Well, we are now home in Cleveland. I didn't have a chance to write the last day or so that we were in Maui.The day before we were leaving Maui it rained on the north side of the island. You can see from some of these photos that it was not raining on in South Maui. Actually, this day was probably the most sun we got while we were on Maui. We drove down to Maluaka Beach, just south of Wailea in front of the Maui Prince hotel. It was gorgeous. We just hung out and took turns walking with Evan up and down the beach. We could see the area where we were staying from the beach we were on, and saw it getting poured on. On the drive down, we could see snow up on the peak of Haleakala. While at the beach, Loribeth called my cell phone to tell me it was on the news that it was snowing on Haleakala. Apparently this is a big deal and never happens.
Snow on Haleakala:
Once we got back to the condo, we ordered lunch from the Okazuya Deli, they have really great stir fry. The night before we left we took it easy. We picked up Loribeth from work, and Amanda came over. We ordered some appetizers from the Lahaina Store Grille & Oyster Bar and watched Comedy Central for a couple hours before heading to bed.
January 31, 2008
The morning that we left, Thursday, January 31, we saw some great rainbows from our lanai. We also had the chance to watch a mother and baby humpback whale, about 100 yards offshore, swimming across our field of vision. What we really saw was the baby practicing its breaching, jumping out of the water, the two whales spouting next to each other, and the hump of the mother's back coming up out of the water as she swam next to her baby. So, none of the full breaching and tail slapping that we saw off on the horizon a few days before, but it was still pretty cool. Loribeth ordered us white chocolate chip macadamia nut pancakes and a big kahuna omelet from Gazebo. Breakfast was delicious. Loribeth sat with Evan and played on the computer. He now knows about pbskids.org and asks for the Cookie Monster page.I dropped Loribeth off at work, and we took a photo of the amazing view of the house where she is a nanny for the rich and famous:
I have to admit, I will miss the Maui condo. We stayed at the Hale Ono Loa in Honokowai. It is two buildings down from where Loribeth lives, in the Kaleialoha. The particular condo we had, Unit 109, was fantastic. It is one of only 5 units in the entire complex that is ground floor and oceanfront. The yard for the other 4 units is all connected, but this particular one benefits from having a "front yard" that is practically to itself, so we didn't need to worry about Evan bothering anyone when he ran around outside. It was perfect. We were able to sit outside and eat our meals or have drinks and watch for humpback whales, sea turtles, sunsets and rainbows. We had the same view from a huge picture window inside the living room area of our condo. Here are some pics of our yard, if only I had such nice landscaping at home!
The trip coming back to Cleveland was a long one. We flew out of Maui around 4pm to Honolulu, our Honolulu flight was a red eye around 8pm, we landed in Houston at 7:30am (2:30am Hawaii time), and finally got to Cleveland around 2:30pm Cleveland time. Evan did a pretty good job sleeping on the flights, with the exception of when he coughed so hard that he made himself throw up all over me on the flight to Houston. Fortunately, there was only about an hour left to that flight before we landed.
And now that we are home, there's really no place like home. It's great to have reliable mexican, italian, thai, vietnamese, middle eastern and indian food to choose from within a ten minute drive of our house. Jon went to the grocery store and was back in no time, he commented at how when the lines started getting long at the grocery store last night that they paged some people to the front of the store to help bag groceries. That and he paid half the price he paid for milk in Hawaii. It's amazing the conveniences we take for granted.
At the same time, we took Evan to The RainForest in Cleveland today to get him out of the house. It was amazing to think we were hiking through a similar forest in Hawaii, only it was a real one. I think when I stepped outside this morning my tan instantly evaporated in the cold. As we were getting into the car to leave The RainForest, I slipped on a patch of ice.
So, it's good to be home, but I am definitely looking forward to working on my tan again in April when we go to Hilton Head!
Here's some pics from snorkeling that we finally had developed.
Enjoy!
Hanauma Bay:
