We had a fabulous time in Maui these past 4 days. It was a wonderful trip for our family but now we are back and into the weeds with moving. I can't tell you how much we have to do - everywhere I turn, there is something waiting to be taken care of. So this past weekend was much needed.We left Thursday morning and landed in Maui after lunch (just a 30 minute flight). Noah was in desparate need of a nap so when I went to check in, our room wasn't going to be ready for another 2 hours. I quietly asked the lady if she could give us another ocean view room (or anything) so we could put him down. She didn't say anything and handed over the keys to a pent house condominium free of charge! We couldn't believe it. It was gorgeous and overlooked the ocean - we were thrilled.
We woke up Friday morning and went to the beach. As you can see, the beaches are amazing. In our opinion, Maui is the most beautiful of the islands and is FAR more beautiful than our island of Oahu. Don't get me wrong: Oahu is gorgeous but there is no more beautiful place in the Pacific than Maui. Noah had a great time swimming in the ocean with the technicolor "dishies" (fish) that were swimming around us.
After the beach, we took Noah to the Maui Aquarium for a few hours. He LOVED it! He was so tired but couldn't stop running around from tank to tank. He especially loved banging on the sharks' tank... not funny to me!
Friday night, we ate at a place called "Kimo's" on Front Road. We sat on the deck and I had orange glazed Leihe fish and Dan had the lobster stuffed Opah. YUMMMY. We sat right next to the Miami Heat basketball star Dwayne Wade which was really cool, too.
Saturday we had big plans to drive the Road to Hana on the northern stretch of Maui. Now, we expected to make many waterfall and garden pitstops but we had no idea what we were in for. To sum it up: the Road to Hana is absolutely stunning - our eyes were so overstimulated by the end of the day! But it is a long drive. We left at 8:30 am and finished the driving tour by 2:00 or so. HOWEVER, we didn't think it made sense to turn around to get back to our hotel via the same tiny, curvy, bumpy roads we'd just travelled so we decided to go straight. Well, we ended up in absolute no man's land. I am not kidding you: the southeast stretch of the island of Maui is exquisite but for 5 more hours, we drove one a one lane (not big enough for even our car) that was gravel and we saw no humans and no cows for hours on end. It was desolation at its finest. It was AWFUL! But so beautiful as you will see in the photos. However, if you ever drive the Road to Hana take note: TURN AROUND AND GO BACK THE WAY YOU CAME! There are no gas stations, no humans, no guard rails even at 100+ feet above the ocean, rock slides, you name the hazard and we saw/passed it!
So by the time we made it back to our glorious hotel resort, we were spent. Dan got take out, I put Noah to bed (he was exhausted from being in the car for almost 12 hours and he didn't nap because he was so overtired!), we opened a bottle of wine and some beer and watched our favorite show "Harper's Island." We were so tired!
Yesterday, we spent some time by the pool and then flew home. Everyone of us were exhausted but so happy from the weekend. We had such a memorable time. Now, we are up to our eyeballs in moving but we won't complain: life is good. We have a lot of going-away events to go to, lots of friends to say goodbye to, we ship our animals off island this weekend and we are on our way.
