just hang out and relax. We hit a local Hula performance in the Pineapple Court of Lahaina Mall. It was a bunch of kids performing and it was really adorable.

And then we headed to our most favorite beach in Maui: Makena Beach. It was absolutely breathtaking.This silly umbrella that we were using kept blowing away, so Jason kept having to retrieve it. It was entertaining watching him wrestle it to the ground. :)


Jason tried his hand at Boogie Boarding. There were some guys near us trying out snappy tricks, but we were content with just trying to stay on the board. Jason was pretty good at it, and somehow I managed to end up with so much sand in my hair that I was still shampooing it out a week later.


On our very last morning, we had to find something to do before heading to the airport. So, we got up nice and early and headed to Lahaina. We had signed up to try a Stand Up Paddleboarding lesson. Unfortunately, we haven't developed those pics yet, but I can tell you it is harder than it looks. It's takes the balance of standing on a surfboard with the arm strength of paddling a kayak. It was fun to try, and a great workout, but a little boring. Our instructor, Sonny, must have thought so too, beacause after an hour he asked us, "Do you want to go catch some waves?" So, we had an impromptu surfing lesson as well. That was way more fun.


After a fun filled week, we were sad to be leaving paradise. Yet, extremely happy to be headed home to our kids - we missed them a ton!
Luckily, we will always have beautiful memories of Maui!

(photo:Makena Beach)