Honeymoon...The Final Chapter

It was much more fun writing about our honeymoon when we were still on it! We had such an incredible time that I really didn't want it to end! Hawaii was the prettiest place I have ever been and although I don't think I could live there, I could have definitely stayed for another week or two!

We were still in Kauai when I wrote my last post. After we had breakfast at Joe's and hung out at the condo, we went and ran a few errands and then went to the last place that we wanted to see before we left.  Shipwreck Beach.  Even though Greg's arms were black and blue from jumping of the waterfall at Kipu Falls the day before, he just had to jump off this giant cliff that was probably 5 times higher!  When we got there it started to rain a little bit, but it gave us this beautiful rainbow.  The rain stuck around for about 5 minutes and then it was gone, like most of the showers in Hawaii.  

I have to admit that I really didn't want Greg to jump off of this cliff. It was incredibly high, the waves were really big and the shoreline was all rocks. He survived it, though. He is that little thing with his arms up in the air. Harrison Ford and Anne Heche jumped off this cliff in the movie "6 Days and 7 Nights".

Afterwards, we went back to the condo and got packed to leave.  The next morning (Tuesday), we got up and headed to the airport.  We returned our car and hopped on a island hopper plane to Honolulu.  We were only in the air for 20-some minutes.  Honolulu was the exact opposite of Kauai and it was very tough for me to get used to.  I really liked the laid-back stress-free lifestyle in Kauai...I wasn't very fond of the crazy, hectic, big city feel of Honolulu.  It felt like we were in LA.  The traffic was horrendous - we waited an hour just to get our rental car - and it just wasn't the simple, relaxing place that I wanted on my honeymoon.  I am glad we went, but even more glad that we only spent one day there!  After we got our rental car, we went straight to Pearl Harbor.  We missed the final tour out to the Arizona, but we still had fun!

I debated on whether to post this picture, but anyone that knows my husband knows that he is a complete goof-ball...I wouldn't have expected anything less from him!

After we left Pearl Harbor, we went to our hotel, which was right on Waikiki Beach.  Our hotel was beautiful and it was all open like you see in movies.  We got checked in and headed down to the beach to hang out for a little while.

Waikiki Beach sure was a busy place!  There were people everywhere.  I laid out for a little bit and Greg got in the ocean.  This picture explains why they have that wall out in the ocean - the waves were huge! (That is Greg.)

We went back up to the room and got ready to head down the street to the hundreds of shops that lined the main drag.  We stopped at our hotel bar for a quick drink and then got back downstairs just in time to see the sunset.

There was no such thing as a bad sunset in Hawaii! We were starving by this point and we were trying to find a nice little local place, but it was very commercialized.  We ended up going to Jimmy Buffet's because they had boneless buffalo wings!  I was pumped!

The main road was Kalakaua Ave. and some portions of the were like a Hawaiian Rodeo Drive.

We wandered around for a couple hours and then it was time to head back and get ready to leave for Maui the next day.

It was another short plane ride over to Maui and I got some great pictures of the shoreline as we flew in.

We stayed at the Sheraton in West Maui so we decided to fly in to the airport that was about 3 miles north instead of flying in to the big airport.  The airport was so tiny!  When we landed we were the only plane there.

We got picked up and taken to the rental car place and we were in and out in less than 5 minutes.  It was wonderful.  We drove a couple miles down the road and we were at our hotel.  It was gorgeous!  We had such an incredible view from our room and it was truly paradise! 

I had just enough time to take some pictures and call my mom to thank her for such an amazing room before we had to get ready for the Luau.  It was right at our hotel and it was a great start to our time in Maui!  It was a buffet and an open bar...

They cook a pig under these leaves and serve it...I didn't have any, but Greg said it was really good.  I don't really like to see it before I eat it!  It was actually really disgusting.

The show was really great!  I honestly don't know how the women move their hips like that.  I can barely hula hoop!

They did a good job of involving the audience and at one point they had all of the men that were either on their honeymoon or there for their anniversary go up on stage and try to dance like the men luau dancers. It was quite comical.  Greg is in the black shirt on the left side.

