Aloha! Part 4 - Riding the Waves...and Returning to the Mainland

Mr. T in Lahaina Harbor - Day 6 - Ready to Sail!

Can it be? A whole month has passed since we boarded American flight #14 for our return trip from Maui. Unbelievable. I guess I'd better try to finish my posts about our vacation, hadn't I? [Talk about "old news"...:)]

Let's see. In the last post about Day Five, we were rippin' and flippin' on the Road to Hana and back, weren't we? [Ahem. That's from a saying about the towns connected by old Highway 51 in Lauderdale County, Tennessee, where I grew up.  "Rippin' (for Ripley, TN) and flippin' (for Flippin, TN) around the Curve (for Curve, TN), through the Gates (for Gates, TN) down the Halls (for Halls, TN), to visit the people in Dyersburg."  The things we remember...:)]

Anyway...



Honu - The Hawaiian Sea Turtle

 Our story is up to Day Six...Thursday...and it's time to recount our catamaran sailing trip from Lahaina to the island of Lana'i on the Trilogy I.  We left our hotel after morning coffee on our lanai, allowing plenty of time to drive to Lahaina, park, and board our beautiful boat (in photo with Mr. T, above/right).  The crew served us breakfast of hot cinnamon rolls (fabulous!), fresh fruits, cold juices, and coffee, as we enjoyed the wind and sun on our faces.  That sun, reflecting off the water, was exceptionally hot, and several of us joked about the SPF of our suntan lotions:  if you put another layer of SPF 50 on top of the original layer of SPF 50, do you get SPF 100?!  During the trip "out," we spotted one of the giant sea turtles (or, honu, in Hawaiian)...a first for many of us.  My photo (left) doesn't do the experience justice...but it all happened so fast!

Got all the equipment?  Check!  Let's snuba!!

After about an hour, we were mooring on Lana'i and being welcomed with shell leis (nice touch).  A short walk to Hulopoe Beach...and then Mr. T and I were receiving instructions from Trilogy crew member Denver for our next adventure:  snuba diving!

Snuba is a cross between snorkeling (where you wear a mask for viewing underwater, with a short breathing tube, which means you have to stay close to the surface to get air) and scuba diving (where you have to obtain certification to use air tanks underwater).  With snuba, you are "tethered" to a floating air tank by 20 feet of air tubing, meaning you can do shallow diving without worrying about the tank...or without going through the certification process.

Now, I always loved Sea Hunt when I was younger (much, much younger...:)...the original series starring Lloyd Bridges as diver Mike Nelson.  Always thought I'd like to scuba dive, but have never taken the time to take any classes or obtain certification.  This seemed like an easy compromise.  And, we "knew" it was meant to be since Lloyd's son Jeff was actually a fellow passenger on the Chicago to LA leg of our trip to Maui!  A sign!!

Is that Mike Nelson?



Ooh!  I see lots of fishes!!

In theory, snuba is an easy process, even for beginners, especially if you have snorkelled before (which we have) and are reasonably good/confident swimmers (which we are).  In practice...not so much.  I loved getting to see the beautiful fish and underwater reefs "up close and personal," but I really struggled with two things:  getting my mask to "hold suction" without filling with water, and wearing the weight belt, especially on the surface.  I dealt with the first thing as best I could, according to the instructions that Denver had given us; the second thing was much harder for me to deal with.  Even though I had the air line regulator firmly clamped between my teeth...and it was working just fine...I couldn't turn off my rising feeling of panic when the weight belt kept pulling me underwater...just like it was designed to do...when I was "on the surface" trying to get my fins/flippers on.  And neither Mr. T nor I liked having the snorkle tube attached to the mask...we didn't use it, didn't need it, and it just got in the way.  Still, I wouldn't give anything for the once-in-my-lifetime experience.  We had underwater cameras so we could document that we really, really did it...and there's the evidence up there in those photos!

Mr. T chills out to some tunes on Lana'i

  At the end of the 45 minutes, we were thoroughly and absolutely exhausted.  Unlike some of the other passengers who headed off to the Four Seasons for shopping or drinks, we relaxed on the beach (photo, left) until time to return to the pavilion near the dock for our BBQ chicken dinner and fixings, cooked by our captain and crew.  Delish!  

Patricia on the Trilogy I return voyage







Then, back on the Trilogy I for the sunset cruise back to Lahaina.  Even though we had little wind, the crew hoisted the beautiful spinaker for our sailing pleasure (photo, right).  And, we were thrilled to see a couple of the flying dolphins as we neared the harbor.  A lovely afternoon and evening.


