Maui: Day 5

We woke up early today and packed our things for our drive to Hana. It was sad leaving Lahaina, we had a great few days here. Glad our vacation's not over yet. We're staying 2 nights in Hana at a house we rented just outside of the small Hawaiian town.

The road to Hana is a 68-mile stretch of highway that connects the Kipahulu/Paia area to eastern Maui. On our way out of town, we stopped at the local Wal-Mart to load up on a few groceries. The house we rented in Hana has a kitchen so we thought we'd grab a few bottles of wine and enough food to make dinner for tonight.

This here was the hardest decision I made today: what kind of chips to buy. You know how much I love chips.

We started off on the famous "Road to Hana." The drive isn't very long but takes a few hours because it's so scenic with winding turns, lots of beautiful cliffs overlooking the ocean, waterfalls and plant life. During our drive today, it rained for most of the time so it we opted not to take advantage of the state parks along the way. But we did stop several times and take in some of the gorgeous sites along the roadway.

One of the natural waterfalls along the way:

The second one we saw was really roaring!  Some of the locals said the waterfalls have been dried up the last few weeks for lack of rain, but thankfully they've had some in the last few days so we were able to see all the beauty.

My gorgeous husband taking photos with his new camera. A few other tourists today said they were "stopping wherever the bro with the giant ass camera stopped." That made Andi smile :)

Here's me and my make-shift umbrella. 

Whoa, man I'm getting dark! Good thing it was raining today; I may have needed a day out of the sun!

We arrived in Hana and checked into the house we rented for our last few days in Hawaii. A nice lady who owns the property greeted us with her little pooch Razz as we pulled in. She and her husband have lived in this large house up in the hills for nearly 20 years. We're staying in our own 'apartment-style' living quarters which has everything we'd ever need for a few days in Hana. It's in a beautiful, quiet area -- a nice change from the Hyatt in Lahaina and much more our style.

The living room/kitchen with sweeping views of the trees and ocean

Our bedroom

View from our wrap-around porch

After we settled in, we cruised into town to pick up a few more groceries for dinner. There's a few roadside farmer's markets and we stopped to buy some fresh, local veggies. The offerings were endless - several kinds of lettuces, avocado, tomatoes, asparagus, cucumbers, pears, lemons, papaya, eggplant and more -- all organic and grown behind the roadside stand.

We stopped at the second stand and asked if they had anymore eggplant left to buy. The lady motioned for her husband, who grabbed his knife and went out back. He picked 2 for us right out of the garden. How cool is that? I was in heaven.

All the great local produce we bought:

Tonight we're laying low, listening to the rain and enjoying each other's company. Isn't this exactly how vacation should be? Absolute paradise.