The island of Maui is basically two mountains connected via a land bridge in between. To the east is Haleakala, a dormant volcano with massive sideslopes rising out of the ocean, and then across the valley to the west is the creatively-named West Maui Mountain range. It does have a Hawaiian name, but I forget what it is and probably can't spell it anyway. According to our guidebook (were now using Maui Revealed), as the island ages it will eventually slide back into the sea, which means the valley will disappear underwater and the mountains will become two separate islands. So you'd better get over there while you still can.
My aunt and cousin have homes in the same neighborhood in the town of Kula, which is on the western slope of Haleakala. There's only one highway up the mountain and it takes about 15-20 minutes to drive to Kula, uphill all the way. Given the protests from our Jeep engine, we weren't sure if it was going to give out. But sure enough, it made the trip and we were soon piling into my aunts house.
Then we did something almost unheard-of on an Oblivious Family Vacation®:
We did absolutely nothing.
After all of the travel, late nights, and hectic running around on Oahu, we were feeling pretty tired. So we decided to take a rest day. We hung out at the house, talked with our relatives, and read books. We had a week to explore Maui, so we could afford to have some downtime. At this point, it was definitely needed.
I don't have a lot of pictures of us doing nothing, so I figured I'd show off our accommodations. My aunt has spent a lot of time working on her garden on the slopes beneath her home, and the effort has paid off with a lot of exotic flowers. I didn't write down their names, so I'll go with my best guess. Maybe Julie will remember.
Here's the home:
And some of the specimens in the garden. First up is the "spindly red-and-orange thing":
And the "fuller red-and-orange thing":
"Reddish-purple flower":
The one item I remember about these plants was that my aunt was angry with my uncle for digging some up and throwing them away when she learned that they sold for $200 at the local garden shop.
Some of my aunt's newest purchases were some hibiscus plants with flowers as big as...well, as big as my daughter's head:
Some kind of orchid? I really should have written this stuff down.
Looking down from the deck:
Lastly, here's the view from my aunt's deck. You can see the West Maui Mountains with the island of Lanai in the background. And no, this did not get old.
And this was the evening's late sun. Unfortunately, we never got a great sunset from here because the mountains were always covered with clouds in the evening:
We had a nice family dinner that evening and would wake up refreshed and ready to start exploring.
Coming Up Next: We're on Maui. In June. Wearing sweatshirts.
Those bags though...wow, they are nice! I think there is a $2 surcharge on each T just to cover the cost of the bags.
But well worth it judging by the photos of your destination!
That's not to say we always made the best use of them...
