First of all, my parents watched my kids. It was hard to get them packed for Nana's house AND get Adam and I packed, but I did it. I'm sure I forgot things (snow suits!) but that is the story of my life. I forget things. It happens. We dropped them off at Nana's around bedtime on Thursday.... and.... I lost it. I seriously gave them all hugs and kisses and the minute I walked out the door I just started sobbing. It was so nice to get away for a while, but I missed my kids the minute I walked out the door. Adam even had to stop at Walgreens to get me a package of Kleenex. And then we made our way down to his sister's house in Vancouver since we were catching a flight out of Portland early the next morning (way cheaper for some reason to fly out of there rather than Seattle).
The minute we landed in Maui, we were so excited! The weather was beautiful, the trees were beautiful, the ocean was beautiful... etc. We got our rental car and GPS'd our way to Ka'anapali. We were staying in a hotel on the beach there and our room was huge! It had a full kitchen, separate bedroom, and I'm not kidding when I say the bathroom was at least twice as big as my kitchen. HUGE! Plus it had a balcony overlookin the pools and the ocean. We ate lunch on that balcony almost every day! It was so pretty, and we saw lots of whales from there too! It was so cool to see them blow water up in the sky.
The first day we were there, we really didn't know what to do or what to expect. We got in after lunch, so after walking around the hotel grounds we ended up taking the rental car to Lahaina for some yummy food at Moose McGillicuddy's (which isn't local fare, but Celeste told us we had to try it out). Adam got the pork tacos with soooo much kahlua pork inside it was crazy! I ended up getting a fried pickle sandwich and it was so good. Lots of fried pickles on top of a cheeseburger. Yum! Afterwards we went to Ululani's for Shaved Ice which was amazing! We got one with Passion Fruit and Coconut. Seriously, we went there almost every night!
Then we went to Safeway to get groceries. Ahh! Talk about sticker shock! Everything was roughly twice as expensive in Maui, like milk was about $5 a gallon, cereal was on sale at $4 a box. We got basics, like bread, PB&J, yogurt, cereal and milk and still spent well over $20. Next time (because there will be a next time!!!) we will have to stop by Costco right by the airport and stock up. Costco prices were the same as prices here in Tacoma. When we got back, Adam went swimming even though it was dark out. It was still very warm out and I loved lounging by the pool reading my Kindle!
Day 1: Friday
Our hotel. We had two pools and the tent on the right is an outdoor bar and grill. We never ate there, but we heard them plenty! It was the place to be during some sports games and it got loud!
Adam "hanging loose" on the beach outside the hotel. We're dorky tourists :)
To the right of the hotel was beach and more beach. I loved the trees, and I could not get over listening to the waves come in. Sigh.
To the left was more hotels and the rock right in front of the white hotel in the background is called Black Rock. The hotel there does a sundown thing each night with fire dancers and someone diving from Black Rock into the water. We never saw it, but I hear it's pretty cool to see once. Just beyond that is Lahaina, where lots of shops and restaurants are.
Palm trees. My kids were wondering what they were. Well, there they are.
Almost sundown... love the clouds!
Ululani's shave ice. You MUST get one if you ever get down to Hawaii. I'm pretty sure they are not just a Maui thing.
Day 2: Saturday
The first thing we did was go to the pool! Adam swam like a little kid. He seriously wouldn't get out and just loved it. I lather up the sunblock and read my Kindle books. It was so nice to just have time for ourselves and not have anyone needing us for anything. I loved that carefree feeling (although the Mom in me really thought we needed to have a plan down!)
Eating lunch on the balcony. With pool hair :)
Whale! I swear, it's a whale. Not a black speck... a whale!
We took a walk down to Black Rock. And yes, it's as far away as it looks. And it was hot! And we had to walk all the way back. At least it was pretty!
It's a little dark, but you can see people jumping off Black Rock. I totally would not do that :)
Adam and I. I made him take pictures of me since I'm never in pictures!
Later that night we went back towards the airport to drop off our Redbox and get some essentials at Walmart, then went into Lahaina for some dinner at Bubba Gump's Shrimp Company. It was super good and Adam got this huge plate of different kinds of shrimp. It's definitely a fave of his and it was a fun place with lots of memorabilia from the movie. Our waitress even gave us a quiz (which of course Adam passed!).
