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Vacation recap

We’re back from an incredible trip to Maui. It was pretty much a perfect vacation. We spent nine days doing whatever we felt like doing – sleeping, sitting on the beach, playing in the ocean, reading, eating (lots and lots of eating), hiking, snorkeling, scuba diving, walking around and whatever else we felt like doing. I didn’t feel much like wearing socks, so, except for the three times I rode my rented bike (see below), I didn’t. In fact, I barely ever wore shoes. Now that’s a win.

I also did a fair amount of good training. I rented a Scott road bike from Maui Cyclery and put it to pretty good use, doing three rides for a total of 168 miles with over 17,200 feet of climbing. I also ran about 17.5 miles and did a couple strength/core workouts. I spent a ton of time in the ocean and day-dreamed about some open water swimming, but I tried swimming a few times during the trip and my collarbone still isn’t happy with the pull.

The highlights of the trip were:

Paia:

We spent the first afternoon and night of the trip at the Paia Inn Hotel in the small town of Paia, on the north coast of Maui a short drive down the Hana Highway from the airport. I picked out the town and the hotel sort of by chance because it sounded like a cool little place and made for a convenient stop for the night before we rolled out to Hana. It was much more than that. Paia and the hotel have a fantastic, chill vibe. The hotel is a very short walk (they say 100 steps) to the Paia beach.

The main part of town, which is really just a few blocks around the “T” intersection of the Hana Highway and Baldwin Avenue has little strip of boutiques and restaurants, including incredible gelato at Ono Gelato and a great natural foods grocery store called Mana Foods, a cheaper and chiller version of Whole Foods. There’s also a fantastic little roadside community farm stand just “outside town” a mile or so up Baldwin Road from the Hana Highway that benefits the La’a Kea Foundation, a charity working to build a “sustainable and integrated community on 12 acres of farm land in Maui where adults with autism and developmental disabilities can live, learn and work in an atmosphere of care and respect.” (from their Facebook page). I bought fresh, organic kale, broccoli, avocados, corn and jicama there one afternoon.

Paia is at the base of Haleakala so it’s also an excellent spot to start your drive or ride up to the top of the volcano. It’s also where most people (including me) start their ride to the top. It’s also the last real town before starting the road to Hana.

Next time we’re in Maui, we’re definitely spending at least one extra night at the Paia Inn.

The Road to Hana and Hana:

We left Paia mid-morning on Saturday and drove the Hana Highway to Hana. I’d heard mixed reactions about the drive, but most of the complaints came from people who tried to do the whole thing, there-and-back in one day. That would definitely suck. We took our time heading out there, stopped where we wanted to hike or look at a waterfall or jump in the ocean or eat some banana bread at a roadside shop. The views from the road are pretty and the waterfalls and hikes are nice, but I definitely don’t think it would be worth doing if you had to jam it into a single day.

After the drive, we spent two nights at the Travaasa Hana Hotel. The hotel and grounds are beautiful and I’d totally stay there again if I was in Hana, but now that I’ve been there once, I’m not sure I would make the drive again anytime soon…

On our first full day in Hana we woke up and watched the USA women lose in a very exciting Women’s World Cup finals and then spent the afternoon at Hamoa Beach, a few miles from the hotel.

Monday we got up early and drove out to hike the four mile Pipiwai Trail up to the 400 foot Waimoku Falls. The hike was muddy, there were tons of mosquitos and the falls were flowing too strong to swim, but hiking through the forest

and then through the bamboo

and finally being up close at the bottom of the falls was awesome!

My other favorite thing about Hana was our vegetarian lunch at Cafe Romantica. It’s just a roadside food-bus equipped with a kitchen, but the food there was some of my favorite during the whole trip.

Eating:

We ate a TON of great food. Lots and lots of fresh local fish. Lots and lots of fresh local fruit. Every night in Ka’anapali we had dinner as a group, sometimes on the lanai (balcony) at our hotel room and some nights at great local restaurants. The best dinner of the week was at I’O Restaurant on Front Street in Lahaina. It’s a beautiful setting and the service and food are top-notch. The great thing for me about Maui is that even the relatively “nice” restaurants are still casual and chill. Shorts seem to always be acceptable!