We spent the next day enjoying the incredible pool! It wrapped all around the grounds with bars scattered throughout. Parts of it were like a lazy river without the current to push you around it. The water was the prettiest shade of blue!

We spent several hours swimming and laying out and then we decided to go to Lahaina - a little town a couple miles south of where we were staying.  Once we finally found someplace to park, we wandered around for a little bit, did a little bit of shopping and had a nice dinner.  We got to bed pretty early that night because we were waking up at 6:00 the next morning to head to Hana!  The Road to Hana is a famous highway in Maui that consists of 617 curves and 56 bridges in a 52 mile stretch and is one lane (total) in many places.  It is a very scenic coastal drive and even though it was an entire day adventure, it was worth it!  Our first main stop was at the Garden of Eden which was a botanical garden with some of the strangest vegetation I have ever seen!  There were trails throughout and some great views!  There were all of these ducks and a few peacocks that you could feed - but one duck bit both me and Greg!  My legs were so burnt at the time so it hurt extra bad!!

Greg kept trying to pick up the ducks - you would have thought that getting bit would have deterred him...

We stopped a bunch of different places along the way, but most of them were right off the road.

Some of the pictures took several tries.  I would set up the picture on the tripod and then run over to the camera to pose, but shots like the one above weren't very easy.  The timer gives you 10 seconds and in this one it took some major agility to get there before the camera took the picture!  Especially in flip-flops! These places were just beautiful with the deep black volcanic rock and the bright blue water...it was stunning!

I was such a happy girl when I saw the "Shave Ice" sign at the Halfway to Hana stop!!  They are so delicious!  I can't tell you how much I wish Shave Ice was as available here as it is in Hawaii!! 

We made a few more stops along the way, but nothing really worth sharing until we got to the black sand beach!  This place was awesome!  There were the most incredible rock formations and it was such a beautiful sight!  I had never seen a black sand beach before.

There were caves all over called "Lava tubes" and we went in one that went right out to the ocean.

There was also another blowhole a little ways away from the beach, except this time you could walk right up to it.  If you were paying attention you could tell that it was going to shoot out a lot of water because the ground was wet a good 20 feet away from it, but people must not have been paying attention because when it went, everyone got soaked - even people taking pictures.  After it was done, the mist created a really pretty rainbow.

By the time we left here I was starting to get a little nervous.  We were on the complete opposite side of the island and you are not supposed to drive along the cliffs at night.  We planned to drive back down and around Southern Maui and parts of it are a dirt road.  The road had so many blind curves - to the point where some would have signs telling you honk your horn as you go around it.  Through a lot of it you are just feet from the cliff and 1000 feet high with no guardrail or anything.  There were so many times that we would be coming around a curve at the same time another car was and Greg would slam on the brakes just feet from the other car.  I spent most of it completely terrified!  You could drive 10 mph tops.  Plus - Greg was driving which made it even worse!  We eventually caught up to a Jeep, which was awesome because he would see what was coming first.  I didn't take any pictures of the worst part of the road because I was to busy yelling and hanging on to the handle in the car, but I took a few once the road got a little better.

At one point, Greg stopped right on top of this big hill and hollered at me to jump out.  It was by far the most vibrant rainbow that we saw the whole trip - and there were 2 of them!  I don't have a wide-angle lense, so I had to put these two pictures together.  It was amazing!

We finally made it back to the hotel and crashed!  It was a LONG day!!!

We spent our last full day of our honeymoon hanging out at the resort.  Greg hadn't jumped off the cliff yet...so naturally it was high on the priority list!  The cliff is also the cliff where they do the cliff diving ceremony every night at sunset.

(That's him jumping - but the sun was behind him, so all I could get was his silhouette.)
We played in the pool some more and then we got ready for dinner.  We came down early to watch the cliff diving ceremony, watched the sunset and took some pictures around the hotel  For dinner, we went to the Japanese Steakhouse located in the hotel for our last nice meal and it was delicious!

(That's the guy doing a swan dive off of the cliff)

The next two days were filled with traveling and it was miserable!! I did manage to get one last sunset from the first plane we were on.

Overall, it was truly a trip of a lifetime and we could have never done it without our families! We appreciate it so much and we could not have asked for a more perfect honeymoon!