Hawaii day 3

In Hana, we stayed at this neat house with a spectacular view of the ocean. The house could be beautiful but it was badly in need of updating on the inside. I can't say I slept soundly because I was a little freaked out with the ants in the bathroom. It was neat to hear the ocean waves and rain. Early day 3 morning, we drove up to the beach. We could have walked but it was pitch black and we couldn't see where to walk so we drove the jeep down a little path and right up on the beach. Craig set up the tripod and started snapping away to get some beautiful sunrise photos. The beach was black pebble rock.











That's our jeep and the house we rented in the background.



After the photos, we packed up and got back on the road to Hana (this time returning the reg. way). There were many neat stops along the way where you could hike to waterfalls and enjoy the scenery.





After stopping to eat in a little surfer town, we arrived at Heaven (aka The Four Seasons). Oh what a lovely place. Boy were we spoiled there. We sat out at some cabanas, enjoying a drink and listening to the ocean while we waited for our room to get ready.




The room was very nice with a partial view of the ocean (from the balcony).

That night, Craig and I enjoyed a couples massage down in the hut by the ocean. This was nice, but could have been done a little differently to make it better, if I say so myself. The massage was great don't get me wrong...just some improvements could be made. We were down by the ocean, at sunset, but the way we were to lay down on the massage table, you couldn't see the ocean. If they would have flipped the tables around, we may have gotten to enjoy the sunset with our massage. I was disappointed because she didn't do my feet (probably cost extra). Anyways, after our massage, we had to walk back to the spa area with only our robes on and right by the busy patio seating of Spago (during a busy dinner time.) Not too happy about that!

Even though I could have changed a few things about the massage, Craig and I had a wonderful time and a very relaxing evening!

day 2 of Hawaii

We were awakened bright and early (1:30am Hawaii time) with a phone call. In all the confusion, I thought the alarm was going off and was about to jump in the shower but it was actually the phone ringing and shelby county schools on the other line telling us school was closed. Closed? Why was school closed? We called Martia and Jerry and to our amazement....they had received snow!




So much for Craig planning our trip so the kids could be in school to make it easier on Grandma and Grandpa. Would you believe the snow kept them out of school for 2 days! I'm pretty sure the kids didn't complain as they went to the Children's Museum and Chuck-E-Cheese.






Back in Hawaii....later that morning, we flew to Maui before sunrise. We rented a cute little red jeep (specifically a jeep for the adventures ahead!)

We found a McDonald's and a convenience store (for some dramamine) and took off for the winding road to Haleakala crater. The road was so windy Craig even got a headache. We really didn't have a lot of time to enjoy but got out of the car for a few photos. We weren't really prepared for how cold and windy it would be up there!







We didn't last long before heading back down to find our next destination....skyline eco-adventures for ziplining. There were 5 ziplines. They started off small and got a little longer each time. The last one was quite a drop.













After that exhilarating activity, we jumped in the car and started the next adventure (the whole reason why we have a jeep...)

We started the drive for the south route of the road to Hana. Yes, I said south route. When you look on a map, it's only indicated by dotted lines (because it's not even paved for part of the way.)

We stopped and ordered a burger...(which tasted pretty gross...something about the Hawaiian cattle tasted funky) and across the street was a winery right before getting on this crazy road. The winery gave free tastings of the local wines (probably not a good thing before getting on one of the most dangerous roads in America!!!)





At first, the south route wasn't bad with wonderful views of the ocean. But then the road turned into a bumpy mess. It looked like a truck just dumped large puddles of cement everywhere. This made the pace slow but funny. Eventually the road turned into a dirt road.






It wasn't that bad, actually better than the bumpy one. Eventually we got to a very windy road with lots of 1 lane bridges. The scary part about these bridges is that many of them you entered blindly, not being able to see if someone was coming from the other side. We had to honk the horn to make sure they knew we were coming. Occassionally we'd meet up with another car on the one lane bridge and one of us would have to back up and be careful to not go over the cliff (with no guard rails). The ride was quite scary but we did make it to Hana!