At the end of February, Justine, Mom and I went to Maui for a week. As you can imagine, I took a lot of pictures (and video this time, so itis going to take a while to get through it all. I’ll try and post updates in smaller batches, but I thought it might be fun to do a quick photo-based summary of the whole trip. I’m sure I’ll miss a bunch of cool stuff, but that’s why you’ll have to come back for the full posts!
Mom flew to Vancouver a few days early, coming in on Sunday for our flight to Maui on Tuesday. We had a couple of days to hang out. Justine and I were working for the most part, but we got out and did a couple of things.
Ready for pick up by the taxi to the airport!
Tuesday we had to be at the airport early afternoon. We were (as usual) a bit early, but that’s ok as we have access to the Air Canada lounge. We hung out for a bit, before heading to the gates and our flight.
Mom and Justine hanging in the lounge - not a bad way to kill some time in an airport.
On the plane - sitting together in the exit row made for lots of space.
The flight itself was fine - nothing out of the ordinary and we got to Maui roughly on time. It was a bit late when we arrived, so all we could do was pick up the rental car and make the 40 minute drive to the condo we had rented. We got settled in off to bed on the first night.
The condo itself was pretty great for what we needed - good location, across from a nice little beach, two levels with lots of room. It was a bit run down, but we’ll talk about that later.
Kitchen and Dining Room
Living Room and Lanai
Main Bedroom
Wednesday was a bit of a logistics day. We made a trip to Costco to stock up on food and booze. We stopped and di our grocery shopping as well, and generally got ourselves organized for the week. After our shopping we made the mandatory stop at Coconuts for the most amazing fish tacos and explored the beaches around Kihei.
Since the last time we were in Maui, the chickens have taken over. Actually excuse me - the Red Junglefowl!
Mom checking out her first Hawaiian beach.
We drove back north to the condo and had a drink on the lanai, and then did a bit of exploring, checking out the beach across the condo. It was a nice little beach and park, with lots of local birds and most excitingly a green sea turtle pulled up on the beach!
MOst afternoons you could count on turtles pulling up on the beach in the afternoon. One day there were two!
Thursday I took off in the morning for a few hours to get a round of golf in. It was a nice course and I played better than expected. Which is not to say any good, but not as horrible as I had imagined. While I was away, Mom and Justine headed over to the beach and were treated to a whale show - breaches galore, visible right from shore!
Photo from Justine - I missed it completely!
Mom was quite excited when we finally found her a red crested cardinal. There were lots of northern cardinals around as well, which I still find odd…
Sadly, while we were on Maui the weather wasn’t the best. We had a lot of windy days and it rained on us almost every day. Not a lot - the odd downpour - but more just a rain shower here and there. Just enough to be annoying and take the warmth out the day. The “bright side” was that we got a lot of amazing rainbows!
Thursday afternoon we went up to the beach at Kapalua Bay. This was the beach we had been married on almost 11 years prior and is a great spot for snorkeling. We had a nice afternoon on the water and even got mom out to check out the fish and turtles.
The beach at Kapalua Bay with Merriman’s Restaurant overlooking the spot we got married!
Saturday we toured around a bit. We went down to the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge and did some bird watching. We alsoi walked on the beach and saw some more whales breaching from the shore.
Sunday was our busiest day. We started off wandering the lovely “downtown” Lahaina, doing some shopping and checking out the sights. We had some lunch then early afternoon we went whale watching on a small zodiak. The whales didn’t put on the best show, but it was still fun and we got a fair bit of action. Sunday was our anniversaries and we celebrated at Merriman’s, the restaurant we spent our wedding day at. We even were treated to a lovely sunset that day.
Monday was a super-long day as we decided to to the Road to Hana. We had a great day and made good time getting out to 'Ohe'o Gulch in Haleakala National Park, on the far side of Hana. The drive out was amazing and we saw lots of waterfalls and other cool things. We made one stop too many and got stuck on the road on the way back by a landslide that closed the road for a few hours. More on that later.
'Ohe'o Gulch
One of the most beautiful trees you’ll ever see - a Rainbow Eucalyptus.
After a longer-than-planned day we eventually got back home. Sadly, Tuesday was our last day on Maui! We had to check out in the morning by 10:00, but our flight wasn’t until almost 11:00 p.m. that night. So we had a full day to explore. We took a drive north to check out the scenery, including a cool blow hole. The wind was so hard we were afraid we were going to get blown off the cliff overlooking the blow spout. From there we checked out a local park and walk in the rainforest, then stopped to check out some surfers.
Nakalele Blowhole
Some of the amazing views on our last day.
We then did the long drive up to the top of the volcano on Mount Haleakala, hoping to stay for an amazing sunset. Sadly it was windy, cold and rainy (snowing?) at the top, and there was nothing to see. Instead we came back down early and (barely) caught a last sunset for the trip.
We headed to the airport and got organized for the long trip home. It was an amazing trip and it was great to share it with Mom. I’ve got a lot of photos to go through, videos to edit and work to write a whole pile of posts. So hopefully you will have enjoyed this as a teaser of what’s to come.