Maui Wowee--Part 2

"I survived the Road to Hana!" as all the t-shirts say. We invested one very long day into exploring the sights along the way. What a fun and unique experience! First stop was at "Jaws," a coastline famous for world class surfing. I was hoping for really big, scary waves but they were a bit weak (nothing like what you see on the Discovery Channel, much to my dismay).

I'm pretty sure this lovely lagoon could be paradise.

We stopped at an arboretum and saw some neat-o trees and plants. These trees were my favorite with papery bark in a rainbow of colors (green, pink, white).

Poor Isla didn't really nap this day because we kept getting in and out of the car, right when see would finally fall asleep. She did manage to sneak in a 10 minute snooze in the backpack.

We ate a quick picnic lunch of teriyaki burgers, banana bread and POG at a small food shack along the way.

Graham found this lovely hat at a nudest beach. I'm totally serious. He went snorkeling off of Big Beach one afternoon and went around this coral reef. When he popped up on the other side and swam up to the beach, it only took a moment before he realized he was the only one clothed. I wasn't there so can't be too sure how the acquisition of the hat came about, but if I had to guess, I would say he probably ran up to some nude dude, snatched the hat, dove in the water and swam off. You just never know with Graham....

We asked one of the locals where the best swimming hole was and she directed us to this one. We were the only tourists there (maybe the "No trespassing, no swimming" signs deterred the others?) and the water was so refreshing. This was exactly what I pictured the Road to Hana to be like.

 If you look closely in the picture below, you'll see one of the locals jumping off the bridge above. There wasn't room for error in the tiny sliver of water below so none of us did it.

Above the black sand beach at Waianapanapa.

The 7 Sacred Pools! This place was so beautiful. If ever I visit again, I will make it a priority to get to this place much earlier in the day so I can spend an entire afternoon basking in the sun and swimming in these near-perfect-looking pools.  

All of the boys decided to do some cliff jumping here. Look closely to spot Graham jumping to the left of the bigger waterfall below.

Rather than take the excruciatingly windy road back home, we opted to take the excruciatingly unpaved road (that was **cough** strictly forbidden in our rental car contract). The state park ranger informed us that there was only about a "two mile stretch" that wasn't paved. We still to this day are wondering which "two mile stretch" she was referring to. It was by far the most unsafe but exciting road I have ever been on. It probably didn't help that the sun was sinking low and shining directly in our eyes making it literally impossible to see the road (or oncoming cars or cows) up ahead. I'm pretty sure we drove through Mordor; it was so incredibly barren and dry. We had Scotty in our car and he provided us with some pretty amazing commentary of the sights. I think this wild car ride actually ended up being my favorite part of the entire trip, thanks to his live entertainment.

We drove along as the sun set and thankfully made it back onto paved roads by the time we lost daylight. We enjoyed this breath-taking view of the island before heading back down into Kihei for dinner.