Photos
Sorry the photos are out of order again. I hate PhotoBucket!
Here are scanned copies of today's
Personal Navigator and Maui Shopping Map.
We had an early start today with all ashore at 7:30am. That meant they opened the restaurants early. We had BBB and ate out on the back deck.
We were off Wonder before 8am and while we waited in a big line for the Thrifty shuttle to the airport, they were running big buses pretty close together and we were in our Chevy Cobalt by 8:05am. We paid $40.53 for the rental today. Gas fill up was at Tesoro and a total of $20.94 for 4.275 gallons at $4.899/gallon. Have you noticed that gas is really expensive in Hawaii?!
The main problem with such an early start is generally that nothing is open yet! Since we had gotten such an early start, we went first to
Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens in the
Iao Valley to see Iao Needle, a geographic feature. The park opens at 7am and is free. The lower parking area is free, but it is $5 to park up top at the
Iao Valley State Park at the trails to see Iao Needle! We parked in the lower first and wandered the monuments and architectural samples of the different nationalities that have come to Hawaii. We did not see a way to walk up to the upper park area, so we drove up and paid $5 to park. We hiked all the paved trails and enjoyed our time in Iao Valley. It was like a wind tunnel in there, which was nice with the bright morning sunshine. It was a beautiful place and full of the sound of rushing water. The shade and the wind made the walk comfortable. There were about 125 steps to the highest point to get closest to Iao Needle. I didn't count how many steps to the lowest point along the Iao Stream. But, we got in a good walk in a beautiful landscape.
We drove back downhill toward Wailuku and stopped at the
Bailey House Museum that opened at 10am. Admission was $7pp. It was interesting and they had a temporary exhibit of Hawaiian quilts that I really enjoyed. (I forgot to mention that Hilo Hatties carries Hawaiian quilts of varying sizes and we passed a couple of fabric/quilting stores on our drive yesterday on Hilo.) After that we were ready for lunch.
Now you might have noticed that I have been eating lots of steak and limiting carbs pretty well. Not today! We want to lunch with locals. This was one place that we went and did NOT see any ship people! We got to
Sam Sato's (I believe this was pronounced Say-toe.) about 11am and had to put our names on a waitlist. They had more to go business than eat in, lucky for us. We asked our waitress about what to order because we didn't even know what the menu meant. Based on her descriptions, we shared small dry noodles, won ton mein, Chow Fun small and BBQ beef stick side. We both liked the dry noodles best, then Chow Fun and least of all won ton mein. It was 3 distinct kinds of noodles. All good. She showed us how to mix up a little dab of hot mustard that she brought us each in a tiny dish with soy sauce to dip our dry noodles. It was good! It was an interesting experience. Clay got a $15 t-shirt.
We both wanted shave ice after that to cool our mouths down and because of the sun-baked hot car. We drove around a bit and looked but didn't find one, so instead we drove south across the narrow part of the island to the Maui Ocean Center. Clay was reparking the car when I found out it cost $25pp. We both doubted that an aquarium of this size would be worth that to us and I didn't want to spend that much there. We still wanted shave ice and Clay had heard enough about
ABC Stores that he wanted to find one. He used his phone/GPS and said there was one nearby. So we headed off and 8 miles later we were still hearing it was much further to go.
I saw an ABC Store on the left side of the road with a
Ululani's Shave Ice next door, right across the street from the Kihei Canoe Club on the beach! Clay slammed on brakes and pulled in to the lot and parked. Nothing in there is made in Hawaii, but it is the ultimate budge souvenir store. Clay got a quite nice Maui t-shirt for $15. I got a souvenir tin of mints. Next door, Clay got a small shave ice with pineapple, mango and passion fruit. I got a micro shave ice with grape and vanilla. Vanilla was blue! The people working there told us it was only their 3rd day in business! These were the best shaved ices we could ever remember having and we sat on the Kihei wharf to eat them. It was only about 3pm and we had at least 3 more hours with the car. There was a sign at the wharf with an historic photo of the wharf and saying it was originally built in the 1899 by the Alexander and Baldwin Sugar Company.
So, we drove back north to the
Alexander and Baldwin Sugar Museum. Admission was $7pp again. It is in an old plantation supervisor's home and is in the midst of miles and miles of sugar cane fields that we drove through all day! It is directly across the street from the working
Puunene Sugar Mill. It was very informative and helped us understand what we had been seeing since we even left the ship. They only harvest a field of sugar cane every 2 years and they rotate the fields so they will almost always have one ready to harvest. Well, we happened to be here on Maui on a harvesting day. They start by burning the field, and we saw that from the ship as we were arriving. Then they bulldoze the field and use big claw cranes to load the cane in giant chain hoppers and drive them to the mill. We saw the fire from the ship, we saw the clouds of red soil in the incessant wind as we drove around, and we saw the harvesting machines stripping the fields, then the trucks with the big chain hoppers arriving at the mill. Fascinating. The museum admission included a little ziplock bag with about a teaspoon of the local demerara sugar as a sample.
Then we drove part of the Road to Hana. We turned around about 16 miles into a maybe 52 mile winding scenic drive. Clay felt like he got to see enough of Maui's North Shore surfing activity and we saw a pair of amazing little black and white and red-crested birds there. We turned the car in about an hour early and got a shuttle back to the pier after only a little wait with the resident chickens, chicks and rooster!
Dinner tonight was at Parrot Cay. I love my new $12 muumuu! The menu was Ho'olaule'a. Hans couldn't pronounce it and said it was a place name, but he didn't know what place. I Googled it and it is a Hawaiian word that means a festival or a celebration. Clay had bresaola with melons. I had iceberg lettuce and vinaigrette and a buttered roll! Continuing my carb loading day! The bread today was pretzel sticks. (Not!) It was like slices of a giant pretzel loaf. The spread tonight was liverwurst and it was Clay's favorite of the cruise! He said it tasted like
Neese's liver pudding (which he only ever eats in the little bitesize samples they hand out at the
NC State Fair!) They had beef prime rib tonight, so I broke my steak streak and had pork tenderloin with the weirdest spaetzle ever. Clay had prawn curry and really liked it. Clay had the featured sundae again. I didn't see any dessert I like, so remembering the one perfect raspberry I had with some past dessert, I asked for a small bowl of just raspberries. They weren't sure and went to find out. No joy. I was offered a bowl of mostly blueberries with a few strawberry quarters and some blackberries. I refused it and they told me the chef said he'll get raspberries delivered tomorrow in Honolulu. I can believe that. They promised to find me after and deliver my bowl of raspberries only. I hope not, but we'll see.
The Personal Navigator says a Hawaiian deck party at 9:30pm tonight. But, the wait staff says Christiaan announced sometime that there would be a Hawaiian BBQ at Goofy Pool Deck at 9pm and they thought that was why the light dinner crowd. Sailaway is 11pm. We'll see. Clay will be sad if true, since he ate too much dinner.
We went up to Deck 9 at 9pm and stayed through the end of the
Tihati Performers show and we wandered around, but never found an outdoor Hawaiian BBQ, so no idea what was up with that. We were asleep for the sail away! The Tihati Performers got onboard with us in LA and have been performing all over the ship at a variety of times, but I think they are getting off the ship tomorrow in Honolulu. Our loss.
What is up with the towel animals? We take them off the bed to sleep and put them on top of the steamer trunk at the foot of the bed and there they stay! (Postscript note: Alain let them get 5-7 deep and then took them away all at once. Still don't know why.)
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