The pictures we took don't come close to doing Haleakola justice. It's amazingly beautiful and we were just fascinated by it.
There's a plant called Silver Sword that only grows at the summit of Haleakola. It really does look silver in the sun, too! Very cool to see something that you can find in only one place in the entire world!
We had a good breakfast at Charly's this morning. It is supposedly owned by Willie Nelson--won in a poker match.
We stayed at the Pai'a Inn last night. It was great! I would totally stay there again if I came back to Maui! We stayed in a two-bedroom suite that was beautiful. It was like its own little cottage.
The town of Pai'a is cute. It was rolled up pretty early, so we didn't get to shop, but we window-shopped and we ate a place called the Pai'a Fish Market (a recommendation from the cousin of a friend from the rink). I had Mahi and it was awesome! I think everyone really liked what they ordered there. Hubby and Uncle Hooter had some local beer from the Maui Brewing Co.
Later...
I'm falling behind...
Once we came off Haleakola, we went back to Paia and had lunch at Flat Bread Pizza. It was really good--another spot-on recommendation. We walked around the town and then we drove to our hotel in Lahaina. We are staying at the Aston Maui Ka'anapali. Very nice. I think it's a timeshare/hotel place. The guys are off snorkeling around Black Rock while Jenrie and I hang at the beach. Then we are going to explore Lahaina.
To backtrack: Our flight to Maui on Sunday was SHORT! We were barely up in the air and we started our descent. We got our rental car (and Josh left his iPhone on the rental car counter... but got it back when the next shuttle driver brought it to the car pick up lot). The guy at the counter seemed to take a liking to us. He offered us a reduced upgrade to a Ford Escape, so we took that. And we added Hubby as a driver so he and Uncle Hooter could share driving duties. The Escape was a cute, mid-size SUV. After Uncle Hooter retrieved his phone, we took off for Makawao, where our zipline adventure awaited us (Hubby and I). Pi'iholo Ranch. We did the 9=line canopy tour and it was awesome! Makes what we did in Alaska seem like nothing. Hubby and I had a blast! And we did take the camera, so hopefully we got some great pictures. (We got some good ones... don't know about great...) Some of the lines were REALLY long! And we were literally in the tree canopy. Lots of Eucolyptus trees. There was one particular variety that was very spongy. Uncle Hooter and Jenrie strolled around Makawao and drove around while we zipped and then came back for us (right one time, too!).
We ate lunch at The Stopwatch in Makawao, a recommendation from the guy at the rental car counter--good burgers--and then headed down to Pai'a. I think that catches up from the last two days.
Geez, I didn't even write about the road to Hana in my journal. Guess it really was underwhelming! We did about half of the road. We stopped at several places, but didn't do much hiking. We got annoyed with the locals who apparently don't know what "yield to oncoming traffic means" because they NEVER did. We went into the Garden of Eden Arboretum and Botanical Garden, where they neglect to tell you until you get to a gatekeeper that you have to pay to get in. We were told we could get a deal for x amount of money for the four of us. It was like $50. We said no thanks; he lowered it $10; we said no thanks again and turned around and left (as did everyone else we saw go in there). We later found out that the price he lowered it to when we said no thanks is the advertised rate. What a schmuck. But when we got to Ke'anae Village, it was worth it. Beautiful rocks and an old church that is the only thing that survived in the original version of the village after a tsunami in 1946. We took a bunch of pictures here and then headed back the way we came to go check in to The Pai'a Inn.
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Last night we went to Whaler's Village, which is shops and restaurants. Uncle Hooter and Jenrie had run into friends from their neighborhood while we were at the top of Haleakola, and they were staying right near us in Lahaina, so they had dinner with them at the Hula Grill and Hubby and I walked around. We weren't really hungry after eating such a late lunch. Lots of cute shops, but mostly window shopping. We did get an ornament made from Koa and a Hawaiian teddy bear for our soon-to-be-new-nephew.
Later still...
On the plane back to Oahu. :-( Had a great afternoon in Lahaina. Ate at Pacifico's, but our friend's cousin wasn't working. Oh well, still good food, even if it was a few blocks outside the town center.
I forgot to mention that on the day we arrived in Maui, after the zip, we went in an open house. It was a beautiful house--"only" $1.6 million. We though maybe if we all pooled all of our money and opened an avocado stand... nah. It was nice though. Two acres. Three bedrooms, all of which opened up onto a courtyard with a beautiful pool. High-end finishes. And it had an orchard. Reminded me of some of the homes in the Caribbean on House Hunters International.
I think Gma G and the kids will be happy to see us. Apparently they are bored...
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