Aloha from Maui Day 3 - Road to Hana

The third day we drove the road to Hana. By the time we were done which was over 8 hours later we wish we wouldn't have. Sure we saw beautiful things but to make a long story short it took us with our stops to drive a very curvy 46 mile road over 5 hours and 2 1/2 hours back with no stops. It is as they say "it is without question the most famous and desired drive in all Hawaii, the crown jewel of driving". I'm not so sure about that. If you get the least bit car sick DON'T take it. But we did drive it and I have pictures to share.

One of the highlights of the drive was getting our pictures taken with the parrots. I mean how often can you do that. Here's me...

Emily sure is cute with the birds.

Michael got to hold them like a strong man.

One of the birds trying to eat Michael's hands. He wasn't to thrilled about that.

Dad didn't want his picture taken by himself so we did it together.

Down the road to Hana we go. You can't tell very well but the bark on these trees is colorful. These are Eucalyptic trees.

This is the Garden of Eden Hawaiin style. It's a self owned preserve for different varieties of plants and trees.

It's for sale for $8,000.000 if anyone is interested.

I've seen bananas growing on trees we went to the Bahamas but I don't remember that long tail on them.

Pretty palm trees.

This is one of the few waterfalls we saw. The waterfall I wanted to see the most and swim in the pool under it along with some others the locals closed the road to where tourist couldn't see them. That was a huge disappointment for me.

One of the views along the road to Hana. The church in this small village is made out of coral. A miracle from God. The villagers wanted to build a church but they didn't have the materials to build it and so they prayed for help.  A huge storm came and washed on their shores a bunch of coral. The natives used the coral to build the church and when they were done another storm came and washed all the coral they didn't use back out to sea.

This is as far as we went. To the Black Sand beach before Hana. It was sooo nice to get out and just explore and sit for awhile instead of driving.

Exploring a lava cave.

Black Sand Beach

Michael and Emily getting doused with a wave.

A rainbow was a treat to see on the way back.

Whew, we were going to drive to the crater on Sunday after church but after driving the Road to Hana none of us wanted to drive anywhere.

Aloha from Maui Day 2 - Lahaina

On the 2nd day we headed to Lahaina so Larry and I could listen to a time share presentation so we could get all of our activities at a huge discount. We decided to go ahead and spend the day in Lahaina. We browsed the shops and then wouldn't you know another meal time! We went to a restaurant called Cool Cats which had some amazing hamburgers.

One of the things I loved about Hawaii is listening to all the bird sounds wherever you were. Here is a picture of one of my feathered friends while we were eating at Cool Cats.

We came upon an amazing tree with a root system that was different than anything I had seen before.

Larry and I are standing in the main trunk of the tree.

This next picture we are enclosed in a tree root jail.

Now you get to see all of the tree that I could get into the picture. This is a Banyon tree and believe it or not  it is 1 tree. Roots grow down from the branches of the tree and root. This is the oldest Banyon tree either on the Islands or in the nation. I can't remember exactly.

Larry grew hair in Hawaii!

Michael liked his dad's hair so he wanted to style it the same.

The week before we got to Hawaii their were floods and quite a bit of the Island shut down. This is the only flood we saw while we were there. A fire hydrant exploded or something.

We finished off our day in Lahaina with a Hawaiian show called Ulalena. It is a production that represented the history of Hawaii. It was an amazing show. We weren't allowed to take pictures so I had to sneak a few without my flash.

"The Mythical Forest"

"Shadows"

These musicians played every sound in the production from wind, rain, water. They were as fun to watch as the show.

The Cast

Another day of vacation is coming to an end. And I'd have say it was a good one.

Aloha from Maui Day 1- 1st evening at Kihei

And so the adventure begins. We were looking forward to our trip to Hawaii and it was hard to believe that the time to go was finally here. So off to the airport we go. I'm not very good at these self portrait things but here is one anyway of Larry and I waiting at the airport. We left our house about 2:00am and so Larry is finally getting some sleep.

Michael invited his girlfriend to come along with us. Meet Emily. She was fun to have along on the trip.

The flight went well and we got to Maui an hour earlier than we were suppose too. We were hungry so we went grocery shopping and made us a meal.  Looks pretty yummy and was tasty too. I do have to say though that the grocery and gas prices in Hawaii are expensive.

It didn't take us long to head to the beach which was with in walking distance across the street from the resort. It was so warm, peaceful and beautiful.

Michael and Emily were playing in the water and he lost his glasses in the surf on the first day. Ugh!

Larry and I watched the sun set.

I don't know if you can see it or not but their is a lone canoe in the next picture.

It's the life...