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.