Please don't hate me because we went to Maui last week, even though we'd just been to Kauai in November. My brother planned the trip for his family and asked us to come along. My nieces are 7 and 9 and the sweetest kids and I didn't want to miss seeing Hawaii through their eyes, especially when they're at such delightful ages.
I tried to convince Greg to come but wasn't having much luck. Then my nieces sent him letters, including this one from Tabi:
Greg hates glitter with a white-hot passion. Only a monster would say no.
At Christmas I told Tabi she was a genius and she sighed and said conspiratorially, "There's probably going to be some glitter." She's the best.
So. Anyway. We went to Maui and instead of visiting gardens we hung out with my nieces and swam and ate burgers and swam and swam and swam. It was awesome. How cute are they? They are still, for the moment, super affectionate and not embarrassed to hold my hand in public. So wonderful.
We went on a sunset sail the first full day we were there and humpback whales were breaching all around us.
All week you could just look out on the horizon and you'd see whales leaping, slapping their dorsal fins, or shooting plumes out of their blowholes. I've never seen a whale in the wild, so that was really neat. We also took a snorkeling tour and got to swim with the biggest green sea turtles. I could lay on the surface of the water and watch sea turtles forever. They're more transfixing than TV, though you can't play on the computer in your sweatpants while you watch them.
Greg and I stayed two nights longer than my family so we could have some time alone. Greg, unbeknownst to me, made arrangements for us to have dinner in a little bungalow by the beach so we could watch the sunset while we ate dinner. Then he shocked the hell out of me by asking me to marry him. After hanging out with my family for a week!
I reacted, not by crying like a normal person, but by getting really sweaty and forgetting how old I was. Our server asked me my age and I said, "37." Greg was like, "You know you're 36 for another month, right?" And I made him pull out a calculator and make sure he was right. I honestly couldn't remember.
So I think I got so happy I had a tiny stroke! I went to the bathroom and I saw a miniature frog, which I considered a good omen. In retrospect maybe he wasn't real? Either way, I'm really happy and I'm sure the feeling is going to come back to my arm soon.
Our server was so excited about our engagement, she didn't want to leave our sides. She told us about growing up in the Philippines, her son's job, the hotel where they stayed in Times Square, the time they went to Washington DC . . . She also took about a thousand photos of me and Greg, making sure to cut off parts of our heads so she could get the table settings in the photo. She was a hoot. She also told us the key to a good marriage was giving in, "And I guess the bible says women should submit?" which made Greg laugh and me shake my head vigorously. She really was sweet but very goofy.
Now we're trying to figure out where we can get married where we don't actually have to PLAN the wedding. Wedding planning sounds like the most boring thing ever. I love throwing parties but most weddings seem like a lot of work toward creating things that no one remembers, like decorations, favors, and ornamental poufs. Instead they remember if the food sucked and if your friend made a super awkward toast.
So if anyone knows where you can get married by a sea turtle, hit me up. If the turtle could do all the planning, even better.
Between this and spring coming, I feel like my heart may burst. It makes me feel even more passionately that marriage needs to be available to everyone. How anyone could deny this wonderful feeling to any of their fellow humans boggles my mind.
While we were on Maui we visited the Kahanu Garden, a national tropical botanical garden. This garden focuses on endemic plants and the plants that Hawaiians have used for food and medicine. There aren't a lot of flowers here but it's still lovely. Foliage is the star.
The big draw with this garden is the Pi'ilanihale Heiau, a stone structure that covers three acres and took 128,000 man-days to build.
Not a lot is known about this structure but they do know that it was a religious site. You aren't allowed on it and the rocky area in the foreground is a burial site. The structure is massive. Greg, lucky duck, got to fly over it on his hang gliding tour. Can you see it, at about 10 o'clock?
There are many different types of bananas and taro everywhere.
It was considered bad luck to take bananas on fishing trips and, until the end of the taboo system in 1819, women weren't allowed to eat certain varieties. Too much delicious potassium?
We joked about seeing the Hawaiian national bird, the weed whacker. These were everywhere, all over the island. Hawaiians love their weed whackers.
I was so taken with the way they underplanted the alocasia with ferns. I want to replicate this in a galvanized container.
Ape/Elephant's ear (Alocasia macrorrhiza)
These screw pines are part of the largest remaining hala grove on the island.
Hala/Screw pine (Pandanus tectorius)
The bark is incredible.
There was a huge coconut grove with signs begging you not to walk beneath them.
According to our snorkel captain, more tourists are harmed each year by falling coconuts than sharks.
Loulu/Fan palm (Pritchardia affinis)
Lava rock raised beds
They had "the canoe garden" which included the species that Tahitians brought by canoe to the Hawaiian islands.
Feel free to ignore this post if you don't like looking at pictures of warm places when it's so cold out. We went to Maui! I've never eaten so much banana bread in my life!
We got up at 3am the first morning we were there to see the sunrise atop Haleakala. You can drive a paved road all the way to the top, which is way easier than seeing the sunrise from Mauna Kea on the big island of Hawaii. When we went up Mauna Kea in 2010 we had to rent a 4WD and drive miles of terrifying unpaved roads with steep dropoffs and no guardrails.
