Maui

Scott and I were able to get away for a weekend trip to Maui, while the kids stayed with our good friends, more like family the Reardons. We were kind of celelbrating an early anniversary and the end of Scott's fiscal year at work. He had been working very hard all of September and the first week of October to finish up so it was such a nice get away. Maui is just a fairly inexpensive 45 minute plane ride from Honolulu.

We flew into Maui just in time to find a food truck that was highly rated on Yelp for lunch. Geste's Shrimp Truck didn't disappoint.

We drove to our resort the Royal Lahaina Resort which is on the west side of Maui. It was very beautiful with it's own private beach.

Our view from our balcony

At night they had a hula dancer and ukulele player

After we checked in we headed to our first adventure, Kapaula Ziplines. We went on a sunset tour with three lines that got better and better.

The last one was over half a mile long over a huge ravine! It's a good thing our tour guide took pictures and video because ours didn't turn out very well, and as you can see in the video I was half way down when I realized...ahh I need to take more pictures but I didn't want to let go of my last hand. What a thrill!

and this is the video our guide took so you can see what it was like going down.

The only casualty was this bruise on my knee. When your guide tells you to spread your legs before you hit the brake, listen to her! I must have not slowed myself down well enough because when I ended I flipped way up and my knee hit the brake! Ouch! I had to ice it that night but it was ok for the rest of our trip.

On our way back we caught the sunset and had dinner at a fish house that was along the ocean.

The next day we slept in until about 8 then leisurely made our way over to Honolua Bay to snorkel. It was the best snorkeling spot we have ever been to. First off the walk to the bay in itself is a gorgeous jungle, then you come upon a rocky beach and the water doesn't look very clear and kind of murky. But we saw some snorkel tour boats in the bay so we knew it would be good so we just plowed in and after swimming about 20 yards the water cleared and it was gorgeous. Colorful corals, and hundreds of beautiful fish and we saw about three turtles. We were out about an hour, before we realized how tired we were. We bought a disposable waterproof camera the night before, but the pictures didn't turn out that wonderful, I guess we need to invest in a good underwater camera.

Scott likes to dive down and get a closer look

It took us a while to see a turtle then we heard some other snorkelers say there was one so we hurried over to him and we followed this guy for a while. He had a growth on his left cheek, but he was beautiful. He swam under some coral to another turtle and we watched them eat for a while.

Then as we were swimming back this little guy that is under Scott came swimming in our view at the front right of us. We all stopped swimming and looked at each other for about 10 seconds, and we were about 12 feet apart from each other! Then when he saw that we weren't moving he just swam right in front of us on his way somewhere, we followed him for a bit too. We love turtles!

the bay we snorkeled in from above, it was so calm and beautiful

afterwards we kept on driving on the northwestern side to see what else we could see. Our friends the Da Silvas from Chicago gave us an Oahu & and a Maui book. So we followed the book and found some hidden gems that the book suggested

We found Nakalele Blowhole

and the Olivine Pools, it was quite the hike down but once we got down there we could see what a treasure it was. There were deep, crystal clear tide pools that you could jump in and swim in.

I preferred to jump off the little 4 feet high rocks, and floating, where as Scott went for the 20 foot or so jump.

We went back to our resort and lounged around the beach and pool for a bit then we took showers and went into Lahaina for dinner and to shop. While in a beach clothing store we saw the actress Helen Hunt. I saw her, then did a double take then as Scott was leaving the store, I said let's go back in I saw Helen Hunt, and he laughed and didn't believe me. I pulled him in and as we passed her I looked the other way for fear of making a fool of myself and Scott made eye contact with her and they both smiled at each other. He then whispered to me "are you sure that is her?" then another store shopper heard us and said, "hey is that Helen Hunt!?" We later heard her voice, she was shopping with a friend or sister and after hearing her we for sure knew it was her. We didn't want to bother her, but we did later find out that she has home here on Maui.

Our last day on Maui was Road to Hana day! We left the west side of the island at 5:45 a.m. to get to the east side of the island early so we could fit in some hikes and waterfalls before we had to be back on the west side for our flight home. We went down through the island and drove on the south side thinking that we could go around the east and then back up the north on the way back. We soon found out that there was a huge storm the night before and the road had a lot of debris and rocks washed up onto it and on top of that part of the road was very narrow and one and a half lanes. So if a car from the opposite direction came sometimes it was easy to pull over and make room for both to cross but sometimes it was so tight and we were inches from the edge that was straight down into a ravine or the ocean! We missed having our Jeep a bit, our rental Ford Focus just did not cut it!

This is not so scary and we watched the sun rise and this church is over 150 years old

Ok now it's starting to get really narrow, with blind corners

We finally made it to Haleakala National Park, and started our hike on the Pipiwai Trail to see the 400 foot Waimoku Falls.

This banyan tree was huge and we couldn't even fit the whole tree in the picture it stretched so wide. I love trees!

After the banyan tree was a beautiful, thick bamboo forest

I sometimes sing "the Hills Are Alive" from the Sound of Music when I am overcome with love for nature, but I change the words to fit the environment I am in. Scott caught a picture of me in mid-arm raise as I was singing, the "bamboo forests are alive . . ."

Some more waterfalls along the way, they were very full from the storm the night before and also really muddy and dirty, which kept us from swimming in the pools underneath.

after 2 miles we could start to hear the massive sound of this waterfall

See teeny tiny Scott at the bottom of the picture?

we thought about cutting past the sign and trying to get closer to the waterfall but the water underneath it was moving so fast and it didn't look safe to be in.

We found this little spider with red spikes on his back making a beautiful web.