Today was very nice.  We decided to take it easy and not drive too much, like the last two days have been.  So we picked a beach and went there for its great snorkeling, great boogie boarding and great swimming.  All that stuff was really great -- there just wasn't any sun!  Yep, it's true.  As we sat on the beach, we looked around us, and there was a circular cloud above us that pretty much covered ONLY our beach.  We kept thinking it would go away, but when we finally left around 3:00pm, it was still there!  But actually, it was a blessing because it kept us from getting burnt.  We are both just slightly pink tonite, and not hurting from the sun.  The boogie boarding was MUCH tamer -- the waves, instead of being about 6 feet tall, were about 1 1/2 feet tall...  Almost boring.  But after the other day, we completely enjoyed the relaxing waves!  And both of us rode a few waves all the way into the sand.  I was out deeper, just lying on my board enjoying the rocking waves, but I suddenly remembered a program I watched where the sharks thought people on boogie boards looked like turtles and took a taste.  I got sort of freaked out as I remembered that, so I didn't stay out there very long.  We also went snorkeling.  There was a great coral reef at the south end of the beach with live coral of many different varieties and colors, and lots of fish.  It was really neat!  Unfortunately, I was still a little bit freaked out about sharks (I have no idea why) so I didn't want to go out too far where more coral was.  We were just about to quit when we saw a sea turtle!  It wasn't very far away, so we followed it for a few minutes, and actually got so close I thought we'd be able to touch it.  But we didn't.  Then we saw a second sea turtle cavorting with the first one.  It was the coolest thing!

We went to another beach so we could get some sun and warm up a little bit, and stayed there for an hour or so.  Then we came home to cook supper.  We stopped on the way at a surfing beach that's just a few minutes from where we're staying and watched the surfers.  The waves were fairly big -- bigger than I'd want to take on -- and it was quite cool watching all the surfers!  It looks like such a fun sport, but I think you'd have to be a pretty strong swimmer or you could get pretty exhausted and drown pretty easy...

When we got home, Perry came into the kitchen and found a tiny little tail-less gecko on our fridge!  We took some pictures, and then he carried it outside.  Perry was so cute -- as he was carrying it out he said (in a cute little high voice) "Ok, I'm going to take you outside now, little lizard-guy..."  It was the cutest thing ever!!

And for New Years, we are staying here in our cute little flat, watching a movie. I know we're sort of boring, but neither of us are party animals, and we don't know anyone here. And the other thing is that we don't really want to be somewhere where we have to drive back and risk getting hit by a drunk driver... So here we are.

Happy New Years to all of you, our wonderful family and friends!! We hope your year of 2007 will be the best one yet!

Well today started off a bit cloudy.  We had already decided we were going to go check out the Maui crater anyway, so we headed off at 8:30am.  We drove and drove, switch-back after switch-back.  Until, an hour and a half later, we had gone from sea level to 10,000 feet.  We passed above the cloud level at about 4,000 feet, and so we were looking down on the clouds for most of the trip.  It was amazing to see how they changed in the small time we were up there -- from a few, to a lot and back to a few.  The Kaleakala crater is simply amazing to see -- amazingly beautiful in a completely different way than the rest of the island.  Officially, it's not really a crater.  It's true enough that it was formed by a volcano, and because that volcano went off the last time in 1790, it's still considered an active volcano.  But the truth is that the crater is actually formed by erosion, and thus is not a crater at all, but an erosional depression.  Regardless of what it is, it's stunning.  Black lava looks like it just flowed down the side of the mountain last year, and red rock and dust makes it look like something from Mars.  There are cinder cones that formed from smaller eruptions that add to the out-of-this-world impression.  Perry and I were duly impressed.  Given that this crater is at the 10,000 foot mark and the winds from the ocean whistle up the side of the erosional depression, it was cold and windy up there!  So we didn't stay too long.  By 11:30am we were headed back down the mountain.  I forgot to mention that about half way up, we passed through a forest of Melaluka trees and the fragrance was amazing.

Another cool thing that was up there was the Silverswords.  They are a plant that is like a silver spikey bush.  They grow for anywhere from 20 to 50 years, and then they produce one huge blooming stalk, and then they die.  They're really neat looking plants, and they only grow on Maui and the big island.  We saw some that had just bloomed (the bloom was past it's prime) and I just couldn't resist taking a picture.

