Honeymoon - Day 9 and 10

So this is the LAST honeymoon post!!! I feel like I've been doing these posts FOREVER so I'm really happy to be making this my last one. It's covering two days just like the last post I did, so there's a lot of pictures on here. The last two days in Hawaii may have been our busiest days, however, they were definitely the most fun! On day 9 we woke up SUPER early (2am Hawaii time which is 9pm Birmingham time) and went to the Haleakala Bike Company to get a bike and helmet.

We rode a van with a bunch of people to the top of Haleakala Crater (a volcanic crater which is also Maui's highest point at 10,000 feet). We got to the top of the crater around 5am to watch the sunrise. It was unbelievably breathtaking. There were so many people up there doing the exact same thing we were doing. Tons and tons of bike companies had brought people to watch the sunrise and bike down the 10,000 foot mountain.







Not gonna lie, it was FREEZING up there and we didn't exactly come completely prepared. I wore a long sleeve shirt with another shirt underneath, but luckily the bike company rented out gloves, which I absolutely took advantage of!



Now we're mounting our bikes to take the AWESOME ride down the mountain. Ok so this particular activity was my absolute FAVORITE (ok well actually it's my favorite next to the Molokini dive). This was the coolest ride and it had the most spectacular views!!





Unfortunately we had to wear the helmets, but like I've told other people who commented on the helmets, you wouldn't take it off either if you saw what is on the other side of that guardrail!



The crater is in the middle of one of the US National Parks, Haleakala National Park. Anyone that knows us knows that we are both very intrigued by the national parks. So far I think we share the same favorite park and that was Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. See my previous post for those pictures.





After getting done riding down the crater, we headed over to Mendes Ranch to saddle up and go horseback riding in the mountains and on the coast. This was also incredibly cool. Justin and I have both been horseback riding before, but neither of us had been in SO long! For some reason, the guides put us on the "advanced horses". There were 14 people in our group and four horses were runners so they chose four people to be the "advanced riders". We got two of those spots!

My horse's name was Kiko (pronounced Kee-ko) and Justin's horse's name was Smokey. The first time they let the horses run they were only running half speed. The second time, however, they were GALLOPING! Which apparently in horse terms means, running like friggin Seabiscuit!!! I was holding on for dear life, not kidding! But it was so much fun and we saw some awesome views. The picture above is where Jurassic Park was filmed (the beginning scene).





A few photo opps with Justin, Marcie, Kiko and Smokey. I miss Kiko :(

At the end of this crazy but fun packed day we went back to the resort and showered and went out to dinner for our LAST dinner in Hawaii. We had been waiting for this night because we made reservations for dinner at the very famous restaurant in our resort. Just so everyone knows, there is only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet. So naturally, we were intrigued by a restaurant with 21 LETTERS in the name....



Supposedly the name is that of the Hawaiian state fish. Crazy name, but has an AMAZING filet!! We went back to the room and packed up all of our stuff to take with us the next day on our zip line and helicopter tour.



We met the next morning at Ka'aanapali Adventure Center to drive up the mountains to hit up some of the most amazing zip lines in Maui!











I was even able to take a short video of one of the lines. This line was the longest line of the four that we did. It was 2,300 feet. I had to turn off the camera almost halfway through, however, because we had to do the "starfish" (see picture above) to start slowing down. This line got us up to 50mph!! It was so cool!

After we were done zip lining, it was off to the helicopter ride! We chose Blue Hawaiian as our guide and we absolutely loved them. This was Justin's favorite activity next to the diving.









AND THAT WAS OUR HONEYMOON!!! I'm so glad I'm done with these posts now :) Justin and I had so much fun in Hawaii and some amazing and unforgettable memories were made there. We suggest that everyone go there if its possible for you to. If you're adventurous like us, do all the things we did. People kept telling us to have more "relax" time, but that's just not us. We tried it for a day while we were in Hawaii, and we both got bored. Hawaii is too awesome and amazing to sit by a pool or beach the whole trip. There's so much to see on land, in the water, and in the air. If you ever visit Hawaii, please take advantage of all three.

Aloha!

P.S. This day also knocked off #89 and #60 on my 101 things to do in 1001 days list. While writing this I realized that I put horseback riding on there twice. Oops!! I'll have to replace the second one with something else.

Honeymoon - Day 7 and Day 8

Ok I'm trying to wrap up the honeymoon posts quickly so I'm doing two days in one post. So basically, prepare for a little bit longer of a post :)



On Day 7 of our honeymoon we did another dive! This time we went to Molokini Crater. If you read my blog frequently, you may remember me making a previous post about Molokini. It has crystal blue waters and is a heaven for divers and snorkelers. We went to meet our dive master at Ma'aalea Harbor to board a boat with about 10 other people. Justin and I got our own personal dive guide, so we didn't dive with the other people, just with our dive guide.



This is a view of the crater from the boat as we were coming in. I cannot possibly explain how blue that water is!



Pictures can be deceiving. This guy is probably half my size and the dive guide said they can get up to 80lbs.



I don't know why, but I really LOVE this picture. Justin and I only have our open water certification, which means we're not suppose to go past 60 feet. The blue water makes depth a little deceiving and we didn't even realize that we were at 80 FEET until we looked at our dive computers.



At a safety stop before our final ascent from the bottom of the ocean.



Justin checking his pressure. Because we were at 80 feet we burned through our air a lot quicker than if we were at 40 or 50 feet. We were constantly checking our air to make sure we had enough to make a 3-4 minute stop and get back to the top safely.



Me swimming away...LOVING that I'm 80 feet down :)



This picture was actually not taken at Molokini Crater. After our dive there, we took the boat to a place called Turtle Valley (close to Turtle Town, but a lot less crowded). Our dive guide managed to get a picture of us with the turtle. I think this is Justin's favorite picture of the whole trip. He is so obsessed with it.





