Hawaii: Day 7 and 8

Hawaii: Day 7 and 8

Day 7 started with an early morning rush (as usual) to the airport. Our family actually does really well getting to the airport on time, so I can't complain. What I can complain about is trying to fit 5 suitcases, 3 duffle bags, and other random bags into the trunk of a Saturn LS200. Nice car, inadequate trunk.

Our flight to Kahului (pronounced "Kah-who-lou-y") Airport on Maui required a short layover on Oahu at Honolulu Airport. It seemed funny that we were briefly stopping at Honolulu, but would be returning for a longer 6-day visit in just 3 days. Both flights (Kuaui-to-Honolulu and Honolulu-to-Maui) were a mere 15-20 minutes each. It seemed just as we had gotten in the air, we were headed back down to land. But they still served passion fruit juice on both flights! Gotta love Aloha Airlines. :)

We arrived on Maui at around 10:30am, secured our rental car (a Chevy Venture van identical to the Atlanta "bachelor party bus"). We made our way across the beautiful island of Maui up to the north-western corner of the island to a town called Lahaina (pronounced "La-hine-a"). This town had a really cool little downtown area jam-packed with little surf shops, restaurants, and souvenir shops (AKA tourist traps). We continued on to our hotel, the luxurious Aston Ka'anapali (pronounced "ka-ah-na-polly") Resort. The second I walked into the lobby, I knew this place was just oozing with money. Every detail of the building was perfect. We got our rooms and then headed back out for dinner. We ate at a bar and grill place back in Lahaina. I'd have to say that this has been the best dining experience I've had yet on this vacation. Awesome food, friendly & entertaining waiter, and excellent drinks. He even let us steal one of the drinking glasses from our table.

We came back to the hotel, went for a walk on the beach, asked Olivia to marry me, and then went to bed. Oops. Did I just say that? Got your attention now, don't I?

She said yes, thank god. More on that later, though.

Today (day 8 for all you kids out there playing along at home) we woke up fairly early for our big snorkeling/boating trip out to Molokini (pronounced "mole-oh-kini") island. There are a large number of companies that will gladly take you around to some of the more interesting places to snorkel, and are also willing to empty your pockets in the process. Luckily, we landed 5 seats on one of the better ones on the island. Philisophically, they're environmentalists, so the trip was all about talking about endangered animals, keeping the island clean and beautiful, and so on and so forth. We (along with about 100 other people) rode in a big environmentally-friendly cooking-oil powered catamaran boat out into the middle of the Hawaiian islands, snorkeled in two different places, saw some beautiful fish swimming in the clear blue ocean, ate some grilled lunch, and almost got sea sick. I tell ya, this snorkel cruise really had their act together. The boat was custom-built and had great seating, a full (and open) bar on the lower level, grills mounted in the rear of the boat for cooking lunch, and (best of all) the Captain was using a 10 gig iPod for the sound system that played throughout the trip. Very cool stuff.

When we got back on land, we rushed back to the condo, washed up just in time to leave for our special dinner tonight- a Luau. For those that don't know, a Luau is a Hawaiian feast. We enjoyed good food and exciting entertainment, along with 500 other tourists. It was fun.

And now, we're back at the condo and tired as hell. The plan is to visit Haleakala (pronounced "ha-lee-ah-ka-la") tomorrow, which is a huge mountain formed by an inactive volcano. And then we catch our flight out of Maui at around 5pm.

As with Kauai, I'm sad to leave Maui. It's been a neat place to visit, and now Olivia and I will definitely have to return one day. Aloha!

Posted by Jeff at June 22, 2003 03:06 PM