Hearts in Hawai'i
Our Trip to Maui (2012)--Day 3
4/24/2012
Upcountry
Peanut butter toast was my breakfast this morning after a 6:00 wake up. Walked for over an hour on the beach, then came back to the room to prepare for our Upcountry drive.
View from our lanai
View from Front St
The plan was to drive first through Makawao and up the Olinda Road, exploring what we encountered. I was told that the Olinda area was very pretty. Afterward, we would drive the Kula Highway along the backside of Haleakala as far as the road remained two lanes, or until we got bored. We would then drive back to Kula and check out the sunset at Sun Yat-Sen Park, finishing the day with dinner at Serpico's in Pukalani. The plan worked fairly well other than the timing. By leaving Lahaina before noon, we allowed ourselves way too much time. We located the park just after 2 p.m. Realizing we had well over four hours to kill until sunset, we decided to just drive the backside, skip the sunset and head to Serpico's. Besides, the vantage point from the park wasn't that good, anyway. Not to mention that the County has spent little money on the park's maintenance and it had fallen into some serious disrepair. And this was a shame because the location is excellent.
View of the Makena coast from upcountry
A surprise was waiting for us on the backside where we found a cow in the middle of the highway a couple hundred yards in front of us! By the time we'd reached the cow and had slowed down, it had moved over to the westbound lane and was ambling slowly about, not spooked by a motor vehicle sharing "its road" in the least. We passed within ten feet, getting the whole thing on camcorder.
Serpico's
Serpico's specializes in pasta dishes in a New Jersey-New York style. It's a small place, nothing fancy. Service was adequate, other than our having to remind the waitress to bring our Focaccia bread which came with the dishes we ordered. Patty had the Fettucinni Alfredo with chicken, which she didn't particularly care for. I had the Chicken Parmesan which was served over spaghetti with meat sauce. Both portions were HUGE, which justified what we felt was otherwise a fairly high price. Atmosphere and views are in very short supply at this restaurant. The Chicken Parmesan was tasty, the spaghetti not quite as good, although strangely enough the spaghetti tasted much better the next day when the leftovers were reheated in the microwave.
Chicken Parmesan
Stuffed from our dinner, the drive back to Lahaina was fun even with the heavy rush hour traffic. (I know, folks who reside in large cities would laugh at what we consider "heavy traffic") We rested for a time and then headed out on foot along Front Street to do some shopping. We eventually made our way to Kimo's just before sunset where we had drinks. Patty had a Diet Coke, I had a Virgin Lava Flow. Our waitress was a Minnetonka grad! She brought this up upon seeing my UMD Minnesota-Duluth cap (we knew the cap would be a conversation starter at some point). The sunset was average for Hawai`i, but what made this visit special was seeing at least three whales a couple hundred yards out in the ocean. Spectacular, and the sight really got a response from others in the bar area. I had not counted on seeing whales this late in the season, so this was a real treat.
Our Nissan Versa rental. Not a bad car but no mp3 player!
Back to the room, we didn't visit the hot tub tonight as Patty was really bushed. She crashed by 9:00. It was a very fun and full day.
Previous: 4/23/2012--Our Trip to Maui (2012)--Day 2
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