Maui - Day 6

We got up early Thursday morning and drove to Hana. It's a long, narrow,winding road. But it's a drive that is easy on the eyes.
We stopped at a roadside stand and bought some fresh pineapple and coconut.

One of several waterfalls we passed.

We stopped again, at another roadside stand, for warm banana macadamia nut bread. Oh my!

In Hana the Hasagawa General Store has been here for over 100 years. Our girls did a Hawaiian Dance to a song about the store when they were little girls. It reminds me of a miniature Smith and Edwards - they have just about everything, if they can find it.

The highlight of the day was this hike we took:

When you have a "point and shoot" camera it's not easy to get cool nature shots. But I liked my butterfly picture.

We passed more waterfalls.

It was so lush and green, with little bridges crossing the river from time to time.

A very large banyan tree was right in the middle of the trail.

My favorite part - this bamboo forest the trail wound through.

It was shady and cool through the bamboo, which felt nice on such a warm and humid day.

I like bamboo!

The end of the trail brought us to this 300 foot waterfall. Very impressive!

We got back to the resort later that evening and Dave turned on the news. They had just reported on the earthquake in Japan and showed footage of the tsunami there. Then they said the tsunami was on it's way to all the Hawaiian islands and would be there at 3 am. In my mind I pictured us having to stay in some shelter for days, so I quickly took a shower and so did Dave. We decided than rather than go to the shelter we would just drive our rental car to higher ground. It was creepy hearing the tsunami sirens going off. We spent the night in the car , trying to sleep a bit and listen to the news. We drove back to the resort the next morning.

Here is our car we spent the night in. You can imagine how comfy 6 ft 4 inch Dave was in our lovely little compact automobile. But honestly we can't complain. No one died in the little tsunami Hawaii experienced. I still feel so badly for the people in Japan, who had no warning at all.

Maui - Day 5

We started out the morning waiting in line at the Gazebo restaurant. We weren't the only ones who had heard this place has an amazing breakfast. We waited for about 45 minutes. Worth the wait, let me tell you. Check out these babies - banana macadamia nut pancakes with whipped cream and coconut syrup.

One of their other specialties is this fried rice. Mmm.

While waiting in line at the resort where this restaurant was you could look at the ocean or the beautiful resort grounds. I liked the tile in one of their pools.

This was a fun way to play checkers - with painted coconut shells.

Then it was back to the beach at our resort. I caught up on some reading.

Dave swam laps in the ocean.

After a while we walked over to Black Rock for some more snorkeling. We couldn't seem to get enough of it.

And then I did a little more reading.

Later that afternoon we drove to Haleakala. I liked these trees creating a sort of tunnel over the road.

So we drove up to the dormant volcano of Haleakala - over 10,000 feet above sea level. This is looking down into the crater itself.

It was kind of crazy to have the clouds below us.

The sunset was extremely nice as we drove back down the mountainside.

Maui - Day 4

We went on a boat called "Quicksilver" to snorkel at Molokini and Turtle Town.

We had to have a Hawaiian Shaved Ice at some point on this trip.

That evening, after showering and making ourselves presentable, we went to a Luau.

I think I actually did my hair and make-up only a few times. This was one of them.

The program was great. I especially liked the fire dancers at the end of the program.

They had plenty of good food, complete with a pig that they had cooked in this pit.

Maui - Day 3

If you look very closely you can see a cruise ship behind Dave.

Lahaina.

We rented snorkeling gear for the week from a place called Boss Frog's. Then we went snorkeling at Black Rock, which is near our resort.

We saw all of the fish on this chart and even more. We also saw a sea turtle. We both love snorkeling and did it five times on this trip.

Messing around back at the resort.

Maui - Day 2

We went to the Lahaina 1st ward church meetings. We loved the kind, humble people we met there.

We went back to our cottage to change clothes before heading out to do a bit of exploring around the island.

We drove over to the Iao Needle. A very unique mountain formation.

The entire area is so very scenic.

A wonderful serendipity moment was coming across one of our favorite eateries - Ruby's. We ate dinner there, complete with the best Oreo shakes I know of.

We walked around Lahaina. This is the famous, ginormous banyan tree there.

Sunsets on this western side of the island are pretty darn nice.