On our second day in Maui we were concerned about having thunderstorms all day, so we chose not to take the a Road to Hana. Instead, we woke up early, had a delicious breakfast at the hotel restaurant where one of the Top Chef finalists works – Sheldon Simeon. We didn’t see him though.

Then we packed up our snorkeling gear and bathing suits and headed to the Makena Beaches in hopes of finding the black sand beach. We found the regular beach and noticed a number of people walking up what looked like a lava rock hill, so we followed them. The sun was beastly hot though and there was no shade on the beach. When we looked up, our fear of heights got the best of us and neither of us could make the trip up or down the rocks. So we sat on the beach for a little, watched others snorkeling and since I couldn’t handle the heat, we headed back to the car.

We followed the road along the south western coast to the Ahihi-Kina’u Natural Area Reserve. When we first drove into the area we assumed the black fields on both sides of the road was freshly tilled soil ready for planting. But as we drove furrther, it became clear that what we were not looking at soil but rocks. Actually it was coastal lava fields. The reserve consists of 1238 acres of young rugged lava flows from the Haleakala volcano’s rift zone. There’s a discrepancy about how old it was, but the youngest part was formed between 1419-1621. That’s some old rocks.

We decided to drive to Makawao, an artist community on the drive to the Haleakala National Park. We chose not to drive to the top due to the weather forecast, but figured we could shop in the rain. The weather on the island differs so greatly from one section to another. It could be pouring in one town and sunny just 30 minutes away. This little town was cute, and we found lots of fun things. After being a little tired of shopping, we decided to head to Paia, another little hippie town not too far away. We quickly learned that Paia was on the Hana Highway, so rather than shopping, we decided to drive some of the way to Hana. We had late lunch reservations at Mama’s Fish House, so we knew we couldn’t go too far.

We turned on our Gypsy Tour Ap, perfect for the tour since there was a built in GPS and the narrator told us about the trips and places to stop. Before the zero mile marker, we stopped by one of the most popular surfing beaches, Ho’okipa Lookout (I hope I have that right). There were many surfers out on the waves. The blue water and waves were gorgeous.

We drove the Road to Hana for about 10 miles and turned around. It was perfect timing for us to get to the restaurant for our 2:45 reservation. We had a fabulous seat by a window and since it was sunny we had a great view of the ocean. We had trouble deciding what to eat because everything looked delicious. The chef sent us out a warm fennel and mushroom soup for starters. We ordered shrimp wontons and grilled octopus. Both were presented beautifully. Mom had a lobster bisque for her meal, and I had a three fish panang dish with Ono, ahi and mahi mahi. Everything was incredible.

After lunch we went back to the hotel, just in time for a beautiful sunset and a dip in the pool. We were then exhausted, still full from lunch and had an early night.