Maui - Day 8

Our last day on the island things were returning to normal. People were out on the beach and the harbor and airport were open again. So we knew we had to cram in as much as possible into that last day.

We started the morning with a walk along the beach.

Then we grabbed our snorkeling gear and headed over to Black Rock to take care of our snorkeling obsession.

Look at how clear the water is.

We flew a little turtle kite.

We had lunch at "Cheeseburger in Paradise" in Lahaina.

We had rescheduled our Whale Watchng expedition. It was on this little raft. It was pretty nice because it just had 16 people so we had a great view of the humpbacks.

We had issues with our camera because by the time it took the picture there wasn't much left to see of the whale. We caught the tail of this one.

We took a red-eye flight home. It left Maui at 9:30 pm and we arrived back in Salt Lake at 10:00 am the next morning.

What a great trip. Thank you Dave, for this wonderful anniversary gift. And mostly, for the last 30 amazing years. I love you!

Maui - Day 7

We decided to eat breakfast at the hotel. There was still a tsunami advisory that morning. Since no one wanted to go to the beach the resort pools got pretty crowded. Dave just cannot sit or lay out by the side of a pool. He has to swim in it. I preferred vegging on a lounge chair with my book.

We couldn't resist venturing down to the beach. It was practically deserted.

We walked over to the other side of the golf course to get a shot of our resort. We stayed in the lower cottages. I think it was the third one from the left. I like how you can see the island of Molokai across the water in the background.

We ate lunch at LuLu's in Lahaina. It was the second time there on this trip. The food there is really different, unconventional stuff. I had a chicken curry sandwich. It was strange but good.

We were supposed to go on a whale watching expedition but it had been canceled as the harbor was still closed because of the tsunami. So we drove up the coast to check it out. Gorgeous.

Then we decided to drive back over to Lahaina.

This is a little of some of the damage from the small tsunami that hit early that morning.

That night we went to a movie, "The Adjustment Bureau". It was a pretty good movie.

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.