Monday January 21, 2019: Olivine Pools and Nakalele Blowhole

We slept in on Monday and then went on a nice walk to the local village, where they had a great fruit stand and lots of places to sit and eat.  We found a place called Java Jazz that served some wonderful coffee and an pretty delicious pancake and omelette.  The place was wildly decorated and even had someone playing jazz in the morning.  I would have expected it to only have live jazz later in the day.

After breakfast, we walked around the shops a bit, got some sunglasses, t-shirts and food at the market place.  Then we walked back to the place, packed some food and gear and drove north.  The last time we were in Maui, we only drove to see the Nakalele Blowhole, but from a distance.  This time, we wanted to go a bit further.  We ended up, my mistake, driving past the Olivine Pools, to a point where the road was extremely narrow and would barely fit one car.  There were two times we had to back up to a wide-enough spot, to let the oncoming traffic through.  We only drove a mile down this road before we decided to turn around.  Thankfully, going back we didn't have to back-up to let oncoming traffic pass.

We found the Olivine Pools and hiked down.  It was a good 10 minute hike to get to the bottom.  About halfway down, there is a marker with a warning pleading people to not go past.  It tells of a family's son who was swimming in the pools on January 23, 2017, when a wave hit him and swept him out to sea; they never recovered his body.  So naturally, we ignored it and hiked past.  There were about 20 people in the area.  There were several pools, but the main one was gorgeous.  It was like jumping into Jacob's Well.  But instead of that fresh feeling, it was a bit salty!  The rocks around the pools were constantly being pounded by the waves.  The view was breathtaking!

When we had our fill, we hiked back up and drove on to Nakalele Blowhole.  Similar to Olivine Pools, you had to walk down to get the the cool stuff.  It was also about a 10 minute hike.  There were lots of rocks - like we were in a big rock bowl.  There were no warning signs near the blow hole, so maybe no one has died near there.  I think there was one sign that said to stay on dry rock.  The blow hole is like Old Faithful; water comes spouting up and into the air.  The really cool think about the Nakalele hole is the sound.  As waves crash onto the rocks, you can hear the rushing air and feel the force of the water rushing up through the hole.  The fun part is trying to get a picture or selfie at the right time.  I was able to get some video of it spouting a few times; and Jill and I were able to get a pretty cool selfie at the right time!  This was our highlight of the day - we sat around for quite some time, watching the waves pound the rocks.

After the blow hole, we drove back to the place to snorkel some more and sit on the beach.  We waited and watched the sun set.  A man got his bag pipes out and played a couple of songs and everyone on the beach clapped.  Then we went to a burger place called Maui Brewing.  Unfortunately, my sinuses were really bad and I couldn't taste anything.  Jill said it was really good food.  She ordered some salad and I had some fish burger.  I imagine it tasted great.

Sunday January 20, 2019: Walking, Snorkeling, Football and Lahaina

We left Saturday at 8:30am.  Emma took us to the airport super-early, because we were hearing some news reports about one airport terminal being closed from the partial government shut-down.  But our worries were not warranted.  We flew through check-in and security in 23 minutes.  Our reward was to sip a warm beverage while waiting for our flight.  We were able to talk quite a bit and I was able to catch up on some Chess Tempo chess problems.  Jill talked to her Mom while we waited and they had a great conversation.

The first leg of the trip was to Los Angeles.  I am just getting over a cold, that has been lingering for a couple of weeks.  It is in my sinuses.  So ascending and descending on the airplane was quite the experience.  I think ascending was easier, while descending made it a bit tough to pop my ears.  Jill had the window seat; I sat in the middle and we had a larger man sitting next to me in the aisle.  I later came to learn he is a comedian who flies all over the world entertaining guests on cruise ships and such places.  We started talking, but I soon realized he was talking and I was listening.  So I went back to my book.

We landed in LA nicely and had a two-hour layover.  We ate salmon and chicken sandwiches at Wolfgang Puck's, then did some shopping as Jill was going to finish her first book and needed a second.  I too found I needed a more entertaining book than the one I had (business book).

The flight to Kahului was close to six hours and it felt much longer.  The turbulence was pretty rough at times.  Jill was reading a book about a man and a woman who are sailing and are caught in a hurricane.  The man dies and the woman survivies 39 days at sea.  So she was wondering if something similar was going to happen to us if the airplane broke up over the ocean!  The Friday before we left, I was watching Castaway for a few minutes!  But the plane survived and we survived.  We were just really tired by the time we landed.  Luckily our luggage was one of the first at baggage claim.  The car rental line wasn't too bad either, but then we had another hour of driving to get to the place.

The place was nice enough; just AC in the bedroom.  But we didn't travel 10 hours for the room.  We got some sleep.

After sleeping in a bit, we woke and got our walking clothes on and walked 3 miles to the Gazebo.  On the way, we stopped at a few beaches and took some pictures.  When we got there, there was a line as expected.  But we didn't feel the least desire to wait in it.  So we pulled up our Google maps app and looked for another high-star place to eat breakfast.  We found The Coffee Store in Napili.  The brews were delicious and the pastries divine.  Then we walked back to our place and collected our stuff and headed to the beach.

The beach by our place is divided by a rock cropping.  There is a very small beach area, with rocks on both sides, to the north.  And to the south is a much larger beach, with rocks also on both sides.  We headed to the smaller beach first and had it to ourselves.  We spent about 40 minutes just watching these 3 turtles swim around and eat.  It was amazing.  Then we sat in the sand and talked and let the ocean waves lick our feet and legs.

We then decided to check out the larger beach and try some snorkeling.  We expected the other beach to be much busier, but there were only maybe 20 or so people on it.  We put our chairs in the shade of a large tree next to the rocks and then got our gear on and went for a swim.  There wasn't a plethora of fish, but we did see quite a few colorful fishes.

After the swim, we just soaked in the sun and the beach.  It was lovely.

When we had our fill, we walked back to the place (a one minute-walk), to the pool to shower and swim around a bit to get the salt water off.  Then we came back to the place and watched the football games.  We caught the end of the Rams v Saints game and then watched the Patriots v Chiefs game.  I'm glad the Rams won, but was disappointed the Chiefs lost.

At precisely 4pm local time, I logged into recreation.gov to reserve our park pass to see the sunrise on Haleakala.  They release 80 tickets two days in advance, at 4pm.  We wanted to do this, so made sure we were ready to claim a pass at 4pm.  We've been hearing these get gobbled up very quickly.  The rest of the tickets have to be bought 2 months in advance.

During the football games, we walked back to the beach and sat in the shade.  We found a huge turtle had arrived and was chilling on the beach.  It was pretty cool to see one so close.

After the football games, we drove to Lahaina and ate dinner at Paia Fishmarket Front Street.  We had vowed we would eat fish every day.  I had the Mahi Mahi blackened and Jill had it in tacos.  Oh my!  It was delicious!  We sat next to a couple from Colorado, who had been on Maui all week, and they said it was the best food they'd had!  So we scored big on our first dinner.  The cole slaw was really good, along with the house fries.

Then we walked around Lahaina, doing some light shopping as well as observing the lunar eclipse.  It was quite the sight!  After that, we drove to Safeway to pick up some groceries, and to get a stronger

decongestant for me.  Jill had called the doctor-over-the-phone earlier and got me a prescription to hopefully knock this thing out.  I feel good ... maybe 85%, so I'm not suffering, but just not 100%.  Thankfully, I can smell and taste still.

After shopping, we came home, ate some ice cream, watched a bit of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom before falling asleep.  It was a great first day.