Maui

The last three days of our Hawaii adventure were spent on Maui.  What a different feel this island has than Oahu.

After our plane landed Tuesday night and we picked up our rental car, we had dinner at an amazing place called Poi By the Pound.

 Wednesday was a beach day.  Gil did some snorkeling and saw all sorts of fun sea creatures.  His underwater camera was having trouble so he didn't get too many photos.  We explored some of the coast and other beaches and had a lovely day.

Thursday we went up to Haleakala National Park.  What a beautiful place!

The highest point is 10,023 ft!  Crazy!  We could see the big island of Hawaii from the observations station, but no spewing lava or hazardous gases.  Still, the views were amazing.

 We took the Keonehe'ehe'e trail a little ways down into the crater.  The colors were spectacular.

 We hauled ourselves out of the crater and dropped down in elevation to try another trail.  The fog was pretty thick and we were quite wet rather quickly.

 The fog was so thick it seemed like we had reached the edge of the world!

 Thursday's sunset.

 Friday we decided to try the Road the Hana, with the hopes of seeing a black sand beach.  What a crazy, busy, narrow, windy road.  There are quite a few places where it is one lane.  There were a lot of beautiful views on both sides of the road: waterfalls on one side and coastline on the other.

 (notice the eyes are not as puffy... feeling much, much better... the day we leave...)

 Hooray!!  One of my friends who visited Hawaii told me about these rainbow eucalyptus trees.  As the bark peels off, there are these wonderful rainbow colors revealed.  I was thrilled I got to see some myself.

 Having some Hawaiian shaved ice.  Gil got pineapple and mango and I got POG (passion fruit, orange, guava).  Delicious.  

We realized the road we were on did not go all the way around and we needed to head back the way we came.  Eek!  No time to see our black sand beach.  We worried about having enough time to make our flight.  We made it back to Kahului and had one last delicious meal before turning in our car and heading to the airport.  

We got home early Saturday morning and we are both still floating from this wonderful trip.  We are so thankful to Uncle Randy and Aunt Ann for opening their home to us and letting us stay with them while we were on Oahu.  We both feel so blessed to have the means to be able to experience this beautiful part of the world.