Well, the last two weeks have seem to just fly by, and we’re on our way back home to Chicago. The end of our trip has been most uneventful, but here’s the wrap up for completeness sake.

Friday
Knowing that we had to check out by 11am on Saturday, we decided to get a jump start on our packing Friday morning, and as depressing as packing a day early to go home sounds, that’s about summed it up. It was easier on us Saturday, though, since we didn’t have to rush.

We spent some time at Whalers on Friday, looking for last minute CDs and other gifts before heading out to Lahaina for our cocktail cruise with the Pacific Whale Foundation. This time, it wasn’t canceled, although the wait seemed a little long. Part of the delay was because it was “cruise ship” day as the first mate called it, because there was a cruise ship docking near Lahaina Harbor and there was an increased amount of traffic and security checkpoints for the cruise ship that was holding things up.

Back to the boarding process. When they were announcing the boarding was beginning for the cocktail cruise, they called out our names first, which threw us off for a moment (thinking we did something wrong or out of order). It turns out since we were PWF members, we received priority boarding and got to call dibs on the front seats on the upper deck. I guess that part really paid off.

After the cocktail cruise, we stopped back to Whalers for dinner, since we don’t really like to eat too much on those smaller sail boats, especially in choppy water. We actually had McDonalds, of all things, as our farewell meal for Friday. We usually eat that type of food about once a year, so that was it. We had to hit Haagen-Dazs one last time before we took that our usually nighttime stroll down Ka’anapali Beach under the stars and clouds.

Saturday
When we tell people about our trip, Saturday isn’t going to come up much. Aside from being the most depressing day of our vacation, let alone the entire year, there wasn’t a heck of a lot left to do that we had time for or room left in our luggage for. Checkout was at 11am, our rental car was due back at 4:30pm and our flight off the island was at 9:30pm. Bummer on all three accounts.

We drove back to Kahului after checking out and stopped by a few of the malls we looked at last year. The first was the Queen Ka’amhumanu Mall where we grabbed a bite to eat for lunch. We also stopped at the Maui Mall, mainly just to check out the rabbits that they had at the pet shop. Cindy ended up grabbing a few items from a clothing store that was going out of business, so that killed some time, too.

After dropping off our rental car, we’ve been pretty much sitting here at the airport, eating dinner at Stinger Rays, and waiting, and waiting. I’ve been hammering away at the site a little bit, so I haven’t been too board, but the feeling of waiting and prolonging the inevitable of going home and saying Aloha to the islands seems like torture.

Next week, as we recover from not being in Maui anymore, I’ll be putting the final touches on the full website and it should be ready by the end of the month. I’ll also throw up another post that pretty much summarizes the highlights of our trip and our plans for future visits (visits meaning plural). I also have a lot of photos and videos to go throw and upload, so I’ll be adding those links to the posts from the last two weeks as well.

Aloha Maui, and we hope to be back very soon.

Our second week in Maui has begun as the first one started, with the sun shining bright in the sky.

Monday

Monday was another driving day, so we jumped in the car and drove down to Wailea. It was about as long of a drive as we expected, but it was a nice drive. We ended up going down the Piilani Highway and not Kihei Road, which would have likely been more scenic.

Our main goal for driving down to Wailea was to check out the Shops at Wailea and get a little bit more familiar with the area, not necessarily a beach trip (although the weather was cooperating for one). The Shops seemed like a nice mall, and we were a little surprised that it was more crowded or busy as it was, like we had seen at Whalers Village. We ended up walking around for a little bit, took some pictures, and didn’t stay too long.

After coming back to our hotel, we decided to walk over to Hula Grill for a late lunch / early dinner. Another walk through Whalers Village followed dinner, and we found our way back to the hotel to taken in the Black Rock Cliff Dive one more time. Our night ended by making one more trip over to the Cannery and Safeway to pick up some snacks and other things we needed for the rest of the week.

Tuesday

With the sun back out, it was time for another beach day. So after breakfast, we jumped in the car and drove up to Kapalua. This time, we found it.