Red skies on return cruise at sunset



Wheeee!  Let's do that again!





Such an exciting and exhausting day on Thursday meant we had earned a Play Day on Friday.  We spent most of the day lounging around the pool and playing in the Raging River.  Just a couple of kids are we, as you can see from our splish-splash photos!   



Mr. T makes a big splash



Body by Botero



I also enjoyed the special Art Tour of the grounds of our lovely resort, conducted by one of the Artists in Residence.  The Grand Wailea is home to the largest corporate art collection in Hawaii, featuring the works of legendary artists including Botero (photo, right), Leger, and Chihuly...whose glass sculptures we'd seen at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens a couple of years ago.

Our last sunset on Maui...taken from Humu

On our last evening, we enjoyed our final sunset in paradise from our perfectly-placed table in Humuhumunukunukuapua'a.  This restaurant, named for Hawaii's state fish, appears to be floating on a lagoon, with fantastic ocean and sunset views (see photo, left).  A perfect ending for a perfect vacation.

On Saturday, it was time to say goodbye to the Grand Wailea at noon (check out time).  Still, we had a few more hours to spend on Maui before our 9:00 p.m. flight, so we headed toward Maalaea Harbor where we enjoyed a yummy "last meal" at Buzz's Wharf (where we got some of the best Shrimp 'n Fish 'n Chips I've ever had!) before spending the afternoon at the Hawaiian Aquarium at the Maui Ocean Center.  Colorful and exotic fish (see photo, right)...without fiddling with masks, air tubes, or fins!  Woo hoo!!

I wouldn't want to meet this guy in the ocean!

Our flights home were l-o-n-g, and thankfully uneventful.  Still, neither of us could manage more than a cat-nap on any of the 3 flights (Maui to LAX to DFW to RDU).  I knitted most of the way and listened to two audio-books.  Mr. T. finished up one book he was reading and got a good start on another he'd purchased at Border's just as we were leaving Kahului for the airport.  By the time our heads touched our own pillows in our own bed in HPNC, we had been awake nearly 30 hours straight...and coherent thought was becoming a challenge for both of us.  The toughest part?  That last 90 minute drive from Raleigh to High Point!  Excruciating.

Would we do it all over again?  You betcha!  Would we do anything differently? Possibly add another day or two in order to see the North Shore (Kaanapali and Napili), which we missed.  But, we can always say we were saving something for our next trip to Maui!

Mahalo!

Aloha! Part 3 - The Road to Hana

Oh hello.  Glad to see you've returned for the next chapter in our "How We Spent Our Summer Vacation" chronicle.  Let's see...we're up to Day Five now, aren't we?

The Road to Hana. Or, to put it another way:  "what do you mean it will take us 4 hours to go 52 miles?"

This trip is one of the "must do" things when on Maui.  And it's a trip in so many senses of that word.  You follow State Highway 36 ("The Hana Highway") through Kahului (the town where the main airport is) and Paia (where Mama's Fish House is...and where Willie Nelson is a part-time resident). Somewhere along the way, the highway becomes number 360, just to keep you on your toes.

Your destination?  It isn't really the little village of Hana itself.  It's more like your destination is really the End of the Road to Hana, which literally occurs a few miles beyond Kipahulu when the road dissolves into gravel.  Or, so they say.  We couldn't attest to that because we decided our destination was the National Park's Visitor Center (where the bathrooms were...:).  We were tired...it was getting late...and we decided that it wasn't really that important to find Charles Lindbergh's grave, in the grand scheme of things.  But, wait...I'm getting ahead of myself here.

To begin with, we'd read about this journey to Hana in every one of our tourist guides. Information overload on Hana.  But we were going to limit the focus of our day to seeing the breath-taking scenery (yep...it was everything they'd said it would be) and seeing as many waterfalls as we could (hmmmm...more on that later).  We'd planned on packing the cooler with ice, water, and soft drinks as suggested, filling up the gas tank of the rental car as suggested, and taking a picnic lunch to enjoy at Waianapanapa State Park as suggested.

Can you see the yellow fish in the coral reef?

