Before we knew it, Aloha Friday was already upon us. It truly was an amazing day.

After sleeping in Thursday, I was back up before dawn playing catch up on blogging many of the wonderful things we’d seen so far. I was at it for quite awhile before it finally started getting light out. It wasn’t that much longer after you could see a hint of sun bouncing off of Lanai when 3 fairly large whales said “good morning” right off the shore nearby. I guess I wasn’t the only one getting an early start.

Friday had figured to be a big day for us. The morning plans were to head out to the Iao Valley for the first time and do a little hiking. The evening was set to be even bigger as we had scheduled a vacation portrait session with a professional photographer at sunset. More about that in a bit.

This trip was shaping up to be one of many firsts for us. Our drive out to the Iao Valley to see the Iao Needle and do a little hiking was another one of those firsts. You could say we “visited” the Iao Valley back during our first trip when we took our helicopter tour around the island. We did actually fly through the valley, but only for a few moments.  For this trip, we stayed there for almost an entire hour.

The drive itself was pretty nice. It actually was closer to us than we had thought, and we had no problems finding it (I do get lost every now and then). There didn’t seem to be a lot of room to park, but we did manage to find a spot in the second lot. It was a little chilly, but the air was so crisp and refreshing. There were some clouds overhead, but the sun was able to peak through every now and again. Something about having those giant mountains on each side of you made for a majestic feeling. Kind of hard to describe.

I guess you could say the main attraction of the Iao Valley is the Iao Needle, which is right there ready to greet you as you walk up the steps from the parking lot. Yet, like so many other things on this amazing island, there is much more to see than just the main sights. We took our time walking along the different cement paths that go through the valley and along the stream down below. 

At one of the turns, we found a dirt (actually, mud) path that branched off closer to the stream that looked like it was followed often. Although we hadn’t done much hiking in the past, and on a whim, we decided to give it a shot. Before we knew it, we were trekking through the forest. It was a pretty neat experience, and after we lost the main path behind us, it started to feel like it was just the two of our out there. We made our way further down the path and even closer to the stream. The sound of the roaring water rushing over all the rocks was unreal. I can only imagine it wasn’t much different than that some 300 years ago.

After our visit to the Iao Valley, we decided to stay local in Wailuku for a little while longer and find some lunch. We hadn’t planned ahead for this one, so we were just driving around looking for parking and somewhere to eat. We found a parking spot right near the Iao Theater, which gave us a nice point of reference to get back to. We ultimately found our way to a food court with a few different dining options. We went with some sweet and sour chicken and fried rice at the Royal Island Drive Inn, which turned out to be really, really good.

While the morning was already a great start to the day, we knew the highlight of Aloha Friday was planned for later that evening. We walked around Wailuku for a little bit longer after lunch, but we were anxious to head back to the resort to get ready for our portrait session that evening.

Last year, we were walking around Whalers Village and I noticed a kiosk that was setup along the beachwalk for portrait photography. I kept that in the back of my mind for planning during this trip, and after some searching online and a referral, we ended up scheduling a session with photographer Natalie Brown. The backdrop for our session was the northern end of the peaceful Keawakapu Beach in Wailea. Here’s a shot I took from the beach after the sunset. It was a truly spectacular view.

The session started at 5:30pm, but we planned on being there earlier than that because we hadn’t been down that way before. We had tried the night before, but the traffic nightmare that ensued prevented us from getting anywhere. In any case, we found the beach and the parking without a problem, and ended up with quite a bit more time on our hands than we had expected. We decided to drive up a little north to Kihei to check out Kalama Park for the Whale Day Festival the following day, as well as the roller hockey rink that was literaly steps from the beach. How cool is that?

Before long, we were back at the beach, and had a nice peaceful walk along the shoreline before Natalie arrived. Initially I thought we’d both be nervous about getting portraits taken, but as the time approached, we were getting pretty excited. From the moment we met Natalie, we really hit it off well. She has a very fun and engaging personality, which I imagine is a huge requirement as a wedding and portrait photographer. 

It wasn’t long before we were posing and snapping away. We had a lot of fun with the hour or so that we were taking photos. As I mentioned, the sunset was amazing that night. The colors, the clouds, it all came together almost magically. Natalie had a shoot the night before and said the sunset was nowhere near as incredible. I guess we lucked out, maybe? In any case, it was a lovely night, and one of the most special things we’ve done on our trips to Maui. We couldn’t wait to see how they came out.