Kapalua Beach was a little smaller than we had expected it, and it was a lot more crowded that D.T. Fleming Beach that we went to last week. We were able to find a spot on the sand and I started taking photos while Cindy enjoyed the sun. There was some construction happening in the background where they were building new residences, but it didn’t bother us as much as you think it would when you see it.

There were a number of people snorkeling and scuba diving at Kapalua, and after looking through the polarizer on my Canon to deflect some of the sun off of the water, you could see reefs and rocks just hidden under the water. There was also a canoe lesson going on right there on the beach as well. All-in-all, it was a pretty nice beach.

As I walked around the lawn just north of the beach, I was able to see some of the snorkel activities going on in Namalu Bay, where the Teralani and Gemini boats were docked. There were also some interesting rock formations out near the snorkelers, which I just had to take photos of up until my memory card filled up.

We picked up subs for lunch again on the way back to the hotel. Cindy went back for a second helping of sun down by the pool while I stayed behind and worked on the website for a little bit more. I also was going through some of the photos and videos that we’ve taken thus far. After Cindy returned and freshened up, we took a quick trip out to Front St. and did a little bit more shopping at Whalers. I had another craving for some Hawaiian Pizza, so we ate dinner at the food court, picked up desert and came back for the night.

I guess you can’t have perfect weather every day in paradise, can you?

We hadn’t been paying too close attention to the nightly weather reports, so when we woke up to a cloud-filled sky Saturday morning, we were a little surprised. We had planned on the weekend being somewhat of a downtime weekend and staying local to our hotel rather than fighting weekend traffic, and were counting on the sun to provide some fun by the pool and the beach.

Saturday

Aside from the clouds, we did spend quite a bit of time outside on Saturday. We started off with a walk to Whalers like usual, but instead this time, we kept walking south all the way past the Hyatt. Back and forth, it was about an hour long walk, and it was neat to see the different hotels and condo units up along the beach. We noticed a few of them (more south on the beach) actually didn’t have that much sand and beach of their own. The sand was only 4 or 5 feet wide between the lawn or walkway and the ocean, and usually not the golden sand you see on the postcards. It made us appreciate our choice of staying at the Sheraton that much more.

After grabbing “junk food” for lunch by the pool, we cooled off in our room and then actually headed north of the Sheraton and walked the beach towards the Royal Lahaina and other hotels along the beach there. We actually didn’t know that was still considered Ka’anapali Beach until reading a few things while we’re here this trip. It was definitely a different scene with less shops and booths along the beach as there is south of the Sheraton, and it was a little less crowded as well (but again, it was cloudy).

We finished the evening with a small dinner of Chinese food at Whalers, taking in the free Hula demonstration they had there at 7pm, and getting our ice cream fix at Haagen-Dazs once again. As before, the only way to head back to our hotel from Whalers at night is on the beach, and that’s what we did.

Sunday

There were still lingering clouds on Sunday, but we already had planned on doing laundry anyway, so we didn’t have too many plans. Yes, laundry in paradise. That’s what happen when you vacation for two weeks and don’t want to bring four suitcases with you. It wasn’t that bad, actually, as I stayed near by and worked on the site while Cindy sat out by the pool.

It did consume a few hours, though, and after that it was time to get ready for our dinner cruise with the Pacific Whale Foundation. At least that’s what we thought. We drove on our to Lahaina, found parking near the Banyan Tree and went to check in. Little did we know, the ship we were expecting to board for our dinner cruise was sent out to Oahu two days earlier for scheduled maintenance. They were pretty nice about it and we got a refund on the spot. Cindy was actually able to pick up a few pictures and other souvenirs at their store while were there, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Seeing that we were already in Lahaina and paid for parking, we thought we’d make the best of it. We walked down Front St. and decided to have dinner at BJ’s Chicago Pizzeria (maybe feeling a little homesick). It wasn’t exactly the deep dish pizza that we were used to back home, but it was still good none-the-less. The drinks were pretty good, too.

After walking around, watching the sunset from Lahaina Harbor and doing a little bit more shopping, we called it a night and came back to our room to say Aloha to the weekend.