Justin got to hold a rather large octopus! I got a pretty good video of that too....

After the dives, Justin and I had no plans, so we just drove around the entire island of Maui. I'm totally not kidding! We drove from Ma'aalea Harbor through West Maui and into Kaanapali in North Maui all the way around to our hotel back on the South Shore.

Day 8 of the honeymoon was spent driving to Hana. This road is one of the most popular roads in all of Maui and we figured out why pretty quickly! It's absolutely beautiful!!! This drive is what I think of the most when I hear the song that is playing on my blog "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". I'm not going to put commentary on these pictures, so just enjoy the greenery!























P.S. The banana bread was AMAZING!!

And that was the Road to Hana!!! Next up is the LAST honeymoon post (thank God) and it is when we went to the top of the Haleakala Crater to watch the sunrise and then we biked down the 10,000 foot mountain. Afterwards we went horseback riding in the mountains and on the coast. I will also put our last day in Hawaii in that post (so that I can make it the last honeymoon post). Our last day was spent zip lining and taking a helicopter ride. Awesome pictures from all of the above to come :)

Honeymoon - Day 6

Day 6 of our honeymoon was a relaxation day for us. We had a dive scheduled at 4pm, but nothing to do until then. So we took this opportunity to enjoy our amazing resort pool. I woke up relatively earlier than Justin, as always, and headed to the pool by myself so that he could get some sleep. He met me at the adults only pool when he woke up later.



This is the adults only pool, also referred to as the Hibiscus Pool. It was incredibly relaxing and is usually never full! There's hot tubs on both sides of the pool, though you can't really see them in this picture. They have cabanas set up around the pool where they give pool side massages. It was very relaxing because there weren't any kids, and as early as I was there, there wasn't too many adults either. Only the waves and birds were making noise.



The pool has a pretty good view of the resorts wedding chapel. You may recognize this as the spot where John and Kate Gosslin renewed their wedding vows!!! I don't watch that show but a friend of mine pointed it out to me when she saw our pictures.



When Justin came down we stayed at the adults pool for an hour or so but then got bored, so we went to the activity pool. In this pool, where most of the people go, there were a bunch of fun things to do. It was really seven pools that were all attached by either a water slide, lazy river, or a water elevator. The picture above is of Justin and I floating down the lazy river.



One of the most popular spots was the swim up bar that was located in a cave. There were a bunch of tables around so that people could enjoy their drinks or food while still in the water. The water in the cave was heated, which we thought was really cool. On the exit part of the cave was a waterfall that you had to go under to get back to the main pool. There was also a hot tub located in the cave. It was seriously one of the coolest things ever!



This is a view from one of the hot tubs above the activity pool of one of the lazy rivers leading into a bigger pool. It was so gorgeous!



Me enjoying the hot tub above the activity pool. Awesome view of the ocean too!

After relaxing for a day at the beach and pool at our hotel, we got ready and headed back to Makena Landing (where we did our snorkel/kayak tour on Day 4) to do our dives. We used Shaka Divers as our guide and we did their "Twilight Dive" special. This involved going into the water during the day and then revisiting the same place at night to see the night creatures come out. We got ready and started to head into the water around 6.



Shaka Doug is the guide that was in charge. He is the owner of the business and even holds 2 world records! There were only 3 of us going that day.



This is a picture that Doug took of me coming up on a turtle. Doug actually took a lot of pictures for us that we bought for super cheap from him later. His camera was obviously much better than ours underwater :)



This was such a gorgeous view from one of the reefs below. The downside of this particular dive was the surge action. In Hawaii, waves and currents get MUCH stronger in the afternoon. This was our first ever dive in the ocean and on top of that, our first experience with such a bad surge. When waves came in, it was all we could do to not run into the reefs or get pushed out further into the ocean. I've never swam so hard in my life!!



The hand symbol I'm using is frequently used by Hawaiians and is their way of saying "hang loose" or "awesome". Doug liked a lot of pictures with his divers using it because it is also the symbol on his business.



Justin and I were a little shocked when Doug asked us to kiss underwater. Neither of us were too fond of having the regulators out of our mouths for too long when we're that deep underwater!!

This is just a small video Doug made of Justin and I going through some underwater arches. At the end I'm pointing at a turtle for Justin to look at, you just can't see it on the video.

After getting out of the water from the first dive we had to go back to Doug's bus to get flashlights for our night dive. We each had a flashlight, though to be honest, they weren't very bright! Doug also had the brilliant idea of tying glow sticks to our air tanks. Each of us had a different color and that made it easier to see who you were around without having to shine a light in someone's face.



This is a picture Doug took on the night dive. It's a moray eel. Not gonna lie, these things freak me out, especially when they've got their teeth out!



Here's another one that was bearing its teeth a little more than the first one. These things ran from Doug when he shined his light on them. They are pretty scared of things they don't understand.



The last picture is of a crab that Doug found under some rocks. Due to the major surge action going on, visibility was not at its best. However, Justin and I were at this exact spot when we were kayaking so we knew that it could have been better. We were just excited about the dive the next day that we were doing at Molokini Crater, where the water is said to be clearer than bath water. Not gonna lie, I'm a little nervous to do another night dive. I'll do it with Justin if he wants, but I am by no means going out of my way to do a night dive. It was cool, don't get me wrong, but I just like being able to see in front of me and around me all at the same time. I don't like swimming blind! If any of you dive, you know how much it wears you out, so Justin and I just went and picked up some quick dinner and went back to the hotel and went to bed. We had another dive planned for tomorrow!

Next up, day 7 - diving at Molokini Crater. Both of these dive days has knocked off #19 of my 101 things to do in 1,001 days.