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Chasing Waterfalls

Monday, March 9th, 2009

Trip Journal entry for Monday, February 23rd.

Against the advice of that old Pop song by TLC, we set out to chase waterfalls.

An Early Start
Maybe not as early as our drive up to Haleakala a week earlier, 5:30am came a lot sooner than we typically prefer on a vacation. But, in order to be on the road by 7am and on our way to Hana before most everyone else, that’s what we had to do. To make it out the door early, we skipped breakfast in our room and stopped at Pauwela Cafe in Haiku along the way.

Many of the articles and reviews I read said to try Charley’s in Paia for breakfast, but we were happy with Pauwela. As far as TXT updates from my phone out to Twitter goes, the one from breakfast was the last one for the day. Where we were headed was far beyond the reach of area cell towers, and much more rewarding at that. This being our 3rd trip to Hana, and the first time driving it ourselves, we were headed off the beaten path and in for a very memorable day.

Being Our Own Guide
I have to admit, we learned a lot about the Road to Hana from the two previous guided tours we took in years passed. During those two tours, we hit all the popular places, including the Keanae Peninsula, Waianapanapa State Park, Wailua Falls, and the Oheo Gulch just to name a few. This time, it was about finding the things we hadn’t seen before, which was sort of the unofficial theme for the entire trip.

When it was time to be our own guide, we had a few options. There is the always popular Maui Revealed, of which we have both the 3rd and 4th editions. That, incidentally, was left at home.  There are also a few CD guides that pop right into the CD player of the rental car. That came highly recommended from our Maui friends on Saturday, but silly me forgot about it until 10pm Sunday night.

We ended up with going something more locally based, Maui – Mile by Mile, which was researched and written by folks on the island. It wasn’t until later that we realized there was a newer (and full color) version of the book from the same publisher, but it still served us well.

Hidden Treasure
Before we knew it, we were stopping at mile markers and crossing things off the list in the guidebook. Since we were staying overnight in Hana and skipping out on the larger sights we had already seen, there was little concern with taking our time, doing a little hiking, and watching the occasional car pass on by to the next stop ahead. There were so many great spots the guidebook led us to, I was lucky to have my GPS travel recorder with me to log all the spots we visited during the day.

Until I’m able to review those logs, though, a few of these treasures will have to remain nameless for now. Here are a few of the highlights, in pictorial form.

Maui Waterfall

Waikani Falls (Three Bears)

Pua'a Ka'a State Wayside Park

Hanawi Falls

For not being big hikers prior to this trip, we were really having a blast exploring some of these trails and less beaten paths. It was about 11:30am when we made it to the well known Halfway to Hana stand.

Halfway to Hana

With only a light breakfast in Haiku and some cereal bars to munch on along the way, it was time to break out the deli sandwiches we packed and start our picnic. Of course, we had to grab a loaf of the freshly baked banana bread they sell at the stand here, which was still warm, too. Yum!

Back On The Road
We must have still been making good time despite all the stops, because while we were eating, we didn’t see as many cars passing by as I thought we would have. After satisfying our appetites with lunch, it was back on the road and more treasure hunting. The second half of the drive to Hana wasn’t as enticing to us as the first 17 miles (at least this year), so we actually made it to Hana ahead of schedule.

We made a stop off at Hana Beach in order to stretch our legs, and for me to walk around and get some photos. Check-in at the Hotel Hana-Maui wasn’t until 4pm that afternoon, and by now it was only a little after 2pm. That gave us quite a bit of time to play with before we thought about settling in and getting ready for a nice, quiet dinner.

Seeing that Hana isn’t exactly a large town, the hotel was easy enough to find. We kept driving, though, and made a stop at the Hasegawa General Store. Now, we had been there in the past, but only for one of those off-the-bus-on-the-bus visits. Having time to actually spend there, it was quite a neat little store with a stark range of products for such a remote shop.

A Few More Sights
Still not time to check-in yet, we kept on driving and made a few more stops. Next up was the amazing Hamoa Beach. I like to think we’ve seen some very, very nice beaches on the island of Maui, but after spending some time walking around and taking in the mana at Hamoa Beach, I had to step back and reevaluate most of the others on a slightly different scale.