Cycling:

As I mentioned above and wrote about last week, I rented a road bike and did some good riding on Maui.  It’s not a big island and there only seem to be four or five real cycling routes, but if you lived and trained there full time, you could be a great cyclist.  Most of the roads I saw were in really good condition.  I also found that the roads with moderate/heavy car traffic had good bike lanes or shoulders.  Some of the roads – especially on the northwest part of the island were relatively car-free in the mornings.  There’s tons of good climbing.  

I did three rides:

Tuesday I rode the 58 mile West Maui Loop.  I started in Ka’anapali and rode clockwise through Kapalua, Kahakuloa, Waihee-Waiehu, Wailuku, then along the western edge of the island through Lahaina and back to Ka’anapali.  It’s a challenging ride with 3,700 feet of elevation gain, including the half-mile “Wall” where my Garmin showed between 16-19% grade for a bit!  There are some good descents, but I was riding in the rain and couldn’t bring myself to open it up too much around those wet turns.  I also ate a nasty headwind for big chunks of the first half of the ride.  The views in that section are pretty amazing – they put the ocean views from the PCH to shame.

Thursday I did the climb to the summit of Haleakala.  That ride is a bitch!  And I’m not sure what the reward is other than to be able to say that I did it.  The ride up is a solid 32 miles of straight climbing without really any relief. (About 10 miles in, there’s one quarter-mile or so section of slight descent, but it’s also got speed bumps!)  It’s rarely super steep, it’s just a constant 5-6-7-8% grade.  Also, I did it in pouring rain and strong winds. 

The summit is somewhere “up there”:

Entering the Park – 11 wet, uphill miles to go.  That smile is totally fake.  This is the first ride I’ve ever done that I actually seriously considered quitting.  

Finally at the summit. 5 hours, 10 minutes (or so) later.  This smile is a little less fake. It’s more a grin of relief than a smile, really. It was sunny and clear at the summit.  But also windy and chilly.  And I knew that I’d be riding right back through the clouds and the rain.  

The descent was tough to enjoy because the roads were wet and I was freezing my ass off!  All that being said, I’m definitely planning to do it again next time we’re in Maui – hopefully I’ll be in better shape and can see how much faster and more comfortably I can do it!  If you’re planning on doing the climb, check out this excellent guide.  He’s got lots of pictures and information about the only real wrong turn you can make on the climb.  (The trick is about 8 miles into the climb, you turn right at the Rodeo Stadium.  If you miss that turn you’ll do extra climbing and eventually hit a dead-end!)

Saturday I did an out-and-back on the West Maui Loop.  

The weather was much better for this ride; it only rained on me a little. I met up with a few local riders and we rode out to Kahakuloa where we stopped for water and banana bread at Lorraine’s Shave Ice. She wasn’t open when I did the ride on Tuesday, but if you’re out that way, I definitely recommend stopping in. Don’t sit there for 40 minutes like the local guys I rode with wanted to, but it’s worth a hello, a look at her backyard view, a water bottle refill and a loaf of banana bread to take back to the family if nothing else! There are a few other imitators in Kahakuloa, but skip those and hit up Lorraine.

Lorraine’s backyard view:

Diving:

I used to dive a ton. There were a few years immediately after law school where Marc and I were doing 2-3 weeks per year of diving all over the Caribbean. But it’s been years since I’ve done it. Until last week. Elizabeth, her dad Mark and I did two dives one morning. We dove with Ed Robinson’s Diving Adventures (who I’d 100% recommend) and did the first dive off Molokini and the second one near Wailea. And I loved it. I was a bit worried, but it all came back to me in a flash. We saw tons of fish, eels, a turtle, lobsters and shrimp and some (surprisingly) healthy coral. There was a guy on our boat who promised to send me a few photos. I’ll post them if he sends them!

Shopping:

Yeah right.  A trip with a stop at the chotzke store was pretty much the extent of my shopping:

Now can I go back?  Please.