Maui

A L O H A  F R O M  M A U I

Our Maui Trip was Amazing to say the least! It was the sisters and us for a whole week living the island lifestyle. We had such a blast and did so many fun things.

We flew out to Maui on my birthday, what a fun present! Funny story, during the flight the airline had a little contest. Everyone was to write down what time it would be when we hit the exact half way point on the flight. I was half asleep and had no idea how to figure it out. Eric said it would be around 1pm. So I put 1 hour: 29 minutes (for my birthday): 25 seconds (that’s how old I was turning). We turned in our papers and I went back to sleep. Ha! Sure enough when we hit the half way point they come on the speaker and said “the winner is Danielle Peterson!” I was only off by a few seconds! My prize was a Hawaii tour guidebook and two bottles of wine. I ended up giving the wine to the lady next to me, and the book actually made the trip! We had places Eric had researched, but his book was freaking amazing! A great birthday present indeed. 

First day, we spent the day at Kapalua Beach, snorkeling, swimming, and getting sunburns. Seriously we all got crispy, not the best thing to do on day one. After a while we needed to give our fair skin a break and went to explore Lahaina, such a cute little tourist town. We ate at Sure thing Burger and enjoyed the most delicious shave ice at Ululani’s Hawaiian Shave Ice. This was a favorite! We went multiple times.

The next morning, I woke up before anyone else and went out on the deck to read and enjoy the ocean view. Off in the distance I saw something black; I quickly realized it was whales spouting water! I couldn’t hold my excitement and ran to get Eric and wake up the girls! They were pretty far out there but it was cool to see them making their way out into the big blue ocean.

After the whales were out of sight, we made some breakfast and loaded up in the car to drive the Road to Hana. This is a 68-mile long curvy road along the coast that takes you up into Hana. Along the way there are the most gorgeous views, waterfalls, fruit stands, and hikes around every corner. The view from the car alone was gorgeous!

We found the best way to experience Hana is to go all the way to the end first, then hit all the little hikes on your way back. This way you don’t get stuck with all the other tourists and aren’t stuck behind a lot of people. And still being jet lagged we woke up way before anyone else and were able to get a head start.

At the end of the Road to Hana is Waimoku Falls. This is a hike up to a 400 ft waterfall dropping down a sheer rock face. The hike up was just as cool as the waterfall; you walk through a Bamboo Forest! Bamboo grows real thick and close together and when the wind blows they all rattle together and make an awesome noise.

After Waimoku Falls, you walk down to ‘Ohe’o Gulch or the “Seven Sacred Pools”. This was awesome! These are seven waterfalls and pools each tumbling into the next one below until the last one goes out to sea. We got in and swam for a little and soaked in the beauty.

At this point we were all starving so we decided to make our way back down and hit some of the side hikes. Waikamoi Nature Trail is known for its Eucalyptus Trees. These trees were so soft to the touch and huge! A famous sign on the trail is “Quiet, Trees at Work” and since we were the only ones on the trail it was actually quiet and cool to just take in the beautiful surroundings.

I also really like the Three Bears Falls. These were beauties are just off the side of the road so everyone can enjoy them.

Our one mistake was not packing food. We didn’t know that once you get up on the road there are no places to stop and eat. We were so hungry after the first hike. We did find a fruit stand with a crazy cat lady from Taiwan that Hannah bought banana bread and Leslie bought Coconut chips from and they were amazingly delicious! But, we were starving and tired by the time we headed back down the road. At the end we saw a food truck called Brudda Hutt’s sitting in someone’s front yard and pulled over to eat.  At his point we didn’t care what it was, we just needed food. They had plate lunches and they were oh my gosh, so good! Poly’s sure know how to make good plate lunches!