The one suggestion we didn't follow, however, was to get an early start...like around 6:00 a.m.  We'd already had one early wake-up call on this vacation (at 3:00 a.m., in order to see the sun rise on the top of Haleakala)...and we decided that one was enough.  Instead we spent a couple of hours, after our breakfast on the lanai, snorkeling around a coral reef in a cove near our hotel's beach.  Got to see my first brightly-colored salt water fish!  Yellow-stripey ones!!  That's one of the photos (left) we took with our disposable underwater cameras...not the best quality, but a good reminder nonetheless. [Edited to add photo on 10/11/10.]
By the time we'd showered after the snorkeling fun, it was nearly noon.  And, it was almost 1:00 when we breezed through Paia, where we had hoped to see the windsurfers.  Alas, the waves weren't that high at this time of the day, so no luck.  Oh well, maybe when we come back through?

After Paia, the road got more narrow...and a whole heckava lot more curvier (is that even a word?  Well, it should be, 'cause there are officially 617 curves on this wicked-scarey road.)  That sign over there on the right?  They REALLY mean it's a One-Lane Bridge (the first of 56!) and 10 mph.  If you can manage to do that much, just before you had to Yield the Right of Way to the driver coming from the other direction.  Trouble was, there were Yield signs on both sides of the bridge, causing some confusion to say the least.  The scenery did indeed take your breath away...but the drive on this road just about deprived your body of oxygen from gasping, as in:  [sharp intake of breath] "Is that car going to hit us?  Can you see around that curve? How can they put a one-lane bridge on every switchback curve in the road...what were they thinking???"  And, just when we were seriously wondering if this was worth it, we saw something like this (below, left):

We snapped this shot (and many others similar to it) of Keanae Peninsula from the Kaumahina State Park...a grandiose name for a parking area with rest rooms and a few picnic tables, which would be called a Rest Area anywhere else.  We'd thought it might have to do for our picnic, since we were getting hungrier by the minute...and it didn't appear that we would ever make it to Hana anyway at the pokey-slow rate we were going.  Really glad we didn't settle for the less-than-desirable spot after all.  Still, it would be a stop for us on the return trip, too; more on that in a minute.

OK, break over.  Time to get back out on the road.

As we twisted and turned, and nearly met ourselves coming around a couple of those curves (see the photo to the right), we began to realize something very important.  Most of the waterfalls we spotted weren't falling...and there was very little water in many of them.  Hawaii...at least Maui...is suffering from severe drought conditions in many places, sad to say.  We also became pretty good at recognizing the locals on the road.  They were the ones in the pickup trucks...the ones with the really wide hips (the trucks, not the people...:) and really big tires.  The ones who were OK with driving in the middle of the road (!), and who seemed to feel that the double-yellow line in the center of the road was just a suggestion about passing.  Most of those same trucks had dents and dings and paint-scratches, too.  Imagine that...

After another couple of hours we were there...Hana!  Hooray!!  Oh wait, was that it?  Did we already go through it??  You betcha.  Blink and you'll miss it for sure.

Oh well, hunger got the best of us, and we headed to the park for a picnic.  Fabulous view from our picnic table!  After we finished with our food, we followed the trail to the Blow Hole and then down to the Black Sand Beach (left)...which isn't really sand at all, it's stones.  Smooth ones to be sure...but stones all the same.  Never seen anything like that.

By the time we made our way to the end of where our car rental agreement said we could drive (yes, they do exclude some of the roads on Maui...:) and took a bio-break (note:  NO drinking water available) at the Visitor Center, we were more-than-ready to start the return trip.  It was now past 4:00, and we were losing daylight, especially in the shaded areas of the road.

Because of our late start, most of the other folks on the Road had already returned to their hotel rooms and were deciding where they were going to have dinner that evening.  So, we were now sharing the road with almost exclusively local traffic, if you get my drift.  Whereas on the drive coming out, most of the other tourists (oh, there were exceptions) would honor the Yield-the-Right-Away signs when approaching the one-lane bridges, the locals would just keep on comin' all during our return trip.

But fortunately, because we were out on the road in the late afternoon, we began to duck in and out of the proverbial afternoon showers.  And, then we were treated to another breath-taking display common to Hawaii:  a double rainbow (right)!  Mr. T took that shot from that Rest Area where we stopped again.  Just think...most of the other folks who took the Road to Hana that day missed this awesome sight.  Too bad.

And, lest you think we didn't get to see any waterfalls at all, I want to change that notion.  We saw several beautiful ones and were able to get some photos of them, too, like that one to the left.  It's just that we saw enough "dry" streams and former pools that it made an impression on us.

We rolled back into Wailea, long after sunset.  We decided we were too tired to do anything except take-out tonight, so we stopped by the Round Table again for pizza...since we knew there were some cold beers with our names on them back in the room.  And, even after sundown, that lanai was a most relaxing place to unwind from our long drive.  Ah-h-h.

