The First 48

Wednesday was our travel day, and it was definitely a long day. We left our house in GJ at 6:30am, flew out of SLC at 1:50pm, had a 2 hour lay-over in LA, arrived in Hawaii 9pm Hawaiian time, midnight our time. We still had to pick up our rental car and make an hour long drive to our hotel. Our rental car is a Mustang convertible. We made the drive to Lahaina to check in to our hotel and finally made it to be around 11:30pm Hawaiian, which was 2:30am for us. Our hotel room is nice and spacious, with a kitchen and separate living area with a balcony overlooking the hotel's courtyard. And it's right on the beach!

I woke up on Thursday at 4am Hawaii time and couldn't wait to see what Hawaii actually looked like. It rained all night and was still raining when we got up and headed to breakfast at about 7:30am. We ate at Cheeseburger in Paradise on Front Street in Lahaina, overlooking the ocean. The rain cleared up and the sun came out while we were eating our first macadamia nut pancake. They do offer a cheeseburger dish on the breakfast menu, in case you were wondering. After breakfast, we picked up a beach bag and beach towels at the Whaler's General Store, put the top down on the car and headed to Kihei in South Maui. Along the way, we stopped a couple times at scenic viewpoints and at one beach. The highway runs right along the ocean so the view is amazing! In Kihei, we went to Keawakapu Beach. It's at the very end of town. Michael did some swimming in the ocean, and I waded in the water and soaked up some sun. We then went into town and stopped at the Kihei Market. It was mostly souvenirs and trinkets, and Michael told me that most of them were probably made in China, not Hawaii. Needless to say, we did not buy anything there. We decided to head back to our side of the island and stopped at the grocery store for bottled water and a bottle of pineapple wine. A gallon of milk is almost 6 dollars on Maui! We headed back to Lahaina on the west side of Maui but the road was blocked because of an accident. We detoured into a little harbor town named Ma'alaea and shared a sandwich for lunch. We walked around the docks and checked out the houseboats and tour boats. We then fatefully decided to take the long way around the island back to Lahaina by looking at the map we got at the car rental place. This led us to the little towns of Waikapu and Wailuku and to Iao Valley State Park. We were unprepared for the chilly weather so we looked around the base of the park but didn't do any hiking. The drive up to Iao Valley State Park is so beautiful. It looks like a rainforest. The mountain peaks are so dramatic and look like the bottom of an ice cream cone when they come together. After Iao Valley, we headed west on Hwy. 340. The road gets extremely narrow and is only one lane. THIS is where I took a better look at the map and realized that we were not supposed to be driving on this road in a rental car. On the map, the road looks like it weaves back and forth, but I thought, nothing a Coloradan and a Wyomingite can't handle. I was wrong. The edges of this road are mostly right on the edges of cliffs overlooking the ocean below. If someone comes the other way, you have to slow way down and try to get past each other. And remember, tourist are NOT supposed to be on this road. So the Hawaiians who travel it on a regular basis are not too happy to slow down and let you pass. One Hawaiian man signaled for us to stop as he was passing, and we were worried he was going to chew us out. He just asked how we got through and said usually the cops stop tourists from coming up that road. I wish they would have! There were a couple of points in this road where I literally almost cried. I had to keep putting my head down in my hands to keep from crying. I thought we were going to fall off the side of the cliff in the rental car. Along the way, we did stop at a very cool sculpture garden and gallery. You can check it out at: http://www.turnbullstudios.org/galleryartists.html. But you probably will never want to drive there. We also stopped at an art store and the ladies there told us the most narrow parts of the road where yet to come, which made me want to cry yet again. After leaving the shop, we got behind about 4 or 5 cars and caravanned. There were only 2 miles to go but it felt like several hours. We had to pull over for several cars along the way, and I was again, sitting with my face in my hands trying to do deep breathing exercises while Michael was trying to negotiate the road with the other drivers. At last, we got back to a two lane road!! It was a big relief for both of us. We started to joke about it, once we knew we weren't going to total the rental car or fall off the side of a cliff. The scenery during the drive was beautiful, but we both were too stressed out to really notice. We started joking about how they should put up signs warning people, if you don't want to spend an afternoon feeling like you're about to die, please don't drive on this road. It was literally one of the scariest drives I have ever experienced. It took us about 4 hours to make the drive from Ma'alaea to Lahaina. Four VERY long hours. As we came down the mountain, there were a couple of places where men sat on the side of the road with bags of marijuana hanging out the sides of their vehicles, yelling "BUD!" as you drove by. Strange. After resting at our hotel for awhile, we went into Lahaina for dinner at Bubba Gump's. We had a beautiful table right over the ocean and ate lots of shrimp! Michael was exhausted from the Road of Death and fell asleep about 8:30pm.

Today we're going to stay a little closer to the hotel and explore Ka'anapali Beach. We are going to check into a whale watching cruise and snorkeling tours. Tonight is art night in Lahaina with live music and a bunch of local artists. Saturday is the Maui Whale Festival in Kihei and Sunday we are driving the Road to Hana. The guidebook says it's narrow with a lot of switchbacks, but it's tourist approved, which makes me think it has 2 lanes, and everyone I've talked to says, you have to drive the Road to Hana. Stay tuned!