Week 1 of Our Fabulous Honeymoon--Maui, Hawaii

I'm sitting here with my cup of 100% Kona Coffee, amped with energy and ready to tell you all about our fantastic honeymoon. We spent two weeks in Hawaii, breaking it up with one week on Maui and the next week on Hawaii-the big island. In week one, we broke it up and stayed at 2 different resorts right on the ocean. First, at the Westin, we had a beautiful view, overlooking the resort's pool area, and a beautiful view of the ocean where we could also see the island, Molokai in the distance. We watched the sunrise every morning and the sunset every night.

We were greeted with a bottle of champagne and a card addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. N...".  And, although we were married a month before we left, that had been the first time we had been addressed that way.  Every time I hear my new last name, I get butterflies thinking about how I now carry Dana's name.  And we are a Mr. and Mrs.!

During our stay, we rented a car and decided to venture away from the resort and see some of the beautiful sites that Maui has to offer.  We were given a book from our friends, Marty and Monica called "Maui Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook" by Andrew Doughty, which Dana read from front to back to suck out all the information needed.  One of the neat places we visited was a huge blow hole, and here is a goofy pic of me enjoying it:

In the same spot, we found a rock that had a hole in it the shape of a heart.  I took advantage of the photographic moment and got this pic (which is one of my favorites):

On day 3, we took the infamous road to Hana.  For being such a small distance, it sure took up quite the day.  The road distance to get from one end to the other is about 70 miles, but it took us about 4 hours to make the drive one way!  Yikes!  The scenery was beautiful, for most of the drive was along the edge of the mountain--but it was also very scary, for most of it was only one lane, right on the edge, with oncoming traffic--no joke.  And, it wasn't always paved, so my heart was beating quite fast most of the time.  After such a long drive, we started to get over everything, but knew there would be light at the end of the tunnel.  Once we reached Hana, we went to Haleakala National Park where there was "The Seven Sacred Pools" and a 4 hour hike through Pipiwai Trail, which was a bamboo forest that ended with the Waimoku Falls, a huge waterfall that you could get as close to as you wanted to.  Walking through the bamboo was amazing...there was so much of it, and they were so tall that even though we were walking in the middle of a sunny, hot day, the bamboo covered so much that it was dark and cool.  And, bamboo is so strong that no animals can live to walk through it, so no animals, birds, or anything.  It was so neat and different than anything I've seen before.  One of the pics is of me in the bamboo, holding myself up by the bamboo stalks that were only about 3 inches in diameter.  The other is of the beautiful waterfall that was at the end of the hike.

Aside from the adventures we took away from the resort, we also took part in some of the other activities that the resorts had to offer.  After staying at the Westin, we switched resorts and stayed at the Hyatt, which we were really excited about.  We went to a Luau and a Cirque Show that were both held right at their property.  We really enjoyed our room at the Hyatt and spent most of our time using their pool and hanging around.  We spent one entire day at the pool, which had a Grotto, a water slide, and lots of lounge chairs.  It was a perfect day, except in the end, we didn't realize we were going to spend so much time there and didn't reapply sunscreen.  Dana was burnt to a crisp and I got pretty red, for I was wearing more sunscreen in the beginning, and Dana didn't think to put any on his legs.  He's still paying for it (his legs are still red and peeling--oopsl).  After staying 3 nights at the Hyatt, it was our time to leave Maui and head to "The Big Island".  That will be the next  blog.  To see all our pics from Maui, check them out in our photo gallery: http://danaandbrooke.com/g-1156-maui.html