Aloha! Days 7 and 8

So, this picture is actually from the day before this begins, but I forgot it on the last post, so you'll just have to deal with it. Besides, the last day of the trip is really just about me sitting in the airport on Maui wanting to cry and not really about the trip. I realize, however, in looking at this image of Ryan and I, that I have never in my life spent so much time with my shirt off.

The days after our Road to Hana adventure, I was fairly adamant about not really doing much of anything. We did some driving to nearby places like the Up Country to do some shopping in a cute little town...which is where we were warned about speeding:



Ryan kept making Star Wars noises to imitate the PT Cruiser being blasted with laser beams that would keep us in check, should we stray over 50 mph.

Iao Valley was beautiful as well, though slightly overrun with people. Still, you can tell just from this picture that Ryan snapped of the clouds, that there's a reason why it's revered as a holy place:



We started one day with wandering on the lava fields south of Wailea to see where the road ends, as you cannot drive around all of Maui without 4-wheel drive. While tromping around on the lava we did catch sight of some curious signs:

At first I had no idea if this referenced just the lava itself....



I soon learned, however, that the Hawaiians did indeed build on these fields of sharp, sun-baked rock. Amid the strewn about black lava that made this look like a moonscape on a tropical island were remnants of shelters or some other kind of utilitarian structures that had not quite made it to protected status. Hence... the sign, obviosuly.

But I was fairly entrenched in not doing too much more than lazing about on the beach. To that end, Ryan was very accommodating--which was awfully sweet of him, considering he kind of knew the whole area well already. By far the best beach(es), in my mind were Big Beach and Little Beach. They have other names, but it doesn't matter much. After all, Big Beach looks like this:



Can you blame me for just wanting to park my ass on the sand and stay there? Little Beach was actually better for body surfing; Big Beach had insanely large waves breaking right on shore--the kind that kill you. A rock separates the two beaches, so you climb up and over it to to dscend from BB to LB. Little Beach is also the nude beach, which, of course, was not overflowing with beautiful bodies. I mean, it was hardly shocking to see Europeans and hippies and body surfing. What was fascinating to me is that there were strata of people who maybe would have never interacted other than on this strip of sand in this cove on this island in this tiny part of the world.

And there were plenty of locals--even plenty of kids on boogie boards and families surfing. I didn't strip down at first, as I just wasn't sure I wanted to. But after 10-15 minutes, you realize NO ONE cares and then I tossed my trunks on to the towel and we headed into the warm water. There's something really wonderful about being naked in warm sea water. I can't really pin it down, but it was just perfect... and I wasn't afraid of jellyfish this time around.

Our last evening, I asked Ryan to show me a pretty locals beach that was near all the resorts--one that was kind of tucked in between all the Wailea compounds (after all, in Hawaii, no one owns the beach; the resorts have to allow public access). We curved our way into a tiny parking lot and went down some stairs and emerged on to a nice beach, dotted with rocky patches. Near us, groups of resort goers were lounging and waiting for the sun to set. A table was set on the beach where someone would be having dinner....and we just surfed the small waves that came gliding into shore, watching the sun sink lower and lower. After playing around in the tidepools a bit we began walking back to the car, reluctant to leave since it would mean we were officially done--that we'd have to head back to L.A. too soon.

Of course, first we had to snap pictures of each other with the beautiful sky behind us.... Ryan liking the spontaneous "Hey, look here" picture, while I went for the more traditional "act like a deer in headlights" request:





But then we just sat there and watched the sky turn oranger, redder, more and more beautiful. I didn't want to make a move to have to go drive, to eat, to have to pack up shells, sea glass, and rocks. I wanted--as I always do when I am somewhere beautiful--to just stare as long as possible in the hopes that the images would just burn into my brain, stored somewhere, perfectly recollected when I needed them to be.

Nothing works quite that easily, I know. But what helped in watching this last sunset on Maui was knowing that I was lucky enought to get to do something I'd always wanted to do--and share it with someone I wanted by my side the entire time.