In case you don’t keep up with me on other outlets of social media, you may or may not know that my farmer and I have been doing a ton of traveling as of lately. It all started at the end of January (on a side note, Hello March!? I can’t believe it…). Anyway, we took a trip to Hawaii, to be specific Maui! I was super excited for this trip because Hawaii has been on my bucket list for some time now. My farmer on the other hand has traveled what I’d call extensively in Hawaii… this was his second time to Maui which was nice because I basically had a built in tour guide/gps.
We stayed at the Grand Wailea (a Waldorf Astoria Resort) which is known for it’s award winning Spa Grande. And let me tell you, this place was swank. Being that I majored in interior design in college and am a nerd anything interior design, I was in heaven walking around this place. The style of the interiors in this place was reminiscent of Old Plantation Style with light yellow walls, white shutters, Old World furniture styles, rattan accessories, botanical artwork. The food at the many restaurants and even the buffet was fantastic and the drinks were fruity and heavenly! They even served them to you in a little keepsake Pineapple
We were spending a week on Maui and had lots of fun and exciting things planned to do. We were on vacation with our chemical distributor for Maverick Ag. They are a wonderful company who distribute to a bunch of fun people who own or work for businesses very similar to what we do at Maverick Ag! So if anyone from the trip is reading… we had so much fun and are already counting down the days until next year! Our first outing was whale watching. We took a catamaran out (Alii Nui) and boy did we pick a wonderful day.. The whale activity was amazing! We had whales popping up everywhere. One was even hanging out RIGHT next the boat! For those of you unfamiliar, humpback whales migrate from polar waters way north to tropical waters like Hawaii and Baja California every year to breed and have babies. How nice would that be…? HA! Some of the things I learned was that once the whales migrate and are in tropical waters, they do not eat at all. There’s no food source for them down there, so they store up fat to live off of while they migrate and are down in the tropics. Usually humpback whales travel in packs of three, either a mother, calf, and escort (male whale) or a pack of junior males competing for the female and the calf. Apparently the male humpback whales are quite competitive and will breech on top of each other in order to show dominance. The animal world is tough, y’all. This day on the boat is one I will never forget, it was amazing to me that an animal so big has the ability to be so graceful and majestic. And watching them jump out of the water or simply start their descent down with their tails out of the water took my breath away.
Our next adventure was renting a Harley and taking it all the way around the Island to Hana. If you’ve never been around this part of the Island of Maui, let me tell you… Parts of the road are basically cliff, extremely narrow, bumpy, and windy. But it is some of the prettiest views you’ll ever see!! You’ve never truly felt alive until you’ve traveled on a Harley to Hana and back! The geography and climate of Maui is so crazy. One side of the island is in a complete drought, all plant life is basically dead and the other side is like a rain forest with lush greenery. On the way back from Hana, the rain forest feeling fades and opens up into rocky pasture land. I had my camera secured safely to me so I was able to capture the beauty along the way.
On the road to and from Hana, you go through some extremely rural places to live. I would venture to guess some of the homes there may/may not have electricity. There were all sorts of little food shacks you could stop at to eat lunch along the way. Some of them were a little more advanced than others. The one we stopped at literally had no napkins to cut down on waste, the one woman crew was cooking on an open fire bbq made out of half of a barrel, there were no bathrooms but you were welcome to walk up the hill and use the “facilities”… Sounds like our kind of place! Ha, but seriously. The food was darn good. I had pork tacos with a homemade slaw and salsa. The salsa was made with fresh fruit and was so delicious. The place looked like a dump but sometimes you’ve got to be brave and try something out of the ordinary. Oh and our only option for drinks was bottled water because the man who cracked the coconuts wasn’t there that day. LOL! I’m pretty sure one of the couples we were traveling with thought we were out of our minds to stop here and eat.
After our day on the Harley, we spent the rest of the time enjoying the beach, swim up pool bar, and the company of great friends. The Grand Wailea had a lot to offer and I ended up finding a photography class that I attended and even got to take home a canvas of my work! It was right up my alley! The woman who taught the class has been a photographer all her life and has over the years traveled the world taking photos. She specializes in surf photography where she takes the photos of her subjects from the sky (in a helicopter!). Listening to her talk totally inspired me. Here’s this woman who’s been in photography since it was a “boy’s club” and she was doing things people told her as a woman she couldn’t do. She invited us to break the rules of photography and let us know that it’s totally okay to put our cameras in Program mode and shoot! The class also gave me the ability to wander around the gardens of the hotel and fall in love with the art of photography all over again. The last two images below are the canvases I took home. I am such a sucker for lilies of any kind…
The most EXCITING part of my trip has yet to be revealed… In fact, I just remembered as I was writing this blog post that I completely forget I had photos from my FIRST EVER SCUBA DIVE! The Grand Wailea offered an hour class with a great instructor who has been teaching diving for 20+ years. After completing the hour class, we had the ability to take an hour dive with the instructor right off the beach. Further certification would require me to take another class, do some homework, and a few more dives. I had a blast! I am not a fan of snorkeling, I hate getting water in my mouth. Scuba diving was amazing, I don’t know how else to describe it. The feeling of weightlessness and the ability to breathe underwater. It was another item on my bucket list and something I will definitely do again when I get the chance.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S-gd35WO7M&w=420&h=315]Overall, my first ever trip to Hawaii will go down in the memory book as amazing! I got to see a lot, experience a lot, check things off my bucket list, and I am thankful I was traveling with someone who knew where to go/what to see/where to eat. It was wonderful to get away from the snow and sub zero temps for a week to bask in the sun and feel the sand between our toes, even if most of the time I hate the sand. But most of all, it was wonderful to spend some quality time with my farmer, away from home and the stress of life. I am so thankful for the hard work he puts in so we are able to do things like this. It’s important to be able to get away and recharge your batteries.. And this trip did just that.
If you have any questions or are planning a trip to Maui, feel free to contact me. I’d love to share more specifics with you! Or have you ever been to Maui? What should be next on our to-do list Maui!?
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A trip to Hawaii sounds like so much fun! My husband and I usually go somewhere every winter to “recharge.” This year we went to Miami for his sister’s wedding but we were just saying the other day that we should have done another trip or stayed longer. Our winter “recharge” trip wasn’t too much of a “recharge” with wedding activities almost the whole time. I love it how you got to be apart of a photography class while in Hawaii too – beautiful pictures!