Final Fun

Our flight home was on Thursday night, a red-eye, so we landed at LAX on Friday morning.

On Wednesday night, our final full "night" in Maui, we went out to a nice dinner at a Japanese restaurant that happened to be attached to our resort. We'd seen long lines outside earlier in our trip, so we knew it was probably good food. 

We kind of celebrated Stacey's upcoming milestone birthday with a nice dessert, too.
 

We decided to make the most out of our Thursday, our last day. We started out bright and early with a ride on an outrigger canoe with the Kihei Canoe Club, led by our guide captains Al and his wife Sue. 

Stace had noticed the canoe club down the street, with a big banner out front advertising rides for visitors on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. We signed up and paid, and it was a great experience.

Here are a few of the canoes coming onto shore, where we came up for a break to see some resting sea turtles.

After our canoe trip, we all enjoyed a continental breakfast, and then went back to our condo to shower and pack up and check out. 

We thought of going to lunch at the Maui Brewing Co., but the local one - home of the brewery - was randomly closed for the day. So, instead, we headed back to Lahaina for one last time. 

After Lahaina, we had one more adventure planned. Not far from the airport is the Iao Valley State Park, where we went for a late afternoon hike through the jungle-like greenery.

This mountain formation is known as the Needle, and this area was home to one of the big battles in 1790 that ended up uniting all the Hawaiian islands under King Kamehameha. 

In the nearby town we had one last fabulous Hawaiian meal, before heading to the airport.  

We ate so well this week! This was the meal Stace, Violet and I had at Coconut's Fish Cafe on our first full day, while Cora wasn't well: coconut shrimp, fish tacos and a fish sandwich.

The seared ahi at Tobi's shave ice in Paia was delicious.

Tobi's shave ice

Our "night out" meal at Isana Japanese restaurant...

Tempura-fried ice cream with pound cake - yum!

Beach Day!

 If I have one slight regret about our Maui trip, it is that we didn't have MORE pure beach days. 

On Wednesday, we enjoyed an amazing few hours at the beach (about all we could handle because of the intense sun, anyway). Really, if Cora hadn't been sick when we arrived, we probably would have had a beach day on Saturday, but no use crying over what was a phenomenal trip.

On Wednesday, we rented two paddleboards from Boss Frog's, the chain of beach gear rental stores all over the place.

This was Cora's first time, and like most things she tries, she seemed to be a natural from the get-go.

Violet had used a paddleboard a year ago at Hume Lake, and she also made it all look easy. 

Stace and I later took a turn, and it was fun! Not as easy as the girls made it look, and Stace spent a lot of time falling into the water. Surprising since he knows how to surf! 

We also body-surfed, played in the waves and found turtles! 

When Stace and I returned the paddleboards, we walked over to a nearby shave ice place and got a big one for us all to share. Perfect beach treat!

ATV Adventure

Ohhhh, the dirt!!!

This ended up being the girls' favorite memory from our trip - an ATV adventure, riding in this quad through a dirty/muddy old pineapple plantation.

Going up and down hills, over rocks on the unpaved trails, tree branches hitting the vehicle - it seriously felt like we were with Indiana Jones, or on his namesake ride at Disneyland.

At one point, our caravan of 12 or so vehicles stopped, and we planted koa trees, a native Hawaiian tree, on the former pineapple plantation.
 

So dirty. 

Stace took the wheel for the first half of our two-hour tour, with Cora as his wingman, and then Violet and I moved up front. The girls were concerned I'd be overly slow and cautious, but I proved them wrong! (The way the trails are, it's a fun and bumpy ride no matter how fast or slow you go!)

We circled up near this pond for one of our leaders to give us a talk on the history of the area. The pineapple farmers would plant a grove, place black plastic on the ground under the trees to preserve the rain, and then when the trees were less productive four years later, bulldoze it all under. We were driving over bits of plastic decades old. 

Snorkeling and Waterfalls

At the advice of my sister, we made a trip up the coast to Honolua Bay for more snorkeling, and it was well worth it. This protected marine preserve was full of colorful fish! I wish we'd had an underwater camera here. 

While our snorkel cruise was a great day out, the snorkeling here was actually better, because we were so much closer to the fish. Violet, especially, had the best time. We had to call her out of the water when it was time to leave!

The bay was secluded from the road, with a little wooded forest area to walk through. No real parking lot, just roadside parking. 

Chickens, roosters and chicks were wandering around, like so much of the islands. We loved it!

So many shades of green!
 

On Monday, we drove up to Twin Falls, near the start of the famed "Road to Hana." We chose to NOT do the Hana drive, because we'd heard it's beautiful but not for a family like ours with carsick-prone members.

But, we'd heard that Twin Falls was worth the trip, and it didn't disappoint. There were three different falls, and we saw them all. The water was refreshing fresh water, a little too cool for me to get into! But Stace was game, naturally.

Bamboo forest, with Stace playing his own kind of percussion.

Stace loved this random VW bus off to the side, as we walked to the furthest waterfall.

After Twin Falls, we stopped for a snack (and new flip flops to replace Violet's, which had broken) in the fabulous beach town of Paia. We enjoyed delicious shave ice and a poke bowl, and loved the vibe as we walked up and down the streets hunting for new shoes. 

Lahaina Love

We visited the nearby town of Lahaina a few times, and admired the largest Banyan tree in the United States, spanning an entire city block and encompassing 16 trunks!

Lahaina is an older town, formerly centered on the whaling trade, with a cute downtown stretch of old buildings on the waterfront. Now, it's full of boutiques, restaurants and art galleries. 

We had dinner on one of our Lahaina visits at Prison Street Pizza. The girls were having fun laughing at stuff on their phones - it was cute.

They also enjoyed some crazy expensive boba. Man, you hear that Hawaii is expensive, and then you spend $22 on two drinks, or $6 on a loaf of sandwich bread at Safeway.

Lahaina has a lot of history on display, like this old prison turned into a tiny museum. This would have been one of the cells.

This was a banana tree on the prison grounds - those prisoners had it good with these grounds to relax in! 

Some of our several shave ice experiences, and Stace and I tried an acai bowl for the first time.

Another museum, this one the home of Lahaina white pioneering Baldwin family.

We stopped in at a quick-serve eatery focusing on pineapple products - Cora had a pineapple juice in a cut pineapple, while Violet had a mango-infused iced tea.