Join me in my next post to read about Day Six of our trip to Maui.  We'll set sail for the island of Lana'i on Trilogy I, and Mr. T and I will try something new for both of us:  snuba diving, a cross between snorkeling and scuba diving.

See you soon!

Aloha! Part 2

nem·e·sis (nm-ss)  [From the online Free Dictionary]

n. pl. nem·e·ses (-sz)

1. A source of harm or ruin: Uncritical trust is my nemesis.
2. Retributive justice in its execution or outcome: To follow the proposed course of action is to invite nemesis.

3. An opponent that cannot be beaten or overcome.

4. One that inflicts retribution or vengeance.
5. Nemesis in Greek Mythology The goddess of retributive justice or vengeance.

[Pardon the interruption.  Had to take a longer break from posting than anticipated.  My nemesis caught up with me.  Vertigo...BPPV.  Cannot beat it or overcome it...must just take my medicine and let it run its course. Lost 4 days.  Better now, thank you.]

Now, where on earth was I?  Oh yes...I left you waiting for the rest of the story in Maui, didn't I?  Not a bad place to be!

Let's see...it was sunset on Monday, Labor Day, our third day on Maui.  And the whole world and its favorite aunt had been at the beach or in the pools, it seemed.  Or, auntie...as they say.  There was a luau going on down on the hotel's lawn, and we were enjoying the music (and a cold Hawaiian beer) on our lanai.  Since we "did" a luau on our first trip to the Islands in '79 (when we stayed on Oahu), and the host was Don Ho, we figured we'd already seen the best.  We'd also gone to the Polynesian Village on our second trip in '91 and learned the story of the arrival of the first people to the Islands...so all we'd really be going for was the music.  We had that...no charge!

Day Four started out a little...eh, differently, shall we say?  For one thing, there was no race for the best beach chairs at 7:00 a.m., as we'd noticed on the previous mornings.  And, instead of other guests, our first sight (right) was the landscaper...climbing the palm tree for some maintenance with a machete, next to our lanai where we were enjoying our breakfast!  Ah, summer season must be well and truly over.  We'd wondered when they did all the jobs that needed doing to keep this resort in tip-top order.  We learned that the hotel had far fewer guests, starting today...but that was just fine with those of us still there.  Mo' bettah, as they say.

We headed to the Beach Walkway to check out the south end...another nice little morning walk, about 25 minutes out, 25 minutes back.  More beautiful views, this time of Molokini (the islet that's really the rim of a partially sunken volcano crater...and a top snorkeling destination) and Kaho'olawe (the now-uninhabited island that was used by the U.S. Navy for bombing practice), one in front of the other off to the west, southwest of our part of Maui.  Once again, we spotted birds we don't see in NC...and took lots of photos of each of them.  That's a Western Cardinal (left)...close kin to the all-over bright red Northern (or as the Hawaiian Bird Book calls it the "Kentucky") Cardinal we have at our feeders.


A little beach time, then off to see some sights!  We headed to Lahaina, about an hour away on the West side of the island, to do a little shopping and gallery-hopping...and finish a fine day with some fine dining.  And, can you believe it?  We just happened to turn onto Dickenson Street when we headed into town off the main highway...and what should be right there but The Needlework Shop...the only yarn store on the island.  What luck!  Actually, they are really a quilt shop...and I would love to have taken a class in the art of Hawaiian quilting...but they do carry some locally-dyed yarns, two skeins of which came home with me.  Tee hee.

Oh, don't feel too sorry for Mr. T.  Right next door was the Maui Vintage clothing shop...home of the Hawaiian shirts like Thomas Magnum (be still my beating heart...:) wore.  He had a tough time deciding on which one he would wear out of the store (!), but he finally went with the Paradise Found Star Orchid in Black.  Good choice!  Doesn't he look fabulous in his new purchase, over there on the right?

After a few more shops and galleries, we found a cute cafe on Front Street that opened across the back to the beach...where they were having $2.00 margaritas until 6:00.  Best deal we found the whole week!  We both had been rather unimpressed with the mai tais (not like we remembered on our last trip...too many "specialities" or fancy additions to suit our tastes), so we decided to Go Mexican on Maui!  Tasty.

