Tuesday, August 1: Blowing the Top Off & Spectacular Sunsets
Here we were, five days into vacation with our first true opportunity to sleep in – and we took it. After another a hectic day of activity, I think we crawled out of bed around 10 on Tuesday. We had planned on using this day as another beach day, intending to play most of the day by ear. I briefly contemplated an early morning hike, but that was nixed as soon as my 7am alarm went off.
Sitting on the lanai with our morning coffee, both of us agreed that the beach didn’t seem like an appealing option, given that parts of our skin matched the fire engine red of our rental corvette. Laying out in the sun seemed about as alluring as lying face down on a human-sized frying pan. So we stayed on the lanai for a ridiculously long amount of time, and when we “needed a break” from the lanai, we sat on the couch in the A/C and read. Vacation is so hard. There is no better feeling than looking at your watch, realize you’re missing a normal weekly work meeting, and then sipping another a bit of coffee and sinking down into your chair a little deeper. I took notes throughout our trip, but for Tuesday morning all my notes say is “nothing,” so there’s not much more to write here.
I think around 1pm we (but probably just me) decided we should do something, so we got dressed and applied about 8 layers of sunscreen/moisturizing lotion before heading out the door. Our general plan was to stop at the Maui Brewing Company Brewpub for lunch, and then head to Northwest Maui for some hiking and sightseeing. We had briefly considered trying to do an actual tour of the brewery, but heading down to South Maui wasn’t in the cards for us, so we settled on the brewpub in Kahana, which was about 3 miles north. We ordered a flight of beers – Rick chose two and I chose two. As you may have already guessed from previous posts, I'm a bit picky about food and drink, but Maui Brewing Company delivered with its options of darker beers for me. For food, we kept it pretty brew-pub simple; a shared appetizer of kalua pork nachos (though it was difficult to pass up their poutine – never thought I’d see that in Hawaii!), along with a bleu cheese burger and chips for me and the famed loco moco for Rick. Loco moco is Hawaii’s version of a heart attack on a plate – white rice topped with a hamburger patty, fried eggs, and brown gravy. Cholesterol is complimentary.
While sipping our beers and waiting for our food, we realized it was the first time during our vacation that we had dined in a restaurant with four walls. After five solid days of constant al fresco dining, I felt a bit like I was in a cave. But the beer was good and the food was adequate, so we felt well-fueled for the afternoon ahead of us. We finished up and bought a few (really cool!) souvenir glass beer bottles on the way out.
Heading up toward Kapula, I finally turned on the GyPSy guide we had missed during our drive to Haleakala, and it did not disappoint. I am (only slightly) embarrassed to admit that I’ve been known to happily re-read my history textbooks and dig through our car's glove compartment for old battlefield driving tour cds to cue up when I’m low on book or podcast material. As a kid, I used to loathe when my mom would pop one of her Great Courses lectures on tape into the car cassette player, and now I find myself wishing I could have converted them to MP3s when I had the chance… such is the circle of life, friends. This is all to say, with the risk of cliché, we have a profound love of learning and soak it up at every turn. The GyPSy guide narrator (Dave – yes, we looked up the voiceover artist and referred to him on a first name basis) offers a lot of interesting geological, historical and cultural notes as you drive that provide so much depth and context to the area around you. We agreed it was probably the best money spent on the trip (and Rick HATES spending money on apps). Besides my Settlers of Catan app (#nerdalert), it has been my favorite app purchase.
We meandered northward on the Honopillani Highway, which had long, slow curves to hug the coastline as we traveled, with the eventual goal of seeing the Nakalele Blowhole, maybe with a stop for a short hike on the Kapula Coastal Trail along the way. I wasn’t able to figure out the best place to park and disembark for the coastal trail trail-head, so we forewent the hike (what sacrifice) in favor of Dave’s commentary and a leisurely scenic drive with a few stops to look out over the cliffs and ocean.
In my research about visiting Hawaii, a common refrain I came across was that there seems to be a prevalent lack of caution or awareness about safety from tourists here, which results in a considerable amount of rescues and, unfortunately, death. The reasons tend to be layered: people don’t have their guards up on vacation and don’t understand the inherent risks of an environment very different than they are used to; rescue operations are (obviously) more difficult in rough waters and rugged terrains. As more people visit Hawaii, the amount of serious injuries and/or deaths is growing, and some reports indicate that an average of one tourist dies visiting Hawaii per week. During one of our first nights on Maui, Rick saw an evening news report about someone who had just died visiting the Nakalele Blowhole after being washed into the ocean by a rogue wave. Lovely! Needless to say, I read A LOT about safety protocols and was quite en garde throughout the trip. Both this day at the blowhole, as well as the next day on the Road to Hana, much of what I read was true – people do really, really dumb things and are really, really lucky. Ah what a fun, uplifting turn this trip report has taken! YOU’RE WELCOME. I mention the safety mostly because the signs abound at the Nakalele Blowhole reminding people to be cautious and were quite clear about the risks… Ah if only people liked to read (#makeamericareadagain):
Mom-stereotype lecture on safety aside, the landscape of Nakalele Point was breathtaking. We had somehow lucked out again into amazing timing, because the tide and winds were strong when we were there and the blowhole erupted every few minutes with a thunderous, impressive burst of water. Rick, who was closer than I was (#caution), said he could hear underfoot the water rush in just before it erupted, a true geological wonder to experience. He also mentioned seeing the same crab get blown into the air, only to be sucked back down afterward over and over again. Is it awful that as we relaying this to me all I kept thinking about was trying to figure out how to eat the crab? Turns out I’m always hungry and have a one-track Maryland-bred mind.
