Iao Needle, Botanic Gardens, Lanai and our last day

One of our days in Maui we visited Iao State Park and a private botanic garden on the road to the state park. It was gorgeous, as is everything in Hawaii. First, I am going to bore you with a bunch of pictures of flowers and fruit....but coming from a semi-arid, land-locked, full-on-in-winter state, I just can't help myself.

The pointy mountain (hill, if you're from Colorado) is Iao needle. Such bloody battles fought in such a lush, peaceful area - maybe they didn't get what a mellow relaxing place they were living. I certainly never felt like fighting while we were there.



We had lunch at some indi-pizza place and ordered half our pizza "Hawaiian". Why yes, we did think we were clever.




Lanai

We did a snorkeling excursion to Lanai, although the water was too rough to snorkel there, we ended up back in Maui for that. We were able to spend some time at the tidal pools though and saw an octopus and other neat looking sea creatures.

If you look really closely you can make out one of the octopuses tentacles.

Our last day

We just hung out at the hotel on our last day, Isaac and I at the pool and Jake and Jason Kayaking in the ocean. We barbecued shish-kabobs at the poolside grill that night and watched our last Hawaiian sunset. It really was such a fantastic vacation that had the added blessing of watching Jason's cousin getting married and visiting with his aunt and uncle.

Mahalo