Day 3: Sunday
Today we really wanted to see some sights without going very far (gas was almost $5 a gallon!). We had spoken to the concierge and she told us about some great places nearby that we could see. One of those places was a blowhole that was a short drive away. We drove north along the coast (Ka'anapali is on the west shore of Maui) and saw some amazing beaches!
To get to the blowhole you had to hike a little ways (which we didn't know about but survived!) and the view was amazing too!
A lone sea turtle. It was so cute!
All the pictures above are the view from the trailhead to the blowhole. It was so pretty. I mean, I've seen the ocean lots of times, but it was so blue and calming. I could have stayed up there forever. Except it was hot and I was hungry!
Yeah, yeah. Adam has bad posture. We're working on it :)
About this time during the hike Adam and I decided we were in a barren wasteland. We fully expected some ancient dinosaur to come out and eat us. Or vultures to start circling...
And then we reached it! I couldn't get too near because of the camera, but the mist would reach me sometimes and it felt sooo good. Seriously, it was super hot outside and I was in jeans. Bad idea. I know.
Adam waiting for the "big one" to happen. There were lots of little sprays, but none that were crazy big like we had seen from a distance.
Yay! It happened! It was so pretty. We could have stayed there a long time. Adam even went close to it (stupid idea because he totally could have fallen in!) but there were tons of little crabs near the center.
We hadn't brought water (remember, we didn't know we had to really hike in... we thought it was more of a quick walk) so I got really overheated. All I remember was this tunnel vision that was straight to the car. We got in and I took off my socks and shoes and rolled up my jeans and blasted the AC on me. Adam got out a couple times to take some awesome pictures though!
The scenery reminded us of "Lost" and Adam never tired of jokes about running into Hurley or the "Others".
People body boarding... or at least waiting for the waves to come in. Ahh... the life :)
Day 4: Monday (the Road to Hana)
There are lots of opinions about what to do in Maui. The concierge had very high opinions on all the expensive tourist attractions (luaus, boat trips, snorkeling, etc) and the other guests at the hotel had opinions on things too. A guy in the elevator said "Oh, this is your first trip to Maui? Well, don't do the road to Hana. It's long and boring" so we just smiled and let him think that. We had on good authority (Celeste and Lindsay) that said it was really interesting. They forgot to mention dangerous!
We set out super early. Like 8am. That's super early on vacation. We packed some PB&J sandwiches, some trail mix and some water bottles. We also packed our bathing suits. We heard there were awesome waterfalls and places to swim so we wanted to be prepared.
The road to Hana is just that... a road. To Hana. Which is on the other side of the island. It's super narrow in parts, usually where only one car at a time can pass. And it's really windy, like lots of turns. There were so many curves followed by a narrow part in the road that I could easily see how people could get into accidents. And these roads are high up, next to cliffs. We drove really slow and took our time, mostly because we didn't want to drive off a cliff. We stopped some places to get some amazing shots, though. And some we took while driving because there was no where to pull over.
By the way... they sell shirts that say "I survived the road to Hana" which we thought were funny... and then we realized they were probably more serious than funny :)
We finally made it to the waterfall we wanted to hike to. Again, I was underprepared for this hike, mostly mentally. I just don't cope well when I'm hot. And Adam didn't tell me how long this hike was because he didn't want me to back out. Somehow he figured me finding out how long it is partway through was better. Haha.... not funny. I survived though! We went through the bamboo forest too and it was beautiful. And shaded. Love the shade.
Adam crossing a bridge back when I though we were "almost there" to the waterfall. This was just the beginning.
Bamboo forest. It is so thick with bamboo that you can't really get through if you aren't on the path.
We finally made it to this huge cove where the trail ended. It was this big circle enclosed by huge walls and a waterfall that was so high! It was so pretty! I didn't have watershoes like Adam and it was super slippery so I didn't go into the water, and it was mostly surrounded by these huge rocks so I settled on a rock and just relaxed.
This is only the top part of the waterfall. I couldn't get the whole thing in my lens!
