I feared for my life.

So, I finally made it to Lahaina, kind of a last minute trip with R, my roommate.  We took the bus into town, and wandered the area like any well-meaning single gals.

This guy may not be real, but he really cracked us up.

How abouts a midday beach beer?  We sat on the rocks, and hung out, watching for whales and the beginner surfers.

Under the banyon tree!  This single tree takes up a whole city block...you can easily climb onto it's many limbs.

Fast forward a couple days...we decided to go to happy hour as a bonding experience.  And bonding, it was.

With shots of tequila, and taste testing different cocktails and beers, it made for a really great evening!  The best part was everyone was in bed by 9.

One day for work, R and I were on coconut duty.  We had to pick out the coconuts that hadn't been cracked, and get rid of the rest.  While looking for something to hold all our coconuts, R came across this container, screamed, and threw it down.  We then decided to investigate this little guy, and take plenty of pictures.

For Valentines Day, R and I had a last-minute decision to hike the trail at Iao Valley, in our flip flops.  During the hike, we ran into a hiking group, with a tour guide named Henry.  Henry was from California, and was extremely chatty.  So chatty that he pretty much ditched his group and just went with R and I.  Afterwards, R had to double check with me what his name actually was.  She was convinced it was Steve, so we started referring him as Steve.

These little rocks were everywhere. R said it was somehow to respect the warriors or something.  But after researching, it's a tourist thing and it's actually very offensive.

Offensive or not, it's creepy.  It brought on a conversation about voodoo and spirituality.

Henry told us that this plant is a natural shampoo, but it's not in season so we couldn't try it out.

Halfway up the mountain trail, I ditched the flip flops.  On the way down, so did R.  We also decided to get into the spirit of things, and put tribal marks on our faces with mud.

We made it out alive, after befriending Rob, who was from California, and knew all about Zingermans.   He talked a lot about his ex-wife, and it was quite a trip down.

We climbed down to some water, and washed our crying feet up.  We also washed the flip flops and our faces, hoping for a better chance at getting a ride.  Nobody likes dirty hitchhikers.

On the way back, we got a really nice ride from Jen, from St. Louis.  She works for a local magazine here in Maui, and she got us to Haiku.  We still needed to get to Door of Faith Rd., so we hitched.  An old beat up pick up pulled up, and we opted to climb in the bed of the truck.  Seemed like a good idea, right?  It. was. terrifying.

We had a container of marinara from Little Caesars, left over from our lunch, and we had decided to just bring it back to the house and offer it up.  Well, that marinara went through a lot. 

We made a pit stop here, so our ride could try and sell some of his poi (ground up taro) but it was a no go.  So he gave it to us.  I also learned that he was a local, which meant his driving would be almost twice as fast as the normal driver.  We crossed over the lane, and I made sure to hold on for dear life.

We made it out alive, and on our walk down, stopped in at a local church, which is a historical landmark, looked around, and headed home.  We ended up meeting one of our neighbors, Riggy (or Ricky - we're not too sure) who was from Tunga, and told us all about true love.

All in all, a really great few days.