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| Turtle Town Snorkling |
After snorkeling we came back to the condo and made some lunch and Kristen baked me my favorite white chocolate macadamia nut cookies and put some candles in them and we celebrated on the patio by eating the entire batch of cookies. In the afternoon we drove to Lahaina and went on a brewery tour of Maui Brewing Co. it is a small brewery but the demand is huge and it is super popular on the Island, the Coconut porter is one of their best and most popular. After the tour we drove about 10 minutes up the rode to their brewpub where we were able to get 2 free pints for doing the tour, our meal consisted of a Black IPA, Honey Amber, Baked Brie with pineapple honey sauce, and Nachos with Guac. the edge of the bar was lined with a ice ring, similar to coldstone where they just freeze the surface, it was pretty cool and kept the beer cold for a while.
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| Maui Brew pub in Lahaina |
Driving back we stopped on Front street in Lahaina which had a lot of character but you could tell it was a cruise ship port and was a little commercialized. We found a nice spot to watch the sunset on the shore and we climbed around on some of the trees that overhung the water. It was a really nice birthday and is going to be a tough one to ever match.
The next day was basically entirely a beach day, we wanted to have a complete day of just relaxing by the water, we did some casual snorkeling and saw 3 turtles swimming around close to shore, we followed them as best we could and it was really impressive to see how fast they could swim with such ease. Around 3 or 4 o'clock every day the wind picks up and most people leave the beach once the umbrellas start flying and you get pelted with sand.
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| Snorkling at the beach in front of our condo |
for lunch we headed to a fish and chips place right down the road and had some fresh caught marlin. we relaxed for a while and then later went to the store and got some food, we also got some food for that night. We picked up some sandwich stuff and snacks and headed to the beach park to watch the sunset and have some dinner, it was one of the most beautiful sunset we have ever seen and the sandwiches were really good also, we finished off the night with some more ice cream but it wasn't as good as the place we had went to the other night.
Sunday was a long day, it started early with a awesome gift from my sister, a stand up paddle board rental. Kristen and I have never done it before but both always wanted to, to save some time and money we decided to not go for the lesson and just go right out and figure it out ourselves. It turned out to be not to tough to pick up, there was a few waves that would occasionally get you off balance and knock you off but it was easy to get back on and after a while you got a hang of it. We went pretty far out for almost two hours. It was really peaceful and quiet, there was a small group of surfers out in the lineup, but other than that it was just us and a few turtles.
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| SUP |
After relaxing after paddle boarding we made some lunch and headed to the Condos pool for a while, it was a nice little area and we both sat read and took a nap on the patio chairs by the pool. We got ready and then headed out to the Ukulele Festival in Kahului, it was free and at a really nice performing arts center, it was really hot in the sun but we found some shade and got some Maui Brewing Co beer and enjoyed the music and a great atmosphere.
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| Ukulele Festival |
After hanging around the festival for a while we headed up into the West Maui hills to Iao valley state park, it was a small park but had a little path that ran along a stream in the valley. It reminded both of us of Jurassic park and I proceeded to hum the theme song the entire hike.
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| Selfie game is strong with the go pro |
tired and hungry we headed back towards home and stopped at Maui Taco for a quick bite to eat, I got a huge taco salad bowl and it was really filling and spicy, it even had a bit of pineapple salsa. On our way back it was right around sunset so we stopped at one of the many beach parks and just watched the sun set over the pacific. Like I said, it was a pretty long day so once we got back we just crashed.
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| Sunset in Kihei |
Long day on the Hana Highway today, the Hana Highway runs along the east side of Haleakala volcano, from north to south, it is about a 40 mile road that takes around 4 hours to go one way. We decided to only do about half of the trip, it wasn't to appealing being stuck in a car for 8 hours, we would rather do a shorter trip and explore more spots. We stopped at 4 spots, the first was Twin falls which had a big waterfall at the top of a mile hike up into the dense tropical forest, it was a tall overhanging waterfall but was a little crowded with people, we headed about halfway down and found another smaller waterfall but there was no one there, we were able to get some jumps in off the about 15 - 20 foot cliff, it was a good easy height and fun to jump off of a few times and swim around. We drove further and stopped at a few other locations until coming to the turn around point of our trip, at the end we stopped and saw a huge waterfall, around 40-50 feet that was absolutely gushing, it was pouring rain all day long and it scared a lot of people away which was nice, but it made for some awesome waterfalls, we went down from the road and got right to the base of the falls and as it poured we stood in the mist of the falls. we headed back home exhausted from hiking and driving and just hung around and watched monday night football and drank some local craft beers we had picked up the day before. It was a lot of fun today and was nice to get out in nature and do some hiking, even if it was in the rain.
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| Selfie game is strong with the gopro stick a little look at some of the footage from Hana Highway http://youtu.be/ZGZRcj8IVik P.S its compressed so the quality is not great, but the final edit will be HD |