It was a steeper hike down to the blowhole than I expected, and really was only accessible if you were extremely sure-footed, though the viewpoint from above (without the hike) was also impressive. We marveled at the eruptions for about 10-15 minutes before exploring the rest of the terrain a bit, including the somewhat infamous “heart-shaped” rock formation just opposite the blowhole.
As Dave had dutifully informed us on the drive over, the landscape was all lava rock, formed from the hardened magma that erupted from the West Maui volcanoes hundreds of thousands of years ago. Cliffs and beds of black, rugged rock dot the landscape of this stretch of the island, as powerful ocean waves (in an area where the trade winds blow less encumbered by the mountains) beat down on the coastal ridges. It’s mesmerizing to watch the force of erosion in action; we watched rough wave after wave pulse down on the jagged rocks in rhythmic succession. A half hour passed quickly. We turned back up the rock scramble just as the tide died down and the blowhole eruptions stretched to five-minute intervals or so.
After pausing for a few last views from the cliff-side, we hopped back in the car and headed back down the coastal drive, listening to a mini-lesson on the history of surfing in Hawaii from Dave along the way. By this time it was about 5:30-6pm, and we were near Merriman’s, which is renowned as one of Maui’s finest (and most expensive) restaurants with one of the best views on the island. I had briefly considered Merriman’s for our anniversary dinner, but it is completely inconceivable to my cost-effective mindset that any dinner entrée is amazing enough to merit a $70 price tag... So Merriman’s was tossed quickly in favor of the Sea House. However, the TripAdvisor forums mentioned that behind the restaurant was Merriman’s “Point Bar,” which was a more low-key bar lounge, and had the best sunset-viewing spot on the property. I had made a mental note to tuck this info away, should the stars align and we’d be in the right area at the right time of day. Lo and behold, here we were in NW Maui at sunset hour, so I directed Rick there for an aloha hour cocktail just in time for sunset. When we approached Merriman’s, I briefly regretted our decision. I saw all the signs of extreme fanciness -- valet only parking, people dressed in their finest vacation outfits (so many aloha shirts), unnecessary outside décor (like a mirror that probably cost the same as our car). I was immediately self-conscious looking down at my hiking sandals and gym shorts, and over at Rick’s “Halifax Mooseheads” t-shirt, which had a giant (you guessed it) moose head on it. But with Rick’s insistence, we pushed through fancy-not-fancy awkwardness and were so glad we did – the point bar was low key and absolutely perfectly located on a bluff on one of the most northwestern points of Maui. All we saw was ocean enveloping the island of Molokai in the distance, with a dead-on view of the sun just as it began its descent below the horizon. As we arrived, we were directed to two plush patio armchairs directly in the center of the patio with a totally unobstructed view.
After settling in, I opted for a stout (two dark beers in one day! Quelle chance!) and Rick got the Mai Tai, which was topped with a signature lilikoi (passion fruit) foam. At $15, it was the most expensive Mai Tai he got on Maui, but he also reported it was by far the best. I also ordered the cheese plate, because I had to imbibe on some fanciness. We sipped our cocktails and ate our fancy cheese (except ugh not enough bread/crackers for the cheese, a true travesty in my world) and mostly sat in peaceful, content silence while we watched the skies’ colors begin to fade to pink and orange. We were seated at about 6pm and noticed throughout the next 40 minutes that the lounge slowly started to fill in with more and more people there for the sunset show. I joked that Rick was the unofficial photographer of tourists that day, as he was asked at least 3 or 4 times at Nakalele and Merriman’s to take photos of posing families (I think it had something to do with his Halifax Mooseheads t-shirt… everyone loves a Canadian.) Realizing we had the best seats in the house and were sipping a bit too quickly on our drinks to last through sunset, Rick ordered another Mai Tai (the torture!) and we sat there until the sun settled below the horizon line.
As we left, the valet was buzzing with people who – like us – were ready to go now that the sun had also left. It was a bit like watching a hyper-speed car video game, as the two or three valets working were constantly running around, moving a sequence of cars in Tetris-style progression. It was harried in an unsettling way. As we were leaving, we watched a valet back a minivan into a parking space at approximately 15mph, until it collided at full force with the concrete parking block. Yikes…
We stopped briefly in the Times supermarket for Rick’s goggles after an unsuccessful search over the last two days, and were taken in by the surprisingly expansive souvenir selection. Rick successfully found some goggles for under $10, and we picked up a few tokens (a tiki magnet, Obama-surfing bottle opener, 3-D shark postcard -- you know, just your average supermarket staples) and headed home to the Westin villas. We got home early enough to relax on the lanai and revel in the silence of the beach next-door, save for the rhythmic crash of the waves. We turned in early again, since tomorrow was the famed Road to Hanaday, and I was gunning for a 6:00am departure time.
