We got to Maui midday on Sunday and I was so happy to be off the airplane, even though it was a super short flight. I took a couple Tylenol and it helped me not feel quite so terrible. We then made it onto a shuttle to our car rental place, got our car, and drove it to the north part of the island, (I think it was Kahului) where we'd booked a room at the Maui Seaside Hotel. It was a great place to stay (pretty cheap!) but my biggest complaints were the crazy shower water temperatures (went from insanely hot to insanely cold with almost no middle, which was super annoying) and that the WiFi almost never worked in our room. Other than that, it was a good experience.
Anyway, after we dropped off our stuff we drove a little around the island, went up to a little river thing to enjoy the scenery in the mountains, went to Walmart for some snacks/essentials, and ate at a popular taco place. These were the tacos - which were nothing like a taco I'd ever had before. Haha.
I was excited to spend a few days exploring the island, which is so so pretty. It's different from Oahu in that it seemed more spread out, had fewer ghetto areas, and it was quicker to travel around the island.
The next morning we started out our day doing the Twin Falls hike. It was recommended to us by Adam and Steph and it was another absolutely gorgeous (and pretty easy!) hike.
You can jump off the falls if you know where to go, but we definitely didn't know (and didn't really have a desire anyway) so we just hung out around the bottom. It was beautiful.
Seriously I love these simple hikes. I guess it's the fact that I'm just used to the desert, but I loved the lush scenery and beautiful water so much.
After we finished our hike we headed to a beach where turtles often hang out. I wanted to see those turtles so bad! I guess there are usually a bunch, but this time there was only one. Thank goodness for that one! Haha! And funny story about it too - there are signs that ask people not to disturb the turtles and obviously we respected that. This was the closest I got to the turtle (and we were very quiet and didn't bother the turtle AT ALL) and a tourist still yelled at us about how we weren't respecting nature. Haha! Ummm okay!
We then got some lunch and headed to Big Beach, which had gorgeous sand and big waves that crashed veeeery close to the water. I am SO BUMMED I didn't get any pictures there, though Michael did take the GoPro into the water when he went. I didn't go into the water because I'm extra paranoid when I'm pregnant and I really didn't want to get pummeled into the sand, (and those waves were pretty intense!) but I did enjoy watching Michael get pushed around by those waves. ;-)
We got dinner that evening at a mall in the town we were staying and then walked by a movie theater and thought, "Hey! We don't have any kid responsibilities! Let's go see a movie on a whim!!!!" (Craziest thought ever!) ;-) We ended up seeing the new Kong movie since we'd seen some of the set for that movie at Kualoa Ranch in Oahu. The movie was actually way more entertaining than we'd thought it would be!
The next morning we went on the most second-famous drive in Maui. We'd decided to skip the Road to Hana because we heard it was overrated, but Adam did suggest we drove along the Rugged Northwestern Sea Coast. Um, I called him immediately after we finished this drive and gave him an earful because it was THE SCARIEST DRIVE EVER!!! SERIOUSLY! I hadn't looked into it much before we went but after we finished I looked it up and all these people are like, "Don't do it! It's beyond terrifying and SO dangerous!" Adam was of course laughing and me and Michael had to make fun of him endlessly for suggesting it. In a nutshell, it's a drive up and around a mountain where most of it is one lane - for cars going both ways. If a car comes, someone has to stop and back up around VERY STEEP and VERY NARROW turns where you can see pretty much nothing until you finally get somewhere where you can get around. I was actually very near hyperventilating several times on the drive, absolutely horrified that my little brother was clearly trying to kill us. I guess the drive was pretty, but I didn't care at all because I was so scared the whole time. Even worse, there are two cool tourist spots that we were supposed to see on the way - some tide pools and a blowhole - that we totally MISSED because we were so distracted and had no service for our GPS to stop us. I was so so so sad! Michael said it would be a much shorter drive back the other way (once we'd finished the death drive) and that he was willing to go back, but I couldn't bring myself to get back on that road. So, we kept driving and made it to Lahaina and checked out some of the shops there. We ate at a yummy pizza place called Lahaina Pizza Company, got some Dole Whip, and just enjoyed the pretty scenery while I continued to calm down from the drive. Haha!!! We also checked out a couple of the beaches there before heading south.
I wanted to check out the stretch of beaches by the super nice resorts (the Wailea Beach area) so we went to those beaches and I DID get in the water there. :-) We enjoyed the late afternoon sun and I got a little sad knowing we'd be leaving Hawaii the next day. We also snuck in to see the grounds of the Grand Wailea (somewhere we'll never be able to afford to stay, ha!) just so we could see. It was full of lazy rivers, water slides, etc. Looked so fun! Anyway, we ate dinner and called it a night!
The next morning we drove down to Kihei to eat at Kihei Cafe for breakfast, which had amazing reviews. And it WAS good! And then we had to head back, pack up, and head to the airport. Luckily the flight home wasn't too bad for me, and we were SO excited to see our kids again! They were kinda like, "Oh hi Mom and Dad, did you leave?" HA! Thanks Grandma and Papa for taking such amazing care of them! They had such a blast! Matthew even looked like this on our drive back to Phoenix-
Sorry, buddy. I agree that California is such a blast! And so is Hawaii! Definitely a trip to remember! So glad we got to experience it!
1 comment:
Saying goodbye to those kids was so hard! You should go somewhere else and leave them with us. . . .
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