We decided to drive around the farm area on the side of the volcano, since a local lady told us the scenery was beautiful.  There was another road that went up the west side of the volcano and ended up in Palipali State Park, so we decided to check that out.  We passed by a Lavender farm that was amazing.  It had a little store where you could buy lavender products (which we did) and take a little walk through the farm.  They had landscaped a large portion of the farm so that the lavendar was interspersed with all kinds of other flowering plants and cactuses, so that the final result was beautiful.  Perry took a few pictures.

We continued on up the hill and passed by some hang-gliders and some RC plane hobbyists flying their planes.  Quite cool.  Above us it looked completely cloudy, so we thought it might not be worth it if it was all foggy.  But we drove up, and in a matter of minutes, punched through the clouds and were back in beautiful sunlight and blue skies again.  It was amazing!  So again we were above the clouds.  The road ended up in a Redwood forest!  Maui just has such a wide diversity of scenery and topography!

We were both quite tired by this time, so we headed back down.  Have I mentioned the fragrance and the flowers in Maui?  It's utterly astounding.   There are flowers everywhere -- even the trees are flowering trees.  And there are beautiful fragrances everywhere you go.  I just love it!

Well here we are, first day in Maui.  The weather is beautiful -- around 80 degrees.  We rented a jeep for the first few days here, so we took off all the windows and traveled in style!  We thought that while we had the jeep, we would go all the places that it will be tougher to get to in a smaller vehicle.  So today, we decided to go into the main city, get some food and some cash, and then head toward Lahaina and travel around the northern peninsula of the island.  We stopped in Lahaina and rented snorkeling gear and a boogy board for a pretty good price (and Perry got Rx googles so he can actually SEE underwater!  Yay!).  We headed north on the hiway, and with our handy "Maui Revealed" book, looked for a great beach.  Well we stopped at a place called "Dragon's Teeth" which is where the waves somehow formed the lava into an upthrust, so it looks like viscious sharp teeth poking out of the ground.  It ended up being all blocked off, but we got close enough to see it and take a picture anyway.  There was a beach right there, so we decided to get out of the car and hit the waves (considering it was 2:30 and we hadn't really DONE anything yet!).  So with boogy board attached to wrist, we ventured into the pounding surf...  at first, it was quite fun (although we had just eaten so it made me [Laverne] feel a little sick).  The waves were huge and even when we weren't very far out, they could knock you over backwards.  But we didn't really think they were THAT bad... until a few of them rolled over us and pounded us into the sand.  Then a few more.  Then Perry got bashed in the head with his bogey board, and decided to quit.   So I decided to do it again.  I was out there and rolled over a couple big waves until a HUGE one came in.  I was laying on the board, looking behind me thinking "oh crap".  It was HUGE.  It hit me just as it crested, and instead of riding the wave all the way into the sand, the way I had planned, I was litterally crushed under the wave - it pounded me into the sand tipped me over backwards, almost ripped my bikini top off, and kept going.  I finally popped above the water, but trying to stay under enough to fix my bathing suit, when another wave hit, and then a couple more.  Help!  Finally I got close enough to shore, and Perry (who came out to rescue me) took the bogey board, and I fixed my bathing suit.  Then we left.  That was enough for one day.  Or one lifetime.  :)  As we're driving down the highway, I read my other trusty book, "Hidden Maui", and saw the following about the beach we were at: "...the (beach) is plagued by rough and dangerous surf during the winter.  Use caution!"  Great.  Guess I should have read that before almost drowning!

We continued north and saw some incredibly magnificent scenery from above the ocean.  The surf was just amazing.  We stopped at Nakalele Blowhole (see the cool photo!), which was really cool.  Continuing on, the road becomes a one-lane road.  Note, it's still a TWO-WAY road, it's just one LANE.  So etiquette is that the uphill car backs up to a passing spot if another car comes along.  We were both thinking it would be this way for a few hundred meters or so.  We were amazed when, EIGHT MILES LATER, it became two lane again.  So that was a really unique and fun experience.  And the scenery along this road was utterly beautiful.  Pounding blue ocean surf on one side (down steep hills and cliffs bordering the road), and luscious rain forest, and green flora-covered lava hills on the other side.  There were a couple of little villages nestled in the inward bays of this road that we just had to take pictures of.