We topped off the evening with reservations at Pacific'O restaurant.  That's where that shot of us enjoying another sunset was taken (above), with the island of Lanai'i in the background.  Yes, that's real; that's not a fake back-drop behind us.  We were seated on the patio, practically on the beach where the luau (yes, another one...:) participants assembled before heading to their destination just down the beach.   Again we got to enjoy the music.  This evening, Mr. T got the mahimahi dish and I tried the ono (also known as the wahoo), prepared with macadamia nuts and goat cheese (again from the Surfing Goat dairy).  We split that beautiful salad over there on the left...I just had to take a shot of it before devouring.  Fantastic!

It was a lovely day, but we were happy to head the car back to Wailea.  Tomorrow would be a full day, with the Road to Hana on our itinerary.  What's that, you say?  Do return to learn all about it!

I'll have to pause my tale for another bit (hopefully not as long as the last...:), since it's time for the Fall Premiere of NCIS.  Gotta get my Gibbs fix!  I've had to make do with reruns all summer...and I'm ready.

See you soon!

Aloha!

• Two first class tickets to/from Maui:  225,000 American Airline Advantage miles (points) + $30 in fees
• An ocean-front room with lanai at the Grand Wailea Waldorf - Astoria for 8 nights:  280,000 Hilton Honors points (+ $0 in fees...:)
• A rental car from National Car Rental for a week and a day:  70,000 Hilton Honors points + $100 in fees (more or less)
• A wonderful vacation in paradise for Mr. T and me:  priceless!

We're back!  At least, we are for the most part.  My body may physically be in HPNC, but my brain must still be on Aloha Time...running slowly and six hours behind.  I don't feel jet-lagged, but I do have my days and nights a bit mixed up.  Staying up til 1:00 a.m. here.  Trying to sleep in until noon-ish, if the dogs would just let me.  Maybe I'm trying to stay on vacation. 

Mr. T seems to have made the transition back to the real world OK, as he is off to Raleigh today.  Me?  I'm trying to make a dent in the mountain of dirty clothes, while I tackle the 201 emails in my inbox and the 576 photos we took on two digital cameras.  I'm working on a DVD complete with Hawaiian music to commemorate the trip...as well as a Photo Book, hence the reason I stayed up so late last night.  I'm also searching for someplace that will develop a couple of disposable cameras we used for our underwater shots.  Thought I'd take a time out to post today. 

We had a fabulous time celebrating Mr. T's Big 6-0h birthday all last week.  That photo up there (above) was taken on our first morning (Saturday) when we awoke to find that our "ocean-view" room had been upgraded to "ocean-front." Since it was dark when we finally arrived the night before...and we were so exhausted after an 18-hour travel day that took us from Raleigh to Chicago to Los Angeles to Kahului, Maui airport to the resort in Wailea, HI..., we didn't realize just how close to the Pacific ocean we had been sleeping.  We opened the shutter-style sliders that had successfully covered the sliding glass doors onto the lanai to that stunning, breathtaking view.  Oh. My. Goodness.  Get the camera!

Day One started with room service breakfast, served on our lanai.  How absolutely lovely.  We then spent the rest of the day recuperating and relaxing on the beach and in the ocean.  We also took a walk around a portion of the grounds of the Grand Wailea resort, which is over 40 acres, all told.  There are beautiful waterfalls, fountains, statues, sculptures, flowers, paintings, and mosaics everywhere you look.  Even a chapel with the most amazing stained glass windows (left).

In the heat of the afternoon sun, we did take a break from the beach to drive to the local Safeway for some necessities:  milk for my coffee (as I can't stand that powdered stuff in the packets), juice, yogurt, bagels, cream cheese, and snacks...plus water, Diet Pepsis, beer and wine...and a Styrofoam cooler to keep everything cold.  The hotel provided the ice for the cooler (which we kept in the ginormous bathtub)...and their own wonderful Hawaiian-grown coffee for the in-room coffeemaker.  As much as we enjoyed that first breakfast, we weren't eager to spend that much money for room service every day...and we really didn't want to get dressed to go to one of the restaurants on property at the start of our day.  We loved the view from our lanai, and we intended to take advantage of it as much as possible!  We even found a pizza place, The Round Table,  in the Safeway shopping center; take-away pizza and some local-brewed beer (Fire Rock Pale Ale)  on our lanai for the front-row seat on our first sunset (right).  Perfect.  We're starting to relax now!

