Hawaii Vacation

Day 1: Thursday - April 29th
We gave the Light Rail a try to get to the airport.  It took about 3 times as long as making my parents drive us, but it was remarkably convenient, and we could save the pick-up for our 11:30pm return time.

We had an uneventful flight (direct!) and ended up in Maui around 3.  We got to our condo to discover that we'd been upgraded to a 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom condo.  We felt quite gluttonous to have so much extra space, but it was nice to have a separate room JUST for our suitcases & clothes!  We met up with Auntie Rosemary & Uncle Dave for dinner, they were staying at the same resort, but leaving for home on Friday.  They took us to a great restaurant just down the street and we really enjoyed spending the evening with them.

Day 2: Friday, April 30th
Our plans for today...nothing. 
Unfortunately, we were still on Seattle time, so by 6:30 we were up and ready for our nothing to start.  We made smoothies and sat on our lanai, took a long walk down the beach, and by 9 we were at the pool for our "Free Island Breakfast and Information".  By about 9:05 we realized that the crazy lady at the pool would be providing neither breakfast nor information (although I now know that Denny's is more expensive in HI than at home, and you should buy all your souvenirs at WalMart), so we moved on, ready for our second breakfast.  There's no point in pretending to discuss where to go for breakfast your first morning in Maui, so off to the Kihei Caffe we went.  We've been craving the Banana Macadamia Nut French Toast since our last trip:

Day 3: Saturday, May 1st
Our plans for Saturday were pretty much the same as Friday, do nothing but sit by the pool and be lazy.
But we did take the opportunity to re-visit another of our favorite meal spots from our previous trip.  We've been talking about the Garlic French Fries at LuLu's since our last trip, so when we were deciding on lunch plans, there wasn't much discussion.

 I think this completes our list of "must return to" restaurants for the trip, so maybe we'll be a little more creative in the future.

Oh yeah, we also went snorkeling on Saturday...  On our previous trip we made 3 or 4 trips down the coast to try & find a good snorkeling trip.  On that visit, each trip was a complete failure, the waters were always too choppy & murky to snorkel in, but we'd heard that there'd been a swell the week prior, so hence the lousy snorkeling.  This time we were determined to have a successful snorkeling trip (if only to justify cramming all our gear into our suitcases again).  We found a decent beach in Makena Landing and headed out into the ocean.  After about five minutes of cold, murky water, with the refrain, "don't snorkel when it's murky, it draws the turtles, who draw the sharks" running through our heads, we had to concede that beach snorkeling in Hawaii is just a myth.  From here on out we'll just pay the money for a boat trip to somewhere decent where we're less likely to get eaten by sharks.

But we were out, so we drove to the end of the road and wandered around on the rocks.  While we were there we started chatting with a nice lady (from Seattle, like everyone else in Hawaii), who told us about one more beach to try.  Since we were already wet, and it was on the way home, we gave it a try.  Hallelujah!  We've finally found a successful snorkeling beach in Hawaii!  The second we put our faces in the water, there were fish!  (I know, a crazy idea when snorkeling, but for us, a first).  We officially decided that we were done searching for snorkel locales, and every snorkel trip brought us back to this beach.

Day 4, Sunday, May 2nd
Baby's first trip to Mt Haleakala

Keith's laughing in this picture because I'm taking a picture of him & his GPS-toy.  But seriously, if I didn't take a picture of him playing with the GPS, I wouldn't have any pictures of him!

We wandered quite a ways down into the Haleakala crater (Keith could tell you exactly how far thanks to his handy-dandy GPS toy).  I can now tell you that pregnancy and hiking do not mix.  Ignoring the extra 15 lbs you're carting around, you're body just isn't currently set-up for this sort of torture.  When you're pregnant, your blood volume increases by 50%, but your red blood cell count stays the same.  Which means, that to get your body the oxygen it needs, your heart has to work about 50% harder.  Add to that the fact that hiking is seldom done at sea-level, so there's less oxygen to get into said watery-blood in the first place.  PLUS, included in those extra 15lbs you're carrying is a small-but-growing parasite who somehow has first-dibs on your energy, leaving you with whatever residual energy he doesn't feel like using.  Which isn't much.
Hiking Haleakala has another special layer too, since it's actually reverse-hiking.  Rather than fighting your way up to the top and then coasting down, you coast down as far as you feel, then turn around and realize exactly how far you HAVE come, and that there's no way to get back but to trudge one foot in front of the other ALL the way back up that hill you were so recently peacefully wandering down.

