Haleakala / Kea Lani