Hamoa Beach

After our time at Hamoa Beach, it was another visit with our old friend, Wailua Falls (and the talking Elvis Firebird, for those in the know). Most people know of Wailua Falls as seen from the bridge, but you really have to climb down the rocks and to the pool below to really get a sense of just how amazing (and tall) this waterfall truly is.

One of the things I learned pretty quickly last year was while you can admire the magnificent size of this waterfall in person, it’s nearly impossible to capture the entire scene in a single photo from down on the rocks. Not letting that discourage me, I did focus on various parts of the falls in segments, and of the shots I’ve gone through so far, this is one of the better results.

Wailua Falls

It didn’t take very long before I had a small gathering of folks down on the rocks with me, so I started making my way back up to let others have their turn. Our last few stops did the trick to compensate for being ahead of schedule, and it was time to head back to the hotel in Hana.

Our Home For The Night
Choosing to stay at the incredible Hotel H
ana-Maui as part of this overnight trip in Hana was truly beyond compare. Even after a full day of amazing experiences, the night was still relatively young as they say, and more magic was awaiting us. Rather than continue this particular journal entry any further, the next one will pick up the evening from here.

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Suds Before Sand

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

Trip Journal entry for Sunday, February 22nd.

The second week of our trip and we finally make it to the beach!

Awake Before Dawn
Sunday was another early start for me, and this time, I was attempting to do more than just catching up on my journal entries. My goal was to put together another time lapse sequence like I did last year. While the one last year was of the sunset, this year’s goal was to capture daybreak in action.

You might think it’d make sense to try and shoot the sunrise as a time lapse. Well, the problem with that, in my situation anyway, is that we were staying in West Maui and the sun rises in the east. I could have tried to get a shot of the sun breaking over the West Maui mountains, but I couldn’t find a good place to set that up and it’s also hit or miss because of the makua clouds, too. Besides, the best place to shoot the sunrise as a time lapse would be from Haleakala, as one of my fellow bloggers demonstrated last month.

The only real oversight I came across was trying to nail down the manual focus and leveling the horizon with the tripod in almost pure darkness. Note to self for future attempts, set those two settings the night before or sleep in a little later. I ended up with 3 different sequences of photos, mainly because I couldn’t find a set of exposure settings that would cover the span of dark to light very well. I’ll share the results here once I get time to process them into video clips.

The Laundry
Perhaps one of the few downsides to a two week vacation, you either have to pack two weeks worth of clothes (no way) or do laundry. We’ve always made a tradition out of doing laundry on vacation (future topic for our Travel Traditions), but this year was a little different than in the past.

Previously, we’d save the laundry for the weekend (no change there) and we’d be able to do it right there at the resort. The Sheraton didn’t have a large laundry facility, but it was enough to get the job done. Cindy would spend the time down by the pool while I hung around the machines and switched the loads, hammering away at something or other on the laptop. All was good.

As it turns out, part of the spa renovation at the Sheraton Maui Resort this winter replaced where the laundry facilities used to be. Bummer. So we had to pack things up and head to the laundromat. We found one in Kahana not too far north, and while we still finished in about the same about of time, Cindy missed out on her pool time. No biggie as today was our beach day anyway.

Going South
Just like last year’s beach hopping, we were headed down to South Maui to do some exploring and finding new stretches of sand to visit (another one of our traditions). We had gotten a later start on the laundry than we had hoped, which sort of threw off our other plans for the day. For example, we didn’t make it to lunch until almost 2pm, which should have been the 2nd hour of our beach and sun time.

Anyway, we ended up at another great local place for lunch, Da Kitchen Express in Kihei. Just like the deli tip from the night before, this one came in from another one of my Maui Twitter friends, and he was right on (no surprise there). Shortly after finishing our plate lunches, we hadn’t far to go for our first beach of the day, Kama’ole Beach II.

