Maui: Days 10-12

We were given an amazing gift for our stay in Maui. A good friend and long-time supporter of Joe, Scott Hutton, offered us a week's stay at Marriot's Ocean Club right on the beach at Ka'anapali--the prime resort area on Maui. What a treat! A nice room, comfy bed, view of the ocean, and a dizzying array of pools, palm trees, waterfalls, kid's play areas, and great people watching. They also have grill areas where we've been able to cook most of our food (with a nice ocean view) and take a swing in a beach-side hammock afterwards. Heavenly!

Not surprisingly, we spent all day Saturday lounging around the hotel. Swam at the pools (they have a great pirate ship area for kids with a water slide, water features, shallow water), played on the beach, grilled. Sunday we decided to drive the ocean-side road on the west side of Maui. Last week we did the road to Hana, which is the well-known, often busy, insanely curvy road to the easternmost part of Maui. The road we took on Sunday is much less renowned---but we felt hugely underrated. I think I even liked it more than the Hana road.. it was not busy at all, easier to access, not as curvy, and shorter. There were a few one or two mile sections that were only one-lane...but we didn't find them too harrowing.

We stopped at a forest that just couldn't be captured in photos--not even a panoramic. We tried, but it just didn't do it justice. There were more greens than you thought possible, with these huge sweeping tree limbs. It felt like a movie set. Then we hiked down to a somewhat popular (there were about 8 others there on a Sunday afternoon, so not bad) site called the Nakalele Blowhole. Lots of west Maui has lava that meets the coast (reminded us of the Big Island), and in this area there is a hole in the lava that the ocean pushes through to make an impressive spout of water shoot into the sky. It was a fairly windy day, so the blowhole was exciting to watch. Joe went to investigate it closely, and I PROMISE that the photos make it look more dangerous than it actually was. Not only was the blowhole impressive, but the landscape carved into the lava was surreal--almost felt like being on another planet.

After the blowhole we stopped at these tide pools called the Olivine pools. This area is also surrounded by lava rocks along a rough sea. There are a series of tide pools carved out where the water is generally calm, warm, and clear. It feels scary because huge waves are crashing all around, but the lava forms a protective barrier around the pools, making them usually safe to play in. We had lunch here, then played around until Rowan slipped on the rocks and couldn't recover. She promptly fell asleep when we got back to the car, so she must have been tired, too. She has been such a good traveler, and has really rolled with all the change in routine. The other day, she said she missed her "stuck house"....which meant our house in Jonesboro. Interesting way to describe a house...but compared to our RV, the old house was definitely "stuck."

Monday was a long training day for Joe--Rowan and I hung out at the hotel, played in the pool and ocean, took a rest time. Not much else to report about Monday.

To see a few more photos, click here. A word about the panoramic shots: Joe has been taking most of these, and they actually consist of anywhere from 3-6 individual shots, stitched together on photoshop. There are so many scenes here that are just too sweeping for one 4x6 frame--so the panoramic thing has come in handy. Doing it this way allows for a lot more detail, too.