Maui Travel Journal-Thursday

June 15, 2006

Moving Day. We are off to Napili Shores today. As usual up early. Headed over to Sir Wilfred’s at Whalers Village for bagels and coffee. Pretty good deal-cup of 100% Kona and a bagel for 3.75. We got all of our stuff packed up. It all fit coming here why won’t it all fit now? Must be all the stuff we bought but we had plenty of extra room in the suitcases. Checked out of the Westin around 10am even though we had a noon check out. Only one discrepancy on the bill. Somehow we had a valet charge on the bill even though we self parked the whole time. It was taken off the bill with no problems. We had driven up to Napili earlier in the week so we knew where the condo was. We decided to drive north to Honolua Bay. There was a ton of cars parked there and at Mokule’ia this time. Glad we weren’t snorkeling there this trip. Matt wanted to keep driving since we hadn’t gone past this spot before. We stopped at the lot above Nakalele Blowhole but didn’t hike down since we had all of our stuff in the car. Ran into Dave from Maui Eco-Adventures. He had just come back up with his tour group. He said that they saw monk seals and turtles. Figured that we would come back later in the week. Kept going along the road to Kahakuloa. Definitely Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Narrow and winding doesn’t begin to describe it. I can’t imagine people driving this road in a car bigger than what we had (Chevy Cobalt). There is barely any room to pull over to let someone pass. It is a beautiful drive though. The town of Kahakuloa itself is situated next to a river that descends thru the valley. It is tiny and remote. Would we drive the road again? Maybe. It is absolutely not for those prone to car sickness. We were almost at the end of this particular stretch of road when we saw a van parked on the other side of the road with an older lady in the driver seat. She is parked on yet another hairpin turn and as we get closer Matt thinks that she has broken down when all of the sudden she yells “Smoke?”. I think that she wants to bum a cigarette until I see that she is making the universal motion for taking a hit of pot (keep in mind that we are traveling at about 15 mph). Now if you ever needed a joint it is probably after driving this road. However, by the time we figure out what she is doing we are about ½ mile down the road and have passed a police car traveling in the other direction. And the police car is now right behind us. Could this be a sting operation? Glad we didn’t find out. After many gut wrenching hair pin turns we were back in Wailuku and it was time for lunch. Unfortunately, we have no pics from this drive since I had put the camera in the trunk and there was really no place to pull over to retrieve it. We kept driving to Lahaina and hit AMP again. Another Kalua Pig Sandwich for Matt. I tried the Mixed Grill Plate, which had teriyaki chicken and beef and grilled mahi mahi. It was pretty tasty. We just had to try the Cheesecake Lumpia. Caramel Banana cheesecake wrapped in a flour tortilla, deep fried and tossed in cinnamon sugar. Just the right size for 2 people to share. This might be just as evil as the Hula Pie. After indulging our sweet tooth we made our way back to Napili Shores to check in. We got the room that was furthest away from the ocean but it was probably quieter because of that fact. The room was next to the koi pond and looked like it was in the middle of a garden. The room was much bigger than the room we had at the Westin since it was a studio condo. The grounds were very peaceful. The resort itself is old but clean. We rented the condo thru Outrigger although they can be rented from individual owners as well. There was a really cool cloud burst right after we got settled but it didn’t last long, maybe 5 minutes then just stopped and the sun was back out. We explored the area a little then off to the market. We couldn’t find the one right up the street so we drove to the Star Market in Honokowai. There we picked up breakfast and sandwich fixin’s. Once we came back to the resort, we took a walk to the other end of Napili Bay. We checked out the menu at the Seawatch Restaurant at Napili Kai in case we wanted to hit that up later in the week. Came back to the room to make sandwiches and grab a couple of beers. Then we were off to the pool area to watch the sunset with our drinks in hand. Saw some turtles in the bay around the rocks. They are almost impossible to catch on camera since as soon as they come up for air they go right back down. Back to the room to shower and plan out the next days activities. We had another bout of rain this time with thunder. This part of the island is much cooler and wetter than Ka’anapali.