Wednesday, June 26
After a day of hard driving on Monday, and battling the elements on Tuesday, it was time for another rest day. We lounged around the house for a little while, enjoying our coffee and the view from the deck, and then headed down to Kahului later in the morning. We had promised to make dinner for our hosts in the evening as a thank-you for letting us crash at their place, so we needed to do a little grocery shopping. Julies world-famous spaghetti sauce uses only the finest ingredients available at the Costco, you know.
Julie had wanted to stop at a fabric store wed seen a few days earlier, hoping to get some unique Hawaiian fabrics to make a quilt for our little stowaway. But first, we made a detour on the way. It had been 5 days since our last deep-fried apple pie at McDonalds and we were going through withdrawal. So we had to remedy that situation. As we entered, I noticed this poster in the window offering a new delicacy:
Any takers?
I suggested that we play Pie Roulette: we could buy 4 apple pies and 1 taro pie, remove them from the boxes, shuffle them around and then have everyone pick one and bite into it. Nobody else seemed enthusiastic about this idea. What happened to everyones sense of adventure?
Did I try it? What are you, nuts? Just look at that picture. Gimme the apple pie, please.
On to the fabric store. I had about as much interest in a fabric store as I did in eating taro pie. Luckily, there was a golf shop right next door, so the boys and I took refuge in there
and then Scotty happened.
After trying out the latest in golf fashion, we met up with the girls. Julie seemed to be pleased with a successful shopping excursion, so we headed to Costco to pick up groceries. We decided to take a trip through Paia to a scenic lookout just east of town near Hookipa Beach. My aunt had told us it was a good spot to see surfers, kiteboarders, and windsurfers as the seas were usually rougher on that side of the island. The overlook is just off the Hana Highway past a restaurant called
Mamas Fish House. Heres the view of the beach from up top:
Yeah, you could do worse. As my aunt had predicted, the surfers were out in force.
And so were the windsurfers.
It was a bit windy on this side of the island, and the waters were churning a bit. Its hard to get a sense of the scale of this wave hitting the coast, but keep in mind that we were standing on a high plateau looking down at the coast here.
We enjoyed the view from up above for a while and then made our way down to the beach itself. It seemed like a popular spot for sunbathers, and some people were even braving the rough seas here. However, we soon discovered there was another draw for visitors to this beach.
I wish we could have bottled Sarahs joy at this point, since we now had MULTIPLE turtle sightings. These guys were just lying there, sunning themselves, without a care in the world. Many people walked all around them, getting very close for pictures, and they didnt seem to be bothered in the least. The only time we saw a turtle show even a hint of annoyance was when a wave came crashing in pretty far up the beach, getting him all wet. The big guy starting waving his flippers in annoyance at the ocean, sort of like when your grumpy uncle is trying to avoid the rest of the family by lounging in the swimming pool and then the kids start doing cannonballs off the diving board.
Anyway, we hung out here for a while so we could present this Green Sea Turtle photo shoot.
We started getting ready to leave, when a fourth turtle chose that moment to come ashore as well. So we decided to hang out and watch him crawl up the sand.
Very.
S.
L.
O.
W.
L.
Y.
Well, what did you expect? He is a turtle, after all. (Or maybe she. I didnt really try to find out.)
We decided to head home and walked back up the beach, still enjoying the view. We loved the colors of the windsurfers against the ocean and the mountains in the background.
And with that, we headed back up the mountain to my aunts house. We spent most of the afternoon working on dinner for my aunt and cousins. Someday, youll have to try Julies spaghetti sauce. It rivals the Key Lime Pie of Awesomeness for perfection in category. In fact, Im going to go ahead and dub it the Spaghetti Sauce of Awesomeness©, just to make sure the title gets copyrighted properly.
Slow day. Easy day. I could get used to that.
Coming Up Next: Hey, remember that interview I had right before we left for our vacation?
for the Green Sea Turtle photo shoot! 
But YUM on more apple pies. But it purple ... my favorite color. 