Day 5, Monday May 3rd
Lahaina & Kanaapali

We made another trip to our "secret" snorkeling spot, then drove up the coast to Lahaina.
We saw the gigantic Banyan Tree and wandered around town for a little while.

You could tell that Hawaii wasn't really operating at peak-capacity this trip, there was a cruise ship in Lahaina Harbor the day we visited, but the town still wasn't too crowded.  Which is quite different from some of my previous visits to Lahaina.

We had lunch at the "Bubba Gump Shrimp Co."  The shrimp was excellent, mine came with an entire loaf of bread, just to sop up the sauce, heaven!

We also drove further up the coast to Kaanapali and visited the whaler's village Whaling Museum.  Whale-hunting was a brutal and not-especially eco-friendly endeavor, but it has a fascinating history.

Kaanapali also has a beautiful beach & boardwalk, which we wandered down and just enjoyed the sunshine for a while.

Of course, as seems to be tradition for us, we got stuck coming home from Lahaina due to a brush fire.  Fortunately, this time it just slowed down traffic (rather than the hour & a half of complete stop we had last time).  And we got to see the helicopters make several trips to the ocean for water.  It was pretty cool, actually.

Day 6, Tuesday May 4th
"Me Day"
Last time we were in Hawaii, we really wanted to do the zip-line tour on Mt Haleakala, but they were booked solid for our entire trip.  This time, due to my "condition" I couldn't go, but Keith went without me.  So I went to the Grand Wailea Spa Grande for a massage.  It was heavenly.  You come a full hour before your massage for an hour of relaxing in their "Spa Therme", it's a series of hot tubs, saunas, waterfalls, and other delights to prepare and relax you for your massage.  Granted, it would be more fun if you weren't pregnant and could actually go in the water above your knees, but even still, it was delightful!

After my spa appointment, I had a little time to kill waiting for Keith to come back from his adventure, so I wandered around the resort.  It is seriously the most amazingly beautiful resort ever.
And, this visit, they were filming a movie, they actually built this bar out over the water just for the movie:

I don't know that I actually saw any filming done, but I saw a whole lot of activity without much direction (from what I could tell).  From what I could eavesdrop, the movie is called Go With It, has Adam Sandler, Dave Matthews, and some "big musical numbers".  Oh, and while we ate lunch, we saw some girl get "pushed" in the pool, but I couldn't tell you who she was.  So, as far as brushes-with-fame go, it's not much, but it was interesting to see.

Once Keith showed up, we had lunch and wandered a ways down the Wailea boardwalk.

Day 7, Wednesday May 5th

We made a trip to the Iao Valley to the Iao Needle.  It was a pretty hazy day, so you couldn't see much of the valley, but the needle was clear.

We also visited the Maui Tropical Plantation and wandered around in their gardens for a while, it's a beautiful location.

Day 8, Thursday May 6th
Our last real day in Paradise!  Our main plan for the day was to relax & sit by the pool.  We made one last trip to our favorite snorkeling spot, and spent some time relaxing by the pool, as well as on our Lanai.

We also spent the afternoon at the Maui Ocean Center.  It's an amazing aquarium with real coral reefs growing in the displays, and real (if small) sharks swimming in the tank.

Day 9, Friday May 7th

Time to head home!  We had one more breakfast at the Kihei Caffe, packed up the car, and headed for the airport.  On the way we stopped at the Sugar Museum, but no pictures from that stop.
Back to the cold weather in Seattle!