Day 6: Turtles and Surprise

Day six was a Monday.  We woke up, went to the beach, hung out, ran some errands, and then we surprised Jim with a few visitors at the airport!  Jim's sister, Adrienne and her two daughters showed up in Maui!  It was so fun having them there!  Tandra and Cassi were so helpful with Tralee and Hunter, and we all had the best time together.  I kept telling Tralee that Tandra and Cassi were her cousins, but she kept asking, "Where are my sisters?"  

After the big surprise went down at the airport, we took our new vacation buddies to Hookipa beach to watch the surfers.  We also saw a family of four sea turtles resting on the beach, and took Ade and her girls on a hike to one of the Road to Hana waterfalls.  

Can you find all the turtles?  They kind of blend into the rocks.

I love sea turtles! 

Our Hawaiian surprise!

After our hike we ran a few more errands, then went back to the hotel with our new vacation-mates.  The rest of the evening was spent relaxing, visiting, and gearing up for our next day in paradise!

Day 5.3: Our Last Adventures on The Road to Hana

Another waterfall 

Jim and Hunty catching fishies

Waterfall

We stopped at this little stand for a fresh pineapple

Tralee enjoying some pineapple

Coconut anyone?

We stopped at this little hippy-run shopping area on the drive.  There were some little shops (they were just tarps/tents set up in the dirt with merchandise inside), some food trucks, and lots of homemade coconut items.  We sampled some homemade coconut candy from an old hippy dude, the kids chased some chickens, we looked at jewelry, and went on our merry way.

Scenery

More waterfalls

Okay, so the last part of our drive was WAY adventurous . . . at least for me!!!  The one-way-road wound around mountainous cliffs with a free-fall into the ocean on the other side!!  I snapped a few pics to try and give you an idea of what it looked like from our end.  This part of the trip was beautiful and scary (for me)!

Check out that curve!  There's no way to see what's coming from the other direction, although Jim assured me that everyone is supposed to travel in the same direction on this road.  But what if there was some crazy tourist who didn't know the rules, and decided to zoom down this road in the wrong direction?  Boom. . .we're all dead!  At least our final moments would have been in Hawaii!

See that car in front of us?  If they were being dumb and texting while driving they would have missed a curve, and tumbled down that hill right into the ocean!  I'm glad they weren't dumb.

One more image of the road we traveled.  Amazing!

The whole day took us about 12 hours, and we only used a quarter tank of gas!  Awesome!  I never want to forget this road trip.  It was a perfect day spent with my loves! 

Day 5.2: More Road to Hana Pics

We hiked in the bamboo forest.  Very cool!

Tralee in the bamboo forest.  She kept asking if we were going to see a panda bear.

Why are guys always interested in who has the biggest piece of bamboo?  :)

Small cave on our bamboo hike

I made Jim pull over so we could look at the view.  There were tons of ravines, waterfalls, and other gorgeous scenery all along the road to Hana.

See what I mean?

Lots and lots and lots of trees at work!  This sign was on a hike we took.  We weren't sure where the hike would lead us, but we saw cars parked next to a trail, so we pulled over to see for ourselves.  It was a nice hike through the rain forest. 

Jungle!

Kids hiking through the jungle.  Hunter was sad because Jim and I made him walk for a bit instead of carrying him.  Silly boy.

The bamboo forest is below us.  There was quite a drop off right behind us.

We spent a lot of time playing around this waterfall.  Isn't it pretty?  We spotted it from the road.  There was another waterfall right in front of this one.

Do you want to see what Jim and Hunter are looking at?  Check out the picture below.

Here's the other waterfall I was talking about.

Can you find my crazy husband in the picture above?  He's the only thing in color, so it shouldn't be that difficult to spot him.

We told Hunter there was a baby pool just for him near the waterfall.  He loved it!  Check out his face.  Cracks me up. 

There's Jim jumping off cliffs again!

Hunter by the waterfall playing with rocks

Throwing rocks

Hunty playing in his baby pool

Kids and me by the pretty waterfall

Yet another waterfall along the drive

We saw a black sand beach on our drive (not the popular one in the state park you have to pay to get into).  We spotted this black sand beach on our drive, it wasn't even marked, but we saw a lot of surfers there, so we found the turn off and checked it out.  Turns out it was a place where a lot of locals go.  There were kids, probably close to Tralee's age, surfing on some decent sized waves like little pros.  It was amazing to see such small kids out in the ocean!  The pic above is Jim trying to catch a wave to body surf on.  He stayed away from all the people (and better waves), so as to not get in their way.

My son, looking all touristy in his ensemble on the black sand beach.

Tralee, also pulling of the, "I'm not from around here" look while watching her daddy body surf.

The next post will be the last of our Road to Hana day.  Stay tuned. . . 

Day 5.1: Road to Hana

On March 11th we decided to take the term, "Sunday drive" to a whole new level by doing the Road to Hana drive.  The drive did not disappoint one bit!  It was the most beautiful, adventurous, fun, exciting, awe-inspiring drive of all of our lives!  I took so many pictures this day, that I'm going to have to do day five in three different blog posts.

Tralee checking out the Koi pond before leaving our hotel.  Do you see all the Banyan trees in the background?  Gorgeous! 

My little model

Koi fish

Hunty and the Koi

I took this pic on our drive.  I didn't want to forget the scenery of our everyday commute around the island.

Hookipa look-out point.  We always stopped here to watch the surfers.  There aren't very many in the picture below.  The waves must have not been epic or something.

Mommy daughter moment at Hookipa Point

We drove down to the beach by Hookipa Point.  It's not a great beach for the littles because there's lots of lava rock and big waves, but there were always sea turtles around and tide pools to check out when the tide was low.  There was also lots of kissing opportunities with this little dude.  I can't kiss him enough.

I love my babies!

Maybe someday we'll get everyone looking at the camera at the same time.

This is what I run from and what surfers look for.

One thing that amazed me about Hawaii is the flora and fauna EVERYWHERE!  I wish I would have taken more pics of  all the flowers around.  I didn't.  This was about the only pic I took on our first hike of the day on our Road to Hana trip.

Jim being Jim at the first waterfall hike on our Road to Hana day

Keeping the important things dry while we jumped in to swim by the waterfall

Jim was the first one to check out the falls

He took Tralee out next.  She loved it.  Hunter was just fine staying on land throwing sticks and rocks around.

Jim took Tralee behind the waterfall

Jim cliff jumping

My turn to swim behind the falls 

Jim and my skin smelled citrus-y after swimming in the fresh water in Hawaii.  Proof once again that we were in paradise.  Seriously, we came out of all this fresh Hawaiian water smelling like a freshly peeled orange!  I know it sounds crazy, but it's true!

Tralee wanted to go back in

Walking away from the first waterfall of the day

 More Road to Hana adventures coming soon. . .