Museum Hopper

saving the best visit for the last blog post!  right before we went to the hana lava tubes , we went to the kahanu gardens .  they were lovely! i was very impressed.  much to my chagrin, we arrived at the kahanu gardens about 15 minutes before they closed.  i was nervous that we would not be allowed in.  much to my surprise, they said we could stay an extra hour after they closed and just let ourselves out the gate.   it was just beautiful.  it is right on the ocean and was so grand.  we got this 40-page pamphlet (actually much more than a pamphlet) that described all of the local polynesian plants in the gardens.  the pamphlet had great description of the uses of all the plants, when they grow, and what to look for.   on the grounds, they also have pi'ilanihale heiau , which is the largest hawaiian temple on the islands.  it is over three acres around.  it is made of a variety of volcanic stones and seems like it was built over a few centuries.   here are a few pictures o

jason and i did the road to hana by ourselves.   as we were approaching hana, i definitely needed to get out of the jeep and move around a bit!  my upcoming post will be about one of our other stops as well.  on this road, we visited the hana lava tubes .   they were something.  since i cannot explain how on earth lava tubes are made, here is a link to the wikipedia on how lava tubes are made.  we had a lot of fun here.  the "museum" aspect was pretty fantastic in the tubes, which surprised me.  it was very well done with a lot of information regarding how they are formed, what we were looking at and how they are found.   here are some pictures of me in the tubes:   it is quite a money maker.  each trip is $12 down with basically no maintenance and only one person covering admission.  pretty nice income!  time in tubes:3/4 hr times visited: 1 overall: B+

the first full day in maui, jason, julie and i went to the bailey house museum , which happened to be pretty close to julie's apartment.  this museum was highly rated within my guide book, but i was a little disappointed in what was offered.   after our busy day popping around paia, it was a nice and peaceful spot.  the museum was 4 main rooms 1.  a room with his paintings 2.  a room with native hawaiian artifacts 3.  two rooms of items that the bailey family had at the plantation it was interesting, but museum seems like a stretch.  it also seems like a stretch that this was a top 10 place to visit on maui.  the paintings were quite beautiful.  they had about six paintings of maui from ~1850s.  i do love a good oil landscape.  they had been painted by reverend bailey.  the room with hawaiian artifacts seemed tired.  it had some interesting information about hunting, weaving and fishing.  these were all native to hawaii artifacts prior to the missionaries' arrival in the

i have been very slow at getting these posts up!  i had a wonderful trip to maui, hawaii with my boyfriend, jason, as we were visiting his sister, julie!  while we were in maui, jason and i went on a whale watching trip with the pacific whale foundation to try to seem some whales!  we needed to compensate for our trip to the san juan islands, washington .   we went on the two hour trip out of ma'alaea .  we did finally see some big whales, but were not quite as lucky as jason's parents who were out about a month earlier.  our guide and captain were great and pretty informative.  the time on the boat was also very nice.  they were willing to stay out a little longer than our intended trip, so that we could see a mother and calf swimming in the bay.  here are some pictures of the whales we saw (courtesy of jason's camera!) i was a little disappointed with a small point of the logistics of the trip.  we were told to arrive 45 minutes early.  once we checked in,