Maui part 2

Day five This was the beginning of vacation for Jason so he was pretty excited about that. We decided to rent a car so we went to the front desk to see what they had available. The only car that they had available was a red mustang convertible, so we took it. We got in the car and headed south as far as we could go and we came across this huge lava field that just ended in the ocean, it was weird and cool at the same time. It was also a little strange walking out on it the heat was really intense we didn't last very long before we decided to head back.

Our next destination was to go and see the Haleakala National Park, I had this national park passport book that I started to get stamps in a long time ago with Jeffery, and I found it recently and when I was planning the trip to Hawaii I checked to see if there was a national park in Maui that we could go to and there was. The drive took us about and hour and half to get there we were headed up to 10,000 feet above sea level, and as we were headed up the weather got worse as we went, at one point it was so foggy we could barely see the road in front of us. This was all very unnerving because we couldn't see much and Jason was driving like he always does pretty fast and we were going up these crazy switch backs up this mountain that didn't have awesome guard rails and as we got up even higher there were no guard rails at all. We stopped at the visitor center and I got my stamp then we continued up the mountain. We made it and we didn't get to see anything we got out to walk around but there was nothing to see it was all covered in fog. It was also only 49 degrees so we quickly got back in the car and headed down the mountain. It was a bit of a buzz kill there was suppose to be a crater we could explore and check out but oh well at least I got that stamp in the passport. On the way down it started raining and the visibility got worse, I kept imaging us driving off the mountain and what was going to happen to our boys, but we made it down and the weather cleared up and we were able to put the top back down on the car.

We stopped for dinner at a restaurant that was recommended in the Foders book I had, Matteo's Pizzeria, my Caesar salad was delicious but the pizza was awful, we were both pretty disappointed about dinner. We made it back to the hotel in time to watch the sunset on the beach, we discovered that there was a haze along the horizon every day that made the sunsets a bit of a disappointment to watch but I still loved the whole experience.

Day six (Valentine's Day), we still had the car until noon so we headed to find some breakfast (food at the hotel was ridiculously expensive we did find a little cafe that we could get a breakfast sandwich for 7.50 which was much better than anything else that they had) We ended up at McDonald's the food was yummy and much better priced. We drove past the last sugar plantation on the island and they had a museum so we stopped and went to check it out. We were the only people there under 60, it was a little lame but oh well.

We made it back to the hotel just in time to turn in the car and we headed to the beach for some sun. By mid afternoon we were both ready to head in and get cleaned up for the day, and then I wanted to go and do some shopping. There were some shops about a 10 min walk down the beach trail.  So we got cleaned up and headed out shopping.  The shops were mostly high end stores, but it was still fun to browse and shop. 

It was getting to be dinner time and we needed to figure out what we wanted to do for dinner, it was between making a picnic and heading to the beach and have a picnic and watch the sunset or find a restaurant.  We tried to decide on somethings for a picnic but nothing was coming together so a restaurant it was.  We went to Cheeseburgers Paradise or something like that.  The burgers were just okay, the onions rings were good and so were the drinks.  But this was strike 2 for picking restaurants for dinner away from our hotel. 

We picked up some things to bring home with us and headed back to the hotel.  On our way back to the hotel we came across about 4 couples that were getting married or had already gotten married and were taking wedding photos on the beach.  I thought it was romantic to get married on  Valentines Day, Jason thought it was stupid.  He is such a romantic.  When we got back to the resort we climbed in bed and watched TV till we both fell asleep.

Day seven, this was our last day in Maui and Jason wanted to go snorkeling again, so we got up had breakfast and then headed to the beach.  We headed out to the same spot we went before and the coolest thing happened, we saw this turtle swimming he kept going up and sticking his head above the water and diving back down.  We just swam around with this turtle for ever, at one point there were two turtles and they bumped into each other and then went there separate ways.  They didn't care that we were following them, Jason was so close at one point he probably could of touched him if he had tried.  We spent some more time on the beach to dry off and enjoy as much of the sun as we could.

With our flight not leaving until 11:30 we had all day to kill, we finally cleaned up and then hung out in the lobby lounge until it was time to leave for the airport.  In a funny twist Jason was not ready to leave he wanted to stay longer (for those that know him he hates to travel) and I was ready to go home(I usually love traveling).  Overall we had an awesome trip and I am so glad that we stayed for those couple of days.  This is the first time since we have been married that Jason and I have gone somewhere by ourselves that wasn't work related.  The first part of the trip was kind of work for Jason but he still got to have a little vacation at the end of the work trip.

I loved the torches that were lit every night by a mostly naked man blowing a conch shell, it gave the place an awesome atmosphere.  This was such an incredibly beautiful resort we were very lucky to get to stay here.

Waiting at the airport for our very full flight home.