MAUI

This was on our way to the hotel from the airport, when we first got in, after a stop at Costco, which my brother, Ben, told me was right on the way. I wouldn't recommend stocking up there though, because we had to eat 2 1/2 yogurts a day to finish off the case, and we had cereal and bread leftover, since they come in packs of two! 

Here's the view from our hotel window. Although the ocean side would have been better, this was beautiful too.

This is what it looked like outside out door. We stayed in The Marriott in Lahaina, where our friends Phoebe and Lindsey, have a time share. This is the second time they've used their points to give us a luxurious place to stay in Hawaii. They are very generous friends.

Our first morning there, checking out the beach behind the hotel.

This was on Front St. in Lahaina. Our first couple of days there were a little wet. It had been raining in Maui for a few days already when we got there. The temperatures were cooler than at home!

We had heard about the Road to Hana, which has lots of beautiful places to stop on the way, but it is 48 miles of very windy, narrow road, and the only way back is to turn around and drive back! We went about half way.

The sunsets were one of my favorite things about Maui. This is the beach behind the hotel. 

The Marriott

This is on Front St. in Lahaina. There are lots of little shops, etc. on this street, which is right on the ocean.

This is a famous giant banyan tree. It takes up a whole block. Branches grow out of the tree and into the ground, where another tree grows up, so it's really big!

We went zip lining on the North Shore, which was about an hour and a half from where we were staying. This is just an army jeep that was sitting out front. The place was made on an old military post from WW 2, and had pictures on all the platforms showing what the same area looked like back then.

I didn't bring my phone, so couldn't get a picture of Charles. I didn't have a pocket I trusted to carry it in! It was pretty fun, but not all that fast. One of the platforms was very high though, with a pretty rickety ladder to climb up. That got my heart racing more than going down the zip line.

There are wild chickens on the island. I thought it was pretty cute that the hen and rooster actually hang around together. 

This is at the hotel.

We had signed up ahead of time to go on a bike ride downhill from Mt. Haleakala, which is 28 miles from the top, but the ride got canceled and we didn't get the message, so found ourselves ready early in the morning with no place to go. It's cold at the top, and they said to dress in layers, thus the two shirts! We decided to just drive up, and were glad it turned out that way. The road was very narrow and windy, with hairpin turns and about an 18 inch bike lane. It didn't look that fun to be braking all the way down either. This picture is just partway up.

Now here we are at the top of the volcano. 

It's pretty barren in the crater, and looks a lot like Mars. We hiked a little ways in, which was easy, but coming back uphill at 10,000 feet was more tiring. We enjoyed going up there to see it.

Sunday, we went to church in Lahaina in the morning. Interestingly, one of the women there and I recognized each other. She works in the Redlands temple, and I've talked to her a little bit. Her husband is from Hawaii, and they were there visiting. After church, we went to a beach and picked up pieces of coral and looked around. There really are not shells at all on the beaches we went too. Lots of the beaches have coral on the bottom, so they're not that great to swim in. 

We drove north to an area we hadn't seen yet, and found some really beautiful places. It's like Laguna Beach, only about 100 times better!

That's the island of Moloka'i in the background.

We checked out the hotel where Carly and Rich are going to stay, and this is the beach behind it, in Napili. There is supposed to be good snorkeling there. There was a small wedding going on right behind us when we took this picture. 

Dad took this picture, Jesse. How did he do?

The Monday before we left was the warmest day we were there, and still a little chilly. We went out on a snorkeling tour that left at 7:30 a.m. They served breakfast and lunch, and stopped at two places to go snorkeling. The first one was a coral reef called "Turtle Town", where we actually saw one giant sea turtle underwater, and then it swam up to the surface, within an arm's length of Charles. We both kept our distance, even though it seemed friendly. It still had some sharp looking teeth! The second place was a crater called Molokini, where we got to swim with tropical fish. It actually creeps me out a little bit to swim with fish, but they were colorful and beautiful. For the last part of the tour, we went most of the way over to a different coast in Maui, looking for whales on the way. We saw quite a few of them, and stopped to watch some for a while. They're not allowed to get closer than 100 yards, unless the whale approaches the boat, but we still got a pretty good look. We saw one of them breach, which was pretty exciting.

Sunrise from the boat was very pretty.

That's Molokini in the background.

Kaho'olawe is a little island by where we saw the whales. Actually, this is a picture of some whales, but they don't show up! 

This is a place called Big Beach, apparently very popular, but we didn't go there because it was pretty far from other things we were doing.

The morning of the day we left, we stopped at a beach where we saw giant sea turtles floating around near shore. We got a pretty good look.