Trying to get a picture with the waterfall. Eventually a nice old man took pity on us and took our picture. This worked many times on our trip although most people couldn't figure out how to use my camera.
Adam near the waterfall. He didn't really go in. He was afraid the water was too heavy.
This picture by the nice old man.
Haha! Adam finally went in! I love his face here. I hope you can see it as well as I can!
On our way back. Bye waterfall :)
The large banyan tree near the end of the hike. We stopped here to put massive amounts of bandaids on my poor feet :(
After the hike we went the opposite way from the trailhead to this little cove. We were told it was like a piece of heaven and we were not disappointed!
Looking out to the ocean...
And to the cove. For some reason it doesn't look as amazing as it was. I promise, the trees were so green and the water was so nice. It was cool, not too cold, and the waterfalls were super pretty!
The black speck right of center is Adam swimming to the falls. And the water wasn't this brown. It definitely was blue! Stupid camera.
No Adam, this does not count as your shower for the day!
He finally gave into peer pressure and jumped off the rocks. Some people jumped off the top of the waterfall, which wasn't super far, but there were rocks down there and I kind of like Adam and wouldn't let him jump from there. He said he wouldn't have anyway, but we all know what a daredevil he is :)
Yay! I'm in another picture! This is as close to me in my swimsuit as the blogosphere is going to get!
Bye beautiful cove!
Just up the road is Charles Lindbergh's gravesite. Adam was very interested in seeing it. I didn't care at all, so I stayed in the car and ate lunch.
Apparently he loved this part of Maui so much that he came here when he was dying and asked to be buried here. He is buried with his close friend, whose grave is the small one on the right. We were there along with a busload of senior citizens. That's how interesting it was :)
We drove up to the Black Sand Beach. I know it has a name, I just can't remember it. It's the biggest one on the east side of the island near Hana. It was so cool seeing the dark sand. It was super soft too! I don't know why I expected it to be rough.
Soooo pretty!
Haha, I thought it was so funny how many warning signs there were. I didn't see any on the other beaches we were at that had more cliffs and rocks than this. It was just a little funny :)
Adam and I found these caves in the rocks on the beach. They went back super far and were really cool!
We drove back through Hana going back the way we came (north) and ended up having to turn around. There had been a car accident and the road was going to be shut down for hours (we found out later that a local had been ejected from a vehicle and she had died). So we went south and up, adding a couple of hours to our trip. The southern tip past Hana (the southeast portion) is not paved for miles at at time, and we had to go like 15 to 20 mph so we didn't ruin our rental. It was sloooow moving, but had beautiful views!
We were so tired by the time we got back to the hotel. It had been more than 12 hours since we had left, but we saw so many cool things and had a great day. We ended up getting Subway and relaxing in our hotel room for the rest of the night!
Day 5: Tuesday
We relaxed today! It was so nice to sleep in and take our time getting ready. We spent the day sightseeing in Whaler's Village and Lahaina. There are so many shops there and some had the cutest (and most expensive) things!
Downtown Lahaina. We spent a lot of time here. They had tons of shops and the nightlife was very interesting. We ate here a lot too. Hard Rock (which is where we ate this night, my dad is so proud of us. He loooves Hard Rock Cafe), Moose McGillycuddy's, Cheeseburger in Paradise and Bubba Gump's are a few places we ate. There are some nicer, pricier restaurants too but we just couldn't bring ourselves to spend over $100 on dinner. We also found Ululani's Shave Ice here and became regulars. Like, they gave us a punch card :)
There is also a Banyan tree that literally takes up a city block. It's a tree system that has a main core and this one has an additional 12 trunks. It's over 60 feet high too. It's so cool to see the branches that are apart of multiple trunks. Seriously weird but beautiful!
We ate at Hard Rock Cafe for dinner that night. I was getting a little tired of eating out, but it was almost cheaper to eat out than it was to buy food there. We ran into some people who said they got meat and fruits at a local stand and grilled them every night at the hotel BBQ pits. They said it was so cheap and better than eating out each night. We definitely will have to try that!