Eric’s big quest for the trip was to swim with turtles so we went to Malu’aka Beach also know as “Turtle Town”. We snorkeled, built sand castles, and floated on our floaties in the gorgeous ocean. We spent a long time snorkeling and saw no turtles. We were getting pretty discouraged and a little sad about it. Eric and I were out floating on the floaties when I saw two people swim past real quick and stop not to far from us. They just kinda hung out there and the dad kept diving down looking at something. I made a joke to Eric that now that we don’t have our snorkel gear or camera and weren’t actively looking, a turtle was probably right by us. And sure enough, these people were right there looking at A TURTLE! Haha! They were really nice and told us to come look. Eric made a mad dash to shore to get some goggles while I was left with the two floaties and a pair of really bad goggles and I was supposed to follow the turtle around so Eric could come see him. Not to mention one floatie had a hole and I was sinking and trying to follow this little guy. Thankfully Eric got here and we were able to swim with this amazing creature for a while until the whole beach came over to see him. That was probably my favorite moment from the trip, Eric was so excited! :)

After our sunburned skin couldn’t take the sun anymore we went back to Lahaina and did some shopping and ate some more delicious burgers at Cool Cats.

The most ironic thing of the trip was that we went searching from beach to beach looking for sea turtles and right outside our condo, like less the 50 yards from us there were turtles! Eric & Hannah saw HUGE Turtles out there! Haha funny funny.

Down the road from our condo was a Farmers Market. We got some fresh Guacamole and crossed the street to eat at the park by the beach. This Guac was so good! We down that sucker in no time! We also all tried apple bananas, no hype there just delicious bananas.

That evening we went out to the Blowhole up on the north side. This was like walking on the moon. You walk down and you’re surrounded by this black rock and weird rock formations that make you feel like you’re on another planet. There is the most adorable little heart in rock. I’m sure someone probably cut it out somehow but it’s so cute!

           

John got the most amazing room at the Marriott for my birthday. It was right on the beach, had the coolest pool, and the room was gorgeous. We spent some good time at the pool, Hannah loved the hammocks they had around the property, and Hannah and I even got in a bit of water aerobics with the old folk.  Thanks John!

We woke up really early one morning, to go to Haleakala National Park for a sunrise Hike. Haleakala means “House of the Sun”. We left at 3:00am, drove up to the 10,023ft summit. This is actually the highest elevation gain in the shortest distance anywhere in the world.  We thankfully were some of the first people there, we got a front row view, and good thing cause it got packed. It was freezing at this high of elevation and so early in the morning. We had sweater but we also took the hotel blankets and good thing! It was really calm and pretty up there before the sun-starting rising. It was so beautiful! We were so high up that we were above the clouds so as the sun raised it was like we were on top of the world.

We tried to visit new beaches everyday and enjoy something new. One stop was Honolua Bay. This was a small beach kinda in a cove, not very many people. Eric & Leslie went snorkeling and saw a little turtle in some clear water and hung out with him for a while. Hannah boogie boarding, or attempting to boogie board :)  This was a fun relaxing beach. Another was Napili Bay. This was a busier beach, a lot more tourists. Eric and I saw this crazy burrowing Fish while snorkeling. Every time we would dive down to close to it, it would burrow into the sad completely, then suddenly reappear. We probably were torturing the poor little guy but it was to fun watching him burrow down.

Our last day :( we were so sad to have to leave but we wanted to make the most of it. We had perfect weather all week and on our last day it was pouring rain. We couldn’t complain it was so warm still! We went to Lahaina once again and got Ululani’s Hawaiian Shave Ice for the last time. We went to Banyan Tree Square which is a block with a single tree that was planted in the center years and years ago that has now spread itself out to cover pretty much the whole block, crazy huge!

Then we had to start driving to the airport. Along the way we stopped at ‘Iao Valley State Park to see the‘Iao Needle. The needle is a giant green pinnacle, up in the mountain.  ‘Iao is said to be the daughter of Maui. The needle is her secret lover, captured by an angry Maui and turned to stone. Apparently, it is like the most photographed place in Maui and we understand why! It was breathtakingly green!

Eric made a video of our trip and he did such a great job! This is such a good summary of our awesome vacation!

This trip was so amazing and we are so blessed we got to go! Thanks for my parents for the condo and to John and Rose for the hotel. We love traveling and are so glad we got to spend time with the sisters in an amazing place.