Hawaii - Maui - Days 1, 2 and 3

Settle in folks, I have four (plus a bonus) posts about our trip to Hawaii planned.  Four will be about the trip itself, and then I'll do a separate post about our accommodations, we stayed in three different places, all quite different. 

A little intro on this trip - Dave works as a sales executive for a software company, and like many sales jobs, there are incentive trips if you hit and exceed your annual targets.  Last year we got to go to Barcelona (with a pre-trip to Lisbon) and this year the trip was in Hawaii.  (Next year it is London, England, so fingers crossed!)  

The company part of the trip was on Oahu so Dave and I picked Maui as our first destination.  It is a lot to get packed up so quickly after Christmas, but worth it in the end. 

We left on Thursday, January 2.  I caught this beautiful sunrise in Toronto as we ate our breakfast.

Ready to board the plane.  We had a direct flight from Toronto to Honolulu, about 10 hours.  We were delayed slightly but no real issues in the end.  (By the way the scratches on my face, which will disappear during the trip, are from an altercation I got into with Q.  He was mad we didn't have any more rice because he's three.)

First glimpse of the Hawaiian Islands.

We had a short layover at the Honolulu airport before hopping back to Maui.  This is a seating area within the airport, just lovely.

Quick bite to eat and beer between flights.

We landed in Maui, picked up our rental Jeep, stopped in at Target (to get some snacks and an extra Go Pro battery), and then drove to Lahaina for supper.  It was dark as we drove so we didn't see much but were glad to be near the ocean.  We ate at Aloha Mixed Plate.

A guava mojito.  It was about 8:00 pm local time, which meant 1:00 am for us.

They had lots of good Hawaiian and Polynesian choices.  Dave got to the Bento box with pork, fish, rice and vegetables.  I had some shrimp noodles.

From there we checked into our hotel in Kaanapali and quickly went to sleep!  The next morning we were up pretty early, given the time change, and then set out to find some breakfast.  Duke's Beach House hit the spot.  We had a lovely view, some Hawaiian tunes, and delicious food.

Hi Dave!

I had the Paniolo omelette which was basically like Huevos Rancheros, and a side of the local granola and coconut yoghurt.  Also the best coffee!

This snail was pretty big.

Rainbows are a dime a dozen in Hawaii!

Then we went back to our hotel and set up for a day by the pool.  How pretty!

I barely moved from this spot as I read an entire book.  Although I missed our children on this trip, I did appreciate a full uninterrupted pool day.

It was mostly sunny all day but then light showers were blow through periodically.  It was fine though, we had an umbrella and it was mostly just refreshing.

My drink of choice for the week.

I like to match my outfit to my beer :)

Our resort didn't have much of a beach, although there were others down the shore.  But I dipped my toes in the Pacific as we went back to our room.

We got changed and then took an Uber to Lahaina to meet up with one of Dave's colleagues who was there with his family. We met up at Fleetwood's for Happy Hour.

Can't beat this view and we even saw some whales.

After that we wandered down Front Street and went into a few shops and then we saw this Banyan Tree.  It is huge, originally planted in 1873 it has spread out over this entire park.  It roots down with new trunks to support its weight so although it looks like many trees that have joined up, it is really just one tree.  

We then walked north on Front Street and came across another rainbow.

We ate dinner at Honu.  The food was fine but I feel like we could have done better.  We shared a pepperoni pizza and the green goddess caesar salad and enjoyed the views.

We were checking out of our hotel the next morning but went for a run first.  Now that we both have Airpods we can listen to the same music while running and only Dave has to carry the phone.  Before we turned around - beach view...

...and golf course/mountain view.

We left our hotel and drove north to Hawaiian Village Coffee in Kahana for coffee.  We had some delicious breakfast sandwiches, and more great coffee, before we set out on our little road trip to our hike.  We chose to drive around the northwest side of the island on the Kahekili Highway.  I'm glad I didn't look this up before we started because apparently it is one of the most dangerous roads to drive on.  I did the driving which was great because if Dave was driving I would have been more nervous (not that he's a bad driver of course, just that I felt in control with me driving).  It is very twisty and turny and there are parts where it's down to one lane around blind corners, and also with fallen rocks from the cliffs.  We never had any problems, but you're on the edge sometimes without guardrails so a little nerve-wracking.

Our destination was the Waihee Ridge Trail.  We chose this one as it seemed like a good middle of the road hike, 2.6 miles on some rugged terrain.  Not 10 miles like another one we saw, and longer than a family friendly 1 hour hike. 

As we got up into the mountains, the clouds obstructed our views.

It rained on and off and poured on us once.  We saw lots of muddy hikers, most of which did not have their hiking boots (like we did) and instead had ruined sneakers.  The water running down the trail looked liked coffee with cream.

We made it to the top! But nothing to see but fog.

Back down with our muddy boots.  It took us an hour and 15 minutes to get to the top and then just over an hour to come back down.  

Before we headed out we took the soft top on our Jeep down to drive to our next destination of Kihei where we'd be staying for the next three nights.  But first we needed lunch.  Downtown Kihei has a lot of tourist trap places but we found a gem at Three's Bar and Grill.  Mai Tai's on the deck and a late lunch.

We continued onto our bed and breakfast and then quickly headed down to the pool to relax before dinner.

Sunset views from our lanai.

We went to Monkeypod for supper.  This came highly recommended by many people and I see why, the food and atmosphere was fabulous.  We had made a reservation but we showed up early and got a spot at the bar instead.  I can't remember what Dave had but I had the fresh fish sandwich and it was delicious.

Yum - coconut cream pie!  We dug in before I got a photo, so delicious. 

Our Maui adventures continue tomorrow.