Maui, day 4

Here we are. My favorite day of the whole week. Without further ado, I give you . . .

The Road to Hana.

What is the road to Hana? It is the crown jewel of scenic drives in all the state of Hawaii. And that's saying something. The actual road itself connects the main city on Maui, Kahuli (where the airport, costco, kmart, etc. are located) to a small town on the east coast of Maui called Hana. Its only 52 miles away but it is at least a 3 hour drive, that's with no stops. If you plan on stopping, which, by the way, is the whole point of the road to Hana, its an all day affair. Why so long to cover such a short distance? Because of the many MANY curves and one lane bridges. According to wikipedia, there are 59 bridges, 46 of which are 1 lane bridges. There are over 620 "turns" in the road. The town Hana really isn't much. You take the road to Hana to enjoy the experience, not because you're in a hurry to get to Hana. Our guidebook said, "Not to be like a cheesy fortune cookie, but the treasure lies in the journey, not the destination." That my friends, is the road to Hana, a journey. We packed a lunch and were in the car passing Kahuli by 8am. Perfect weather. I mean, postcard bee-you-tiful day. Be very jealous.

There are so, so, so many waterfalls. We decided to follow our guidebook's advice and just stop at the ones that they labeled "real gems."

This was our first stop. Totally hidden and not visible at all from the road. We hiked a few minutes back on this path into the lush landscape and saw this awesome waterfall.

A few minutes down the road was this little beauty.

A peacock was hanging out right under the bridge.

At our first stop of the day, we saw another couple holding the same guidebook we had. We joked that we were following them. Little did we know when we said that that we would actually decide to spend the rest of the day with them! Best decision of the day! Michele and Scott from North Carolina made our day so much fun. We had them take our picture at every stop and we took theirs. Perfect set-up! We ate lunch together. We hiked together. We explored underneath bridges together. We talked and talked some more. Turns out she is a pharmacist too. They were so nice and fun. We had the exact same places highlighted in our book. They had been to the Olivine Pools just the day before. They were even staying at our same hotel! Small world.

The brown stripe in the mountain was the road. Very much reminded me of highway 1 in California. Right on the coast and gorgeous!

Next up: Ching's pond. Look at that water!

Doesn't it look like a scene out of "Fantasy Island?" Definitely a favorite of mine!

We hiked down and could have even gone swimming if we had brought our swimsuits. We settled for rock hopping instead.

Sadly, this unflattering picture is the only one we have our of travel companions.

Next up: Three Bears Waterfalls. The big daddy waterfall, the medium mommy waterfall and the little baby waterfall. Awesome!

Here we are on the bridge on the road. This is the view you get from your front seat. But we went down for a closer inspection.

See the bridge Trav and I are sitting on in this above photo? And here I am under it.

Much better!

Great view!

Garden of Eden, anyone?

Next stop: another waterfall! This one was off the road quite a bit. We followed a hunting trail back into the woods and after 10-15 minutes of walking were rewarded with this wonderful view.

Next stop: a detour from the main road to the tiny hamlet of Nahiku, about a 2 mile drive down to the water's edge. The drive down was sooooo green and tropical. You felt transported to a jungle.

This is the "ugly" side of Nahiku cove. I know, I know. How can this be the "ugly" side?
Oh just you wait.

Ta-da! Here's the beautiful side.

Green grass, black lava jutting out into bright blue water under a bright blue sky.
Ahhhh, we've arrived in Paradise.

Life doesn't get much than this right here folks. Possibly my favorite spot in all of Maui.
I could sit there and watch the waves for hours.

For my m-i-l, Janet. She is always taking pictures of flowers on her trips so now I do too. After we drove back up to the main road, Hana was only 10 minutes away. We stopped for some cold beverages and turned around for the long, leisure drive back to our hotel. Fantastic day.
The Road to Hana is an absolute MUST-DO.

Sunset on another amazing day.

Love this guy. He's a pretty fun travel partner. I think I'll keep him around.

Maui, day 3

My darling husband scheduled a helicopter tour for us. He scored a sweet deal from costco travel center, half of what we would have paid if we bought directly from the company. We flew with Air Maui. Very nice company, I felt safe the whole time. Speaking of feeling safe, of course, we said a word of prayer before we left our room in the morning. I specifically prayed for our pilot to be safety conscious. I can say my prayer was definitely answered. We were up in the air about 10 minutes and he said he got word on the radio from another pilot to turn around, the wind was too strong. So that's what we did. We turned around and in 10 minutes, we landed back at the airport. My first helicopter ride was 20 minutes. BUT . . . they very nicely rescheduled us for Thursday. I'll save you some suspense and tell you now that Thursday's flight was very successful, zero wind.

Here are the pictures from our mini-tour. The wind was rather strong and Travis and I both had the "swimming head" sensation for about an hour after we landed. Fortunately some fresh, hot off the conveyer belt, krispy kremes helped us feel better. We perked right up after that.

After we downed our donuts, we headed over to Iao Valley State Park. Bryce and Lisa (and our beloved guide book) recommended doing this scenic hike called the "Needle." And its called that because, ta-da, it looks like a needle.

It wasn't too strenuous, it was very green, the breeze felt good and it wasn't too crowded.

We read about the Hawaiian historical significance to this particular place. It was here that King Kamehameha conquered the Maui warriors when he was uniting all the islands under one kingdom. It was a very bloody battle and legend has it that the King even killed all the women and children who were hiding. The Hawaiians are not proud of how King Kamehameha united the islands, just the fact that he did unite them. Also, learned that the "needle" is a large phallic symbol representing Maui's god of the underworld. Nice.

It was very lush and tropical. We're glad we came, it was great to walk around and see more of the island.

After we had a little siesta and dip in the pool at our hotel, we hit LaHaina's Front Street again. This time we wanted to sample a local treat, shave ice. Note, its not "shaved" ice. The stuff we have here on the mainland is more like frozen ice chunks compared to how soft and smooth the shave ice is in Hawaii. We had it "Maui style" which means a little scoop of vanilla ice cream on the bottom and then the ice, then the syrup and then a drizzle of cream. Heaven sent, my friends, heaven sent. This picture below is off the Banyan tree park right across the street from the shave ice shop.

Best shave ice in all of Maui, Local Boys West.
I opted for my new favorite flavor combo, lava flow. Sooooooo good.

Then we strolled up and down the tourist shops. We ended up having dinner at Ruth's Chris. Travis was very excited about this, its one of his fav places to eat. Costco had a killer deal on a gift card so we bought it. Great steak and saved some pennies too.
End of another day of blissful vacation.