Friday, August 11, 2017

Our second day on the island of Maui was again, not very action-packed. My older brother, Chris, had decided a few weeks out from our trip that he would join us part of the time on our Hawaii trip and would be sharing the car and condo rentals. He wasn’t arriving until Saturday and I was hesitant to do any sort of grand activity that he might also want to do and end up having to repeat that activity or take away his opportunity to do it.

Furthermore, even after considering visiting a quick waterfall or two, or doing an adventurous hike, we were residing just north of Lahaina on the west coast and all of the most fun and worthy attractions seemed to be on the entire opposite side of the island in the national park, where there was more mountainous and jungle-y terrain.

I referred back to recommendations friends gave me before leaving to Hawaii and we decided that this day would just be a chill one and later we would visit the Nakalele Blowhole, which was only about 30 minutes north of us.

Our morning started out with seeing a cheesy, beautiful rainbow above the ocean from our lanai. There didn’t seem to be any clouds or rain in sight that are usually responsible for producing a rainbow, but there it was! As it turns out, Maui was notorious for having misty rain falling from the sky seemingly without a single rain cloud around and when the light reflected just right, it would produce dull, but long rainbows that stretched across the horizon. These were quite a treat to wake up to every morning.

In addition to rainbows, we could also see the distant islands of Moloka’i and Lanai from our fourth story balcony. These islands looked very dry and barren, but it turns out both are inhabited and probably even quite pretty once you’re on them.

We often times found it hard to get out of the condo because of the beautiful views and sounds of the ocean, especially since Kaua’i doesn’t have many tall, inexpensive condos to stay in where you can get these same amazing views, but we had to get out sometime in order to eat!!

For lunch, we were eager to visit the popular Maui Brewing Company, one of the only breweries on the island. It was funny coming from the state of Colorado, which boasts of over 300 breweries, to the island of Maui, which only had two. But I wasn’t complaining, since I’m not a beer fan anyway! Hubby is all about the craft beer, while I’m all about mai tais, margaritas, and pina coladas. Indeed, we were vacationing in the right place for me to finally get in my fair share of favorite beverages.

Along our one-mile walk to the Maui Brewing Company, we admired the many flowers that were not just located at the nicer-kept condo buildings, but also in residential areas. When we had previously visited Kauai, we didn’t see nearly as many flowers; perhaps because it was winter at the time.

By the time we finished lunch and walked back to the condo, a misty rain was just beginning to fall, which soon turned into a light rain. We took off for the Nakalele Blowhole anyway, assuming the rain would stop by the time we got there or be completely different weather on that tip of the island, but it wasn’t.

The drive from Lahaina up north to the Nakalele Blowhole on the Honoapiilani and Kahekili Highways was just a teaser of the crazy Maui roads we would unknowingly experience later in our trip. If I had thought the roads in Kauai on our previous visit were curvy and tight, Maui was definitely one-upping that. While there seemed to be just enough room for two cars on the road, it didn’t feel that way when coming around tight curves, where even being a foot out of your lane could be disastrous. Thank goodness hubby was driving so I could at least enjoy the beautiful scenery along the way (in between the times where I was yelling at him to slow down even further from his already slow 20-30 mph pace).

One interesting thing we noticed on our journey was a car beside the road that looked like it had been burnt to a crisp, rusted to the core, and left abandoned for a really long time. As we were driving past, a police officer just happened to be tacking on a bright yellow sticker threatening the owner of this crispy metal shell that it would be towed. Ha! As if they cared! As it turns out, we ended up seeing many cars like this in Maui that were left abandoned on roadsides. Apparently Maui has this problem because they have no where to send old vehicles after their junkyard closed many years ago.

To get to the Nakalele Blowhole, there was a short walk down lava rocks. Of course all the guide books said to not do this hike in flip flops because it was slippery, and to not go anywhere close to the blowhole because you could get sucked in after a geyser shoots up, so we carefully followed both those instructions…. not!

Hubby and I had only brought sandals on our trip because last time we had brought shoes to Hawaii, it was a big waste of luggage space. But my confidence that we wouldn’t need shoes in Hawaii, didn’t stop me from panicking before this hike and every other hike that every darn guide book said not to wear flip flops to like a dumb tourist. Little did these guidebooks know that I LIVVVVVVVE in flip flops. And what do you know… we ended up being just fine in our Reef sandals on this journey down the lava rocks to the blowhole.

The visit to the blowhole was kind of uneventful. You see and hear water shooting out of a lava tube every few seconds and that’s cool and all, but short-lived. Hubby and I take such boring photos, so in my attempt to make more fun out of the attraction and our boring stand-there-and-smile photos, I told hubby we should try timing a jump with the blowhole geyser and our camera. We did approximately 83 takes of this before giving up and only being mildly successful. And by successful, I mean awkward, as most photos ended being being us staring blankly at each other in anticipation of the geyser about to shoot up and wondering if we should jump or not.

What I was really looking forward to at this attraction was another sight steps away — a heart-shaped hole in the lava rock overlooking the ocean. This was also pretty uneventful but made for a cute pic!

After returning from Nakalele Blowhole and the heart shaped rock, we spent some more time relaxing at the small beach near our condo and Mingo came out to play again while we watched the sunset.

Next up: My brother joins us!