Aloha Maui - and Hawaii

Well, this is it. We got up this morning to pack for our trip home. It's much easier to pack when going home than it is to pack leaving. You just take everything with you, and hope you're not overweight (the luggage that is). Although I'm not so sure our bodies weren't too.

We had a fairly leisurely time at it though. We didn't have to be out until 10:30 am and we were up around 7 or so. When most was packed, we cleaned out the fridge as much as possible, eating bacon and eggs, and toast, making sandwiches, slicing cheese, etc. We were packing a lunch too.

Anyway, we managed to get out right on time and thought we would head down the south shore since we had not gone to that area at all, and the drive wasn't far.

This is just another scene. You can see the island of Kaho'olawe (the uninhabited one) is much closer to the south shore than where we are. And Molikini (the snorkelling spot) is closer too.

We drove through Kihei along the shore. This is "beach town" on Maui. All the cheaper hotels and inns are here (my impression), and it has some great beaches. It's a pretty contstant flow of traffic and people.

If you go a little further, you run into the town of Wailea. Wailea is much more upscale. The big hotels and golf courses are here (Four Seasons, Fairmont, Grand Wailea, etc.), and there are some very nice beaches down here too.

If you go a little further, you run into the town of Makena. Makena lacks most of the hotel scene, but has very upscale homes, so a beautiful part of the island, a little secluded from the busyness up the shore.

Beyond Makena, the road narrows and starts to become rough. In fact, a road has been slapped down over top of the lava flow that is still so barren looking. Right at the end of the road (can't go any further), you drive out onto lava that flowed down from Mount Haleakala in 1790.

We backtracked to find a beach with picnic tables and facilities so we could have some lunch. We found Kalama Beach Park where we watched a beach volleyball game, and this little guy joined us.

We had time to kill, but didn't want to go very far, for a couple of reasons: 1) we had to be at the airport for a 6:45 pm flight, after returning the car, etc. 2) we were almost out of gas, and Gerard wanted to return it empty! You have to squeeze every last dollar out of it (we had paid for a full tank with the rental, so we can just return it at any level - preferably empty).

Along the way to the airport is a large sugar cane plantation. In fact you can see the burning of the bagasse (what's left of the plant after removing the sugar) almost constantly. Probably Maui's most voted eye-sore. Anyway, here are a couple of shots of sugar cane growing.

It's pretty tall, and thick.

We made it to the Kahului Airport and changed into our "going home clothes". We said our good-byes to the Thompsons. Thanks, Bob and Bev, for helping to make the last 2 weeks of our trip so memorable!

It's always sad to leave a place we love, and we will have plenty of good memories, and have made mental notes about revisiting in the future.

This is next to the security line at the airport and is called "Maui Releasing the Sun". An Hawaiian legend says the demi-god Maui lassoed the sun over Haleakala volcano in order to slow it's progress over the island so his mother's laundry would dry. OK.

We started the flights, leaving Kahului, Maui, and flying back to Honolulu to catch our flight to Los Angeles. We had quite a layover there, but then caught our flight to Toronto. It was nice to be able to check in at the Kahului counter for all legs of our flight, and we could say, "Bye-bye luggage. Hope to see you in Toronto!" Just like magic, it showed up!

It is currently 8:55 pm eastern time on Sunday, so we're home now, and all of this blog feels like it just happened today, even though it was yesterday and today.

I'll do a wrap-up of our experiences in one last blog that I'll probably post tomorrow, with input from Gerard.

Aloha Hawaii. A hui hou kakou (until we meet again).