Maui!

I follow a local travel advisor on Facebook and Twitter, YYC Deals, and back in May he posted an alert about seat sales to Maui. Ken and I jumped on it and booked a vacation for the two of us - eight months in advance. And I guess that's the way we have to do things: non-refundable, and far enough away so that the calendar doesn't look too busy. As it turned out Ken had a super crazy January with his job and his calling, and we never would have taken a trip if it weren't already booked and paid for.

We stayed at the Royal Lahaina Resort in an ocean view room. We slept with the sliding doors open and really soaked up the gorgeous weather.

The mats in the elevators were useful reminders of reality; it would be easy to lose track of days on a vacation like this. In fact, at the end of our trip Ken and I were having so much trouble remembering what we had done on which day that he started building an Excel spreadsheet to figure it out.

I do remember that I did 7 am resort sponsored oceanside yoga on Monday morning. This is my view from my mat. As for the 7am start time, it was no big deal. Hawaii is just the perfect amount of jet lag. I also did one 7 am Pilates class at the resort, and I went for a run one morning as well. Ken did a long bike ride one day, and I think we both discovered that we feel pretty invincible at sea level when it comes to cardio.

Royal Lahaina Resort hosts a formal luau 6 nights a week. Along with the luau they have a professional photographer who will sell you a 5x7 at the end of the evening, which of course we bought, but I wish they would get with the times and go digital. This is a pictures of a picture.

At our table in our Hawaiian finery, with sun setting and the beach behind us.

Dinner

Dancing

The luau pork was dynamite and the show with the variety of dances was completely entertaining.

Actually, we ate well almost everywhere we went.

We had dinner at Dukes one night, just a little ways up the beach walk from us.

This is the place in Kihei where I had the best falafels of my life!

The town of Lahaina was just south of us, and we really enjoyed the proscuitto and arugula pizza at Longhi's. Also in Lahaina we had various treats like shaved ice and macadamia nut gelato. The burger of the month at our resort was a blend of sausage and ground beef with a garlic aioli and a grilled peach, which was dynamite. But the best restaurant we tried on that side of the island, by far, was called Basil Tomatoes, and it was on the same drive as our hotel. Ken had the cioppino, and I had seared opah (Hawaiian fish) with risotto and asparagus. They really know how to grill fish in Hawaii - I ordered similar meals more than once.

Ken really loves to drive and get the lay of the land on a holiday, so when we weren't floating on the ocean or laying on the sand we toured around the island. We took the west loop as far as we could go before we approached the section of the road that is currently closed on weekdays. The sign at this blow hole reminded us that it was not a water park, and not to go near as it might suck us down and out into the ocean. Behind it we could see whales, which we saw (along with porpoises) every day. We also drove south as far as we could go and found out the difference between the Big Beach (in Makena) and the Little Beach (also in Makena)(nudity).

We concluded we liked our area of Kaanapali Beach best,  and Ken is planning a timely return.