Two more days on Maui

I am going to try to finish the stories of Maui in today's blog. We had such a wonderful time there that there seems to be so much to tell you about.

On our third day we spent the day at our resort, the Renaissance Resort on the beach. We got up early and headed down to the beach for the day. Once the sun rose over the mountains and shined on the beach we went snorkeling. Ryan had bought our own snorkel equipment before we had left so we could go snorkeling where ever we wanted without having to pay for rented equipment. Luckily there was snorkeling right on the beach of our resort. On that day though, we ended up having to cut our snorkeling short because there was the Pan-Am games going one. I guess these are games for which you go to for the next Olympic games. They were having a swimming race in the ocean and we had to get out of the way of the racers.

We then spent the rest of our day lounging on the beach, reading, swimming and Ryan went boogie boarding. Ryan loves to boogie board and he does so every time that we go south. It is so fun to watch him, he can spend hours catching waves.

We went up to our room at the end of our day and watched the sunset from our Lanai, which was really gorgeous.


I then had the craving for meat and potatoes for dinner. Where we were staying there was a row of resorts and they were all attached by a board walk. We walked down the board walk and headed towards another hotel that had a steak house. When we got there, the steak house was closed for renovations. So, we kept on going to a shopping district that had a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. It sure was Yum-o!

The next day we got up and decided to take a "roadie". We had reservations for a Luau that night at the "Old Lahania Luau" in Lahania. This place was 45 minutes from our resort so we decided to spend a day at a beach by Lahania. The beach was called Kanapali beach and it was by far the best beach that we went to in Maui. The water was gorgeous, not too rough and they had the BEST snorkeling. This beach had a spot called the "black rock". At this black rock, which went out into the water there was a coral wall underneath the water which is where we snorkeled. You can see it in the picture below.

After we snorkeled for about an hour or so, we spent the rest of the day enjoying the sun. We saw whales in the horizon jumping as well as a pack of dolphins swimming just beyond the edge of the black rock. I bought some artwork at a kiosk on the beach, and talked to a man who was actually born and raised in Michigan, small world. We then had to get ready for our Luau, which meant getting changed at the beach. Both of us wanted to shower and get cleaned up some since we had spent the day in the salt water and laying in the sand. So we showered at one of those showers on the beach and got changed in a bathroom. Really classy but what can you do. We then hopped into our car and headed over to the town of Lahania. We had the top down, I was doing my hair and makeup and this is what we see...

This gecko was nuts! I was maybe more nuts than the gecko, but come on when this little guy is rockin' and rolling all over your windshield without a roof, you would freak out too. I had envisions of this gecko landing on my head, on my face, and so did Ryan. We had to pull over to make sure he was gone. Let just say that little guy can hold on when you are going 40 miles an hour!!!

We then went and had some cocktails at this restaurant that was right on the ocean which was so beautiful.

The Luau was really great. They cook a pig in a Imu, which is a oven in the ground. They unearth it and have a large buffet dinner. After dinner there are hula dancers that tell stories of the Hawaiian history. It was a really fun night, which made you really feel like you were in Hawaii.

After the Luau was over we headed back to our hotel and got our bags packed for our flight the next day. We were flying to our last destination Kauai the next morning.