Day 6: Wednesday
Today we tried snorkeling! We went to Snorkel Bob's and got some custom fitted snorkel gear for a steal (like $20 for both of us for 24 hours). Adam was super excited to try it out and we headed out to the beach outside our hotel. We heard it actually was one of the best places for snorkeling because there were lots of coral reefs and fish out there. It was a little choppy still from an offshore storm, but we braved it. And I failed. Miserably.
There is something about breathing only out of your mouth that makes me hyperventilate. Plus the taste of salt water, especially from the ocean, makes me gag. A lot. It was not pretty and I was able to relax enough to see some really cool coral reefs and some colorful fish. But the waves kept coming up and I was done. I gave it a try and decided I did not like to snorkel.
Adam loved snorkeling. He floated around for a while and we ended up walking down to Black Rock which was another great snorkeling place so he could see what was down there. I brought a towel and my Kindle and was set.
The beautiful view I got while reading on the beach. Adam was gone for more than an hour so I got my read on!
After lunch Adam went back out to snorkel (snorkel junkie maybe?) so I read some more. Hey, so I like to read! I sat on our balcony enjoying the warm air while in the shade. This is the view from our balcony. Not too shabby!
One of the pools that I could see. There were two pools, but this one was the only one I could see.
Is this parasailing? Anyway, whatever it is, it looks way fun and we're totally doing it next time (I figure if I say "we're doing it next time" enough, we'll get to go again).
Day 7: Thursday (our last full day)
So, being our last full day, we wanted to make sure we got a whole day of doing nothing. We slept in and took our time. I love sleeping in. We decided to drive to some scenic beaches. Wailea was supposed to be one of the best and most beautiful beaches in Maui, and we heard they had a really nice shopping mall too. We drove down and saw the beaches, weren't super impressed with the mall (it was way out of our price range!) and then came back to Lahaina for some yummy dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise and got souveniers for the kids. The burger at Cheeseburger in Paradise was probably one of the best meals we had our entire stay. It was juicy, the fries were yummy, and I got a fried egg, freshly made guacamole and bacon on top of mine. Really good! And the live entertainment was awesome. Loud, but awesome.
Wailea. It was beautiful but super busy!
Sunset in Lahaina. After Wailea we sat out by the pool for a while and soaked up the last of our free time. Then we headed to Lahaina for dinner. The hotel had a shuttle every 20 minutes to Lahaina so it was nice to not have to use the car all the time.
I don't know how the flash ended up doing this, but the girl who took this didn't speak English so I thought she did a good job :)
This is about as tan as I get :)
Day 8: Going Home
One of the best things about Hawaii for me was that I could still use my phone. It was so nice to be able to talk to the kids. Apparently western Washington had been hit with a historically bad snow and ice storm while we were gone. School was cancelled the entire week we were gone and we got tons of snow, which turned into ice. And since we have tons of trees here, it ended up getting so heavy that trees and limbs were falling onto homes, cars, roads, etc. I felt so bad that my kids had to deal with that without me, but they were in the best place possible. My parents have a generator so even though most of Pierce County (and the surrounding counties0 had no power, my parents did so my kids were safe and warm. Ironically Adam's and my apartment never lost power. So even though it was freezing and a terrible week, it was a blessing that my kids were safe and sound. I called them a lot and it was great to hear their voices.
We woke up early and finished packing and getting everything set to leave for the airport. I loved our room and I loved the view. I loved hearing the waves come in and out each morning as I woke up and watching them as I ate lunch on the balcony. I loved the bathroom and how huge it was and how nice the staff was to replace the hair dryer that was broken. They were super nice and helped us with anything we needed. But I was definitely ready to go home.
Views from our room.
The hotel grounds were beautiful and had multiple koi ponds.
Koi ponds.
Ships in Lahaina.
We stopped at a lookout on the way to the airport. You can see the Molokini Crater from here. It's a U-shaped rock formation that a lot of people take boats to for snorkeling tours.
There were also more whales here. Some showed their tails and one even came all the way up, I just couldn't get my camera out fast enough. It was really cool though!
Goodbye Maui! We'll see you again someday!
Thank you Dr. B and Ann for giving us the amazing opportunity to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary in Maui! It was perfect!
