Maui Top 3

Oh, Maui, you are as wonderful as everyone said you would be.

Last month Rob's parents took us on a trip to Maui with them - we were there for 10-ish days! (10-ish due to the nasty 14 hour flight delay leaving Seattle). It was a trip of a lifetime.

It was all so so wonderful. The island. The food. The beach. The sun. The adventures. The doing-nothing. The company - having grandparents adore my baby as much as I adore him... I loved that.

Here is MY Maui Top 3, in descending order.

 #1 the Wailea Coastal Walk.
I had to look up the name because it's kind of hidden/unnamed (at least that I could tell). It's basically a pathway on the water - between fancy resorts and beaches. The above picture doesn't do the view from the pathway justice (can any photo do any Maui scene justice?). We walked the path two separate evenings - as the sun was setting. It just felt so... relaxing. Warm, but breezy. It was also a lot of fun to walk around the pools and in the lobby of the Grand Wailea and the Four Seasons. Super fancy. We joked about how our time-share condo wasn't much different than the hotels. In reality, I would have felt super out of place there anyway. Wailea is one of the many beautiful places on Maui - but it was one of my favorites because I think it's what I had always pictured Hawaii being like.

#2 Road to Hana
If you've been to Maui, you know what this is. It's one of the most popular tourist activities. And now I know why - it's just what I wanted to see in Hawaii: tropical views. This picture is just one of the amazing vantage points, it's looking across to another part of the road and you can see the highway "snaking" along the mountainside. Each view of the ocean, waterfalls, valleys, pools of water, or crashing waves was better than the one previous. It was also a really fun adventure. We hiked down to a couple waterfalls, swam in large aqua-colored waves, jumped into a fresh-water cave, and ate food at roadside stands. We left the baby boy with his grandparents (so they had an adventure of their own!). Later, I'll dedicate a post to the Road to Hana's Top 3.

#3 Watching the waves at Big Beach.

We were fortunate enough to experience a little of a South Swell - I don't really know what that is, just there were big waves coming from... somewhere that resulted in big surfs around the island, especially the south side where we stayed (we stayed in Kihea). Big Beach (the least interesting name on the island) usually has the biggest waves on the island anyway, so we decided to head there on our last evening to see how big they could get. Oh wow, I really got an idea of the power of the ocean. We heard the loud low crash of the waves from a couple hundred feet away as we walked down the path to the beach from the parking lot. You really had to be careful, not turn your back on the ocean. We stayed there until after the sun set (Rob took this picture of us) - it was hard to leave, we kept wanting to stay for just one more swell. When the island experiences a swell like that you are advised to either not swim in the ocean or, at least, use extreme caution. It was perfect timing for us - we were able to be in the water swimming and snorkeling for most of our stay but still got to see the wonder that the swell brought.

Honorable mention:

- walking around Lahaina - especially rounding this corner and seeing the aqua-colored water

- eating at Hali'imaile General Store (and every other place we ate, really)

- snorkeling. No pictures of that, unfortunately. Or fortunately.
- sitting around the air conditioned condo

- eating shave ice (our goal was one per day, but we missed a few days). The best was Ulalani in Lahaina - I did.not.know that shave ice could have the texture of a sorbet. So so good (the guy who gave us the shave ice said it was as big as Henry's head). And, yes, it's shave ice, not shaved ice. I didn't know that either.

- being super close to the beach. Walk out the door and cross the street-close. (here is Henry the ONE time we took him to the beach across the street. Too much sand. We went by ourselves after that.)

- Having extra someones around to hand Henry off to anytime I wanted. (this is Henry and Grandpa's favorite way to hang out)

 - Hearing Henry's laugh every time he played with Grandma.

- romantic location with my honey (and with my baby and my in-laws)

 

It's super hard to pick any favorites. I have no complaints about our trip, it was all so great. We feel so blessed to have been able to go and so grateful for our parents for making it happen and for sharing it with us! Rob made this video of our trip (yet another great video from my talented husband). More posts to follow too!

A Trip to Maui from rob nyland on Vimeo.