Day Two began at 3:00 a.m.  It was Mr. T's birthday, and we wanted to see the sun rise on the top of Haleakala Volcano...a two-hour trip up and around one of the winding-est roads you can ever imagine.  In the dark.  Even with our early rise, the summit (10,023 feet) parking lot was already full by 5:30 a.m. on this holiday weekend, so we were directed to another viewing point, Kalahaku Overlook, at 9,324 feet.  A bit lower, but still cold (49 degrees) and still above the clouds (as you can tell in that photo, left) and with a better view as it turned out.  Not only did we get to see the sun rise at about 6:04 a.m. ...amazing..., we also got to see a rainbow in a valley whose view would have been blocked at the summit.

While most of the crowd made their way back down the winding road, we drove up to the summit for the view...which was so clear this morning that we could easily see the Big Island of Hawaii in the distance, with the peaks of volcanoes Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa visible, rising above the clouds.  We could also see down "our" side of Maui to Wailea beach...as well as the cruise ship entering the port near Kahului on the other side of the island (where we spotted the rainbow earlier). 

That's a photo (right) of a chukar we took at the summit...we were just fascinated by all the birds we don't see in North Carolina.  We chatted with a park ranger (as this whole area is a National Park) about some of the birds we had spotted, and she directed us to a natural area called Hosmer's Grove near the entrance to the Park (back down the winding road)...where we found a huge stand of eucalyptus trees, but too many children playing too loudly in the nearby camping ground to spot many native birds.  Still, we got to see rain in the rain forest area of the island...rain and sun at the same time!

As we made our way back to sea level, we toured through the Up Country of Maui, starting with coffee and cinnamon rolls at Grandma's Coffee House.  Then on to the Tedeschi Winery (didn't care for the pineapple wine, but loved the white chocolate candy) and then to the Surfing Goat Dairy Farm (loved the cheese).  Saw the lavender farms...and lots and lots of sugar cane, waving in the wind.

We finished the Big Day at Mama's Fish House, a highly-recommended restaurant in Paia, on the north side of the island, where we saw yet another beautiful sunset.  (Follow that link to listen to some great Hawaiian music by HAPA. Just minimize their window to allow the music to keep playing, while you return to this site in another window...you can hear the music while you continue to read.) The food was fabulous, as we had heard (the Park Ranger nearly swooned when she found out where we were going that night) and read (great reviews on Trip Advisor)...fresh everything...the service excellent...expensive, yes, as is everything on Maui, but well worth it for the occasion.  They had even created a birthday card in Hawaiian and placed it on our reserved table.  Every person who stopped by the table wished Mr. T "Hau ' oli la Hanau, Thomas!"  Our waitress snapped that shot of us just as we were finishing our last bites of macadamia nut-encrusted mahimahi stuffed with lobster, shrimp, and crab, served with jasmine rice (me) and seared salmon with tropical fruit salsa (Mr. T) (left).  Then, she served him a complementary ice cream sundae with fresh coconut slivers!

Day Three was a "rest day."  After breakfast on our lanai, we got our color-coded bracelets (a requirement by the resort to use the pool and beach facilities:  towels, chairs, umbrellas, etc.; they use a different color for each day of the week) and blue-striped beach towels, which we used to "reserve" a couple of chairs near the in-pool, swim-up Volcano Bar, where a waterfall runs all day (as you see in that photo of my toes and the pool, right).  Yes, the pool could be a bit noisy, since it was a kid-magnet with all of the rushing river rapids and water slides, but we needed a break from the sand in our suits.  And they kept the music playing all day long!

Before beginning our pool-side tanning and reading session though, we took a stroll on the beach walkway that ran in front of the resort, heading to the right/north of the property...30 minutes out, 30 minutes back.  A nice stretch of the legs.  This gave us the best views of the Ma'alaea Harbor, on the West side of the island, as well as the West Maui Mountains and Iao Valley State Park area.  We also spotted some folks snorkeling around a reef (left) and decided we'd like to try that, too.  We'd do the walkway the other way (south) tomorrow.  So much to see, so much to do.  Must remember to relax and decompress.

As the day before had been a big food consumption day (and Day Four promised to be another one), we gave our tummies a rest day, too, with snacks by the pool for lunch and Subway sandwiches on the lanai for another wonderful sunset supper.  We'd gotten some of the goat cheese spread at the Dairy...add crackers, fruit, and pour a little wine...and we were in the zone.  The Happy Zone!

I'll give us all a break and save the rest of the story for another post.  Come back to read about our snuba sailing excursion to the island of Lanai, our harrowing ride on the road to Hana, and our up-close look at a stingray and a hammerhead shark, as well as our dining experiences at Pacific'o in Lahaina, Buzz's Wharf in Ma'alaea,  and Humuhumunukunukuapua'a', right here on Grand Wailea.

Mahalo!