Maui, WOWEE

Man, y'all, I hate to be back...landed in Seattle late last night. It is cold and rainy...56 degrees! We left Maui and a beautiful 84 and sunny. Sigh. The time was too short, but long enough to unwind, enjoy most of what Maui has to offer, and remind me to keep a balanced perspective about work and rest.

We had a very relaxing time...Maui Time as the locals say. Although it was very difficult to interact with the locals unless they were either serving us something or selling us something. It isn't like Oahu where there are tons of locals...Maui seems to be about tourists, or time share participants. Everyone seemed to be from the mainland. My "pidgin" English never got fully developed.

We landed in Kapalua airport and headed by van to our rental car. I thought we would do the fun thing and rent either a convertible or Jeep...what an original thought! NOT! Seems like everyone had either a Mustang convertible or a Jeep Wrangler, including yours truly. We had to memorize our license plate number so we could find our vehicle in the parking lots. First order of business was to hit the beach at the Westin...nice. The facility was beautiful. I guess the thing to do is to bring a few friends and get married here. We saw at least 4 weddings while we were here.

We figured since we were on Seattle time, it would be easier to wake up early and get a start on the long drive to Hana, a small town at the opposite end of the island. It was about an 80 mile drive at about 25 mph. The road to Hana has 57 1-lane bridges (trust me I counted), twisting and turning roads that are sheer excitement for the driver, but pure car-sickness for the passengers. I was lucky to be driving. We almost met our end after rounding a blind curve...seems a cement truck was "cheating" to our side of the road to take the turn at a higher rate of speed...he was in our lane barreling down on us at around 45 mph. He pulled hard to his right to get back into his lane and almost tipped over, and I pulled hard right onto the miniscule shoulder to squeeze past...3 inches to spare!

The road to Hana was especially lush, with tropical forests, gardens and waterfalls a plenty. We got to dance across a black sand beach (bring shoes next time), picnicked at scenic spots, and enjoyed a short hike to the 7 Sacred Pools (past Hana). Lovely. We spent the entire day on the road...6 am to 4 pm.

We spent one day on a snorkling trip to Molokini Crater and Turtle Town. Molokini Crater is a national underwater park inside a dormant volcano. It "peeks" just above the surface of the ocean, well half of it does. It looks like a crescent shaped island. The water clarity is amazing, with 200 ft visibility. What I thought was a baby Moray Eel was actually a 6-footer, it was just 50 feet down. Turtle Town was amazing. It is a reef that the Green Sea Turtles hang around just off the beach at the Ritz-Carlton. I think we saw 8 turtles in that short hour. One came very close to our group.

The rest of our stay consisted of lounging by the pool, shopping in Lahaina and searching for great local food. I would say our mission was accomplished. My favorite restaurant was a local haunt called the Aloha Mixed Plate. Lau-lau, Mac salad, two scoops of rice, Kalbi ribs, and the best panko-crusted beef teriyaki on the planet! The food was only matched by the sunsets we watched from our beachside table.

Hope you enjoyed the post! Mahalo!