Haleakala October 2012
Because it's so easy to get to the top there were tons of people there. When the sun broke through some people exclaimed as though they weren't sure it was going to happen.
It reminded me of this commercial, which caused me to run around our whole vacation yelling, "Oh, it's so spiritual!"
It was nice but it wasn't as spectacular as Mauna Kea, which looked like this. We were pretty much alone when we visited Mauna Kea, too. Way better.
Mauna Kea October 2010
Good thing there were plenty of other pretty things to gawk over.
We visited the 'Iao Valley and the 'Iao Needle (the giant phallic rock) that was the site of an incredibly gruesome battle between King Kamehameha and the chief of Maui.
There were taro plants everywhere.
We visited the Korean Garden, which was a mishmash of tributes to the various emigrants that landed on the Hawaiian islands.
There were spaces for the Chinese . . .
New Englanders . . .
Portuguese . . .
Japanese . . .
We went to Lahaina and saw the single banyon tree that covers a huge park. It was gorgeous.
We attended the Old Lahaina Lu'au, where the food and dancing were spectacular.
We drove The Road to Hana. If we're being honest, I hate things like this, where you drive and stop every half mile to take photos of something scenic. I don't end up enjoying myself at all. But we stopped at the Kahanu Botanical Garden (pictures to follow in a separate post), which was peaceful and nearly empty.
We swam at the black sand beach at Wai'anapanapa.
We saw the red sand beach but I was wearing flip flops and couldn't get down to it. The iron in the lava is rusting, giving it this unreal color.
We went powered hang gliding in Hana. This was my birthday present to Greg and I still can't believe I did this. If any of you know me in real life or follow me on Twitter, I get absolutely shitfaced before getting on flights, using a combo of Xanax and vodka. I've gotten waaaaay better at flying over the years but I never look forward to it. I took half a Xanax for this little excursion. It took about 15 minutes up in the air to unclench and then I felt like I could stay up there forever.
The pilot is named Armin and he's wonderful. He showed me Oprah's property and Pat Benatar's house.
This is Greg flying over the road to Hana.
It's a stunning way to see the island and I can't recommend it enough. The funnest part is when he cuts the engine and you just glide. Then he starts diving and swooping and you can't stop screaming and laughing. We stayed overnight in Hana (which I highly recommend) and had dinner at one of two restaurants in town. We sat outside while rain poured down on the corrugated roof and locals performed at the open mic. Hana is wonderful, especially when all the tourbuses depart.
The next morning we got up and visited the Seven Sacred Pools at 'Ohe'o Gulch.
We hiked the Pipiwai Trail, into the bamboo forest, which is one of the coolest hikes I've ever done.
It gets surprisingly dark on the trail at points, the bamboo is so thick. It can get noisy with the shh-shh-shh of the leaves and the clack-clack-clack of the thick culms smacking against each other. It's AWESOME.
The trail ends at the 400 foot Waimoku Falls. We have so many waterfalls in Oregon that I'm rarely blown away by them, but this was very pretty.
Here's how it looked from the air.
Then our rental car started bucking and dying on our way out of town. We had planned to take the south road home from Hana, which is unpaved for five miles and mostly single-laned with blind turns. There are few towns along it. After restarting the car several times, only to have it die again, the car magically started (thank goodness, as there are no rental car agencies in Hana) and Greg said he still wanted to take the south road.
This was not my finest hour.
We bickered back and forth, with me pointing out that if the car died on the road, we'd lose power steering and power brakes, possibly while making a sharp turn, possibly plunging us into the ocean. If the car died we'd be in the middle of nowhere. Did I mention we had no cell service either? He still wanted to do it.
So I spent a few hours quietly seething. And worrying. He asked if I wanted to stop anywhere and I basically told him, I will leave you forever if you even think about stopping this car. We don't know that it will start again.
I hate Fords, guys. This shit happens to everyone I know with a Ford.
But the south road is beautiful and totally different than the north road, with its waterfalls and lush greenness. My friends Amy and Sloan wrote about it here. I can't recommend falling down the rabbit hole that is their travel blog enough. They are fantastic storytellers and they've been amazing places.
The road wasn't as scary as I feared it would be and it was totally doable without a 4WD car.
Despite all the worrying, I thought this drive was prettier than the north road to Hana.
We swapped out our rental car in Kihei and hopped in the ocean for a swim and I felt so much better. Swimming in the ocean is the best palate cleanser ever.
We went snorkeling at Molokini Crater, which has visibility of 150 feet or more. It was great, we even saw an octopus! I always refer to this fish as "the Blazers fish" because it looks like the Portland Trailblazers logo:
Right?
We drove around the NW top of the island, which was waaaaayyy dicier than either road to Hana. Unpaved one-lane roads, blind corners, very steep dropoffs and tricky maneuvers when you meet another car going the other direction. But it was so pretty! And there's a great art gallery on the road, as well as the best banana bread I've ever had.
Loree, is this Agave attentuata? It was everywhere and I loved it so much I failed to get a non-crappy photo!
We also laid on the beach and read two books apiece and swam and swam and swam. If you are what you eat, I was 40% pineapple, 20% dark rum, 10% ocean water, and 30% grilled meat during our stay.
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