Kama'ole Beach II
Kama’ole Beach II

Kama’ole Beach II is one of 3 different beaches in Kihei that make up the Kama’ole Beach trifecta. We visited Kama’ole Beach I last year, and found beach II to be even better. If memory serves, beach II is just a little smaller than its predecessor, yet we found it was much less crowded. There wasn’t an abundance of parking, but we managed to find a spot nearby on S. Kihei Rd. If there’s one thing I hate more than driving over-sized rental cars on vacation, it’s trying to parallel park them. :)

Our beach hopping is usually comprised of about 60-90 minutes at each beach, and consists of Cindy getting her towel, water, and book all setup in the sand while I wander off and take a crazy amount of photos. Almost on cue, we were packing things up again after about an hour or so and we were movin’ on. Next up, Ulua Beach.

Ulua Beach
Ulua Beach

Up until last year, the majority of the beaches we visited were popular spots in West Maui. But after we found Maluaka Beach in Makena, we fell in love with these tiny little crescent treasures. Ulua Beach was just the ticket this year. Located in Wailea and one of at least four beaches along the Wailea boardwalk (also a first for us this year), Ulua had all the charm for us as Maluaka did last year. The skies were perfect, the sun was still pretty nice for later in the afternoon, and I had more than enough places to walk, climb, and photograph. So nice.

By now, we had pretty much lost all track of time. Next up on our beach hoping list, the popular Wailea Beach.

Wailea Beach
Wailea Beach

This beauty was one of those nice, long stretches of sand that you can also find at Ka’anapali Beach or Big Beach. And while we love the charm of the small, hidden beaches like Ulua and Maluaka, the shutterbug in me simply can’t pass up the opportunity to spend hours strolling up and down the bigger beaches on Maui, filling up my memory card faster than a visitor piling on the poi at their first luau. :)

Although we were pretty unaware of the time at this point, it was late enough in the afternoon where the sun wasn’t going to be burning us very fast. By now, a fairly brisk wind was picking up, which sort of spoiled Cindy’s chance for stretching out and enjoying the sun here, but it didn’t stop me from snapping a bunch of photos.

It was our first time visiting Wailea Beach, and the first time I really got to see just how huge the Grand Wailea was, other than driving passed it on the way to the Shops at Wailea. From the beach, you can see the towering buildings (which we were able to see from our helicopter tour), the chapel they have on the grounds of the resort, and the giant cabanas they have facing the ocean. It was pretty impressive to say
the least.

On the Boardwalk
During our tweetup the day before, one of our new Maui friends had mentioned the Wailea Boardwalk that was down where we ended up Sunday evening. While it wasn’t part of our original plans for the day, we found ourselves checking it out shortly before the sunset. Boy, that sure was nice. Not only did we see a few whales having fun away from all the boats that stalk them in West Maui, some of the houses and views along the walkway were breathtaking.

Had it not been so late and already into the evening, we probably would have walked the entire path. Something certainly to save for the next trip, for sure. We did stick around for the sunset, which, as you’d expect, was just as spectacular as some of the homes we were standing next to.

Wailea Sunset

Where Did The Time Go?
Crap, it was 6:30pm already? This is where getting that late start on the laundry I mentioned earlier really came back to bite us. You see, the day before at our tweetup, Liza had extended an invitation to Cindy and I to stop by her place Sunday evening. I had gotten to know Liza and her ohana online via Twitter (@AMauiBlog) and her blog, A Maui Blog, and we were very excited to say Aloha to all of them in real life.

It’s always a big deal when a local resident on the islands invites you to their home, and needless to say, we were really, really bummed that we had to take a rain check. Had we not gotten the late start on the laundry that morning, we would have already been packed for our Hana trip the next morning, done with our beach hopping 2 hours earlier, and toasting the sunset with Liza and her family. Mahalo, Liza, for the invitation and for accepting our rain check at the last minute. I promise we’ll make time for a visit on our next trip!

The Mad Dash
So there we were, all the way down in Wailea just before 7pm and we were leaving for Hana in less than 12 hours. While we actually made good time driving back up to Lahaina, the evening was far from over. We made a stop at Barnes and Noble at the Lahaina Gateway to grab a guidebook for our Hana trip, and then Safeway for a few groceries and things to pack for a picnic lunch on Monday. It wasn’t until 8:45pm when we finally made it back to our room, and we still had to pack! We didn’t even have time to eat dinner, either.

When it was all said and done, after packing for our overnight in Hana and all my techie preparations (camera batteries, memory cards, etc.) it wasn’t lights out for us until after 10pm. That 5:30am alarm for a 7am start to Hana sure was approaching fast.

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Whales and Tweeps

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

Trip Journal entry for Saturday, February 21st.

Saturday was a fun filled day with a parade, live music, food, friends, and whales.
All Day Party in the Park
Saturday’s plans were pretty simple, spend the entire day in Kihei living the local life at the Pacific Whale Foundation’s Whale Day Festival in Kalama Park. And that’s really what we did all day, enjoying some wonderful Maui weather outdoors all day, spreading some shopping Aloha for some local merchants, great food, live music, and meeting up with some local Twitter friends. It can’t really get much better than that for a Saturday. All told, it was just another great day in our trip tradition of live and local entertainment on vacation.
Although the parade was scheduled to start off the day’s celebration at 9am, we were pretty confident that we’d be able to make it down to Kihei in time. We skipped breakfast and had it not been for the now familiar amount of whale activity off shore at our resort, we would have been okay. There was something mesmorizing and slightly addicting about just sitting on the lanai with your binoculars, scanning the waters and chasing water spray after spray out in the distance.
As we made our way down to Kihei, we were cutting it pretty close. We had our photo shoot in the same general area the night before, so we had add a strong idea of where we were headed. In all honesty, it is afterall, an island, which makes it pretty hard to get yourself lost once you know the general areas.
The Parade
Anyway, we arrived at one of the designated parking lots (2 miles away) just in time to grab the shuttle, there was still a delay until we arrived at what was the starting point of the parade itself. The timing wasn’t perfect, and we only saw the last half or so of the parade. Still, we did manage to see the Maui Hockey float, which was cool for me, and we even saw some mean looking roller derby girls. I wouldn’t want to run into them in a dark alley, and as I would jump at the chance to lace up the skates with the roller hockey group, Cindy didn’t seem as likely to grab a helmet and roller skates for the derby. :)
From the time we made it there, the parade lasted only about another 20 minutes. Part of the parade included a float decoration contest in various categories, but we weren’t there long enough to get all the details and see all the participants. There were a number of floats that were tossing candy to the keiki, just like we’re used to at a July 4th parade back home, so that made us long for warmer days in the summer. There were also a lot of little dogs, and even a baby goat, in the parade dawning leis and some alohawear, too. Darn cute.
The sidewalks on both sides of the street were pretty full for the parade, so I’d have to say it was a success. Later in the day, it was announced that 10,000 people attended the festival that day, so it was nice to be able to be included in such a nice crowd.
The Merchants
With the parade over, it wasn’t quite time for some lunch yet. Instead, we walked arounds some of the tents and booths that various local merchants had setup on one of the lawn areas at the park. Not an official count, but there had to be at least 40 different booths setup, with everything from handmade jewelry, art sculptures and paintings to t-shirts, apparel, soaps, toys, and anything else you can think of.
The first time around, we were just browsing and getting a feel for all the different wares people were selling. Just about everything there was made in Hawaii, with most local to Maui itself. We made a number of trips to where the booths were setup during the day, and all told, we left with some great gifts (albeit for ourselves). It felt pretty nice to be able to contribute a little more to the local economy on Maui. And when I say local, I mean directly to the many little mom-and-pop shops and not just the large tourism-driven organizations. Although the tourism groups did get more than their fair share of our money, too.
One such merchant I had a lot of Aloha for was one small outfit known as 808 Clothing Company. They had some really cool designs that I really liked, and had to pick up a few shirts for back home. They also had a store directly across the street from the park, which I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to check out. The good news is, aside from all their work done right there on Maui, is that you can also order their stuff online. I’ll be hitting them up at least one or two more times this summer, that’s for sure. They were also just featured in this blog post from Essense of Aloha, so be sure to check that out for more info on these guys.
The Music
This was the 29th year that the Whale Day Festival was being held, and you can tell that they had this shindig down to a science. The live music was great, and it started early and could be held from just about anywhere in the park. The notables that we had looked forward to and really enjoyed included well known acts George Kahumoku Jr., Uncle Willie K., and John Cruz.
By the time Willie K. hit the stage, the large group that had setup on the lawn in front of the stage were all on their feet. We watched him on stage for a little while, but then decided to mosey on back to the shoreline behind the park. There is a rock wall separating the park grass area from the sand at the beach, and throughout most of the day, it was crowded with people. Among them, there were folks playing fetch with their dogs in the water, peering into the ocean looking for whales, or just enjoying the bright sunshine. We were still in earshot of the bands on stage, so it made for a nice atmosphere.
The Friends
The friends aspect was another great part of the day for us. At around 2:30pm or so, we met up with 2 of my Maui friends on Twitter. Often referred to as a “tweetup” among Twitter users, it was my first time talking to any of my fellow tweeps IRL (in real life) as well as the longest conversation we’ve ever had with folks that have been living on Maui for extended periods of time.

We talked story for over an hour and the conversation covered various topics. The best line of the afternoon had to be from Dave (@raatz) when he said he picked me out of the crowd because I was the only one fiddling with his phone every 2 minutes. Too funny! And here I was thinking we’d be easy to spot because we still looked like visitors.

The original hope was to meet up with even more Twitter friends that day, but it was still a great time for just the ones that made it. That type of interaction with Maui locals really made this trip special, and something I look forward to repeating on future visits
.

Local Takeout for Dinner
After a full day in the sun, and a some last minute shopping at the Whale Day booths, we decided to pack up and head back to the resort. Not feeling like going out for a full dinner, we followed a tip from another one of my Maui tweeps to checkout a takeout place called Honokowai Okazuya & Deli. It’s a small little takeout place that reminded us a little bit of a few of the small eateries back home.

From what we were told and read up on, it’s a pretty popular place with the local residents in the area, and you could certainly tell who they were because they were in and out in a hurry. I guess some might call it charm, but the woman running the place (or at least the register) is a little harsh and pretty intense. It didn’t bother us a bit, and was somewhat entertaining to witness, but I could see how it might upset folks more sensitive to those types of things.

Regardless of the service, the food was still great. I mentioned it was takeout, so we took it back to our room at the resort and ate dinner on our lanai. It was still a little chilly around that time than we remembered back during the summer months, but dining under a moonless sky full of stars was still a nice touch.

Stargazing
It wasn’t even halfway through dinner that I had decided I was heading down to the beach for some stargazing afterwards. It was already a little late, so I wasn’t planning on making a full event out of it. I did pack up my camera gear, though, and did a little shooting like I do every year. While I wasn’t able to capture anything as spectacular as the Milky Way like in the past, my attention was soon drawn to this little beauty in the sky.

Venus over Maui
That bright object in the middle of the frame is the planet Venus, and I was impressed with how bright it was shining without a moon in the sky. So bright, in fact, that you can see it was casting a pretty strong reflection in the water, just like the moon would or the sun during the early part of a sunset.

It was only an hour or so (I honestly lost track of time) while Venus continued its decent down towards the horizon, and after it had all but disappeared for the night, so did I.

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Aloha Friday on Maui

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

Trip Journal entry for Friday, February 20th.

Before we knew it, Aloha Friday was already upon us. It truly was an amazing day.
Rise and Shine
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.
To the Valley
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.
Iao Needle
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.
Staying Local
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.
Capturing the Moment
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.
Sunset at Keawakapu Beach
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.

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Our Aloha '09 Photo

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

Our Aloha '09 Photo

Every year, Cindy and I do some shopping on Maui to find new alohawear for our luau that trip. It is also a tradition to take a photo in front of our lanai before the luau, which we call our Aloha photo. 
Well, tonight was our luau this trip, and while the Trip Journal entries are still a few days behind, I thought I’d share our Aloha ’09 photo now. If you’d like to see the past photos, check out our Alohawear Travel Traditions post.
Mahalo.

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