2nd Port of Call: Maui (Day 1) - Jan 23, 2008 - Kahului, Hawaii, United States

Day 1 in Maui saw us heading to the little mountain town of Hana. The highway there is quite famous for it's beautiful scenary, narrow lanes, and winding curves. Our bus stopped often, though, so it wasn't bad at all. I think I remember the driver telling us that we would be going around 625 curves in all, and I can't remember how many bridges and waterfalls, but there were a lot! It was very green and lush. They get around 400 inches of rain per year which was plain to see. We stopped in the town of Hana at the Hana Ranch Restaurant for lunch. It was an open-air restaurant (no actual walls). Part of it had a roof, but we sat on the patio with some others on the tour from Boston and Chicago. We had the cheese burgers and fries which were absolutely delicious.

After lunch, we went a little further up the mountain to the Halekalala National Park. There was a 1/4 mile trail leading down to the shoreline which most everyone chose to take. It was not at all steep and wound down and around odd varities of trees, including Banyan trees which have to be seen to be believed! The trip down the trail was well worth it. The pictures don't do it justice...it was so unbelievably beautiful. You can see from the picture that it was very, very windy, so the ocean was very loud, too. The wind tended to be a bit chilly also as it blew in from the water. It was a popular spot for visitors to picnic if they didn't mind the wind!

The sun had come out after lunch, so our trip back to Kahului (the port city where the ship was) was just as beautiful. Even though we were seeing a lot of the same things we saw earlier that morning, having the sun shining made it all appear completely different. We were very glad that we had chosen this particular shore excursion.

Since we were in port tonight and not moving, we decided to go to the showroom and catch a performance of the comedian scheduled to appear. It was hilarious, and we actually ran into him a couple of days later in the buffet dining room and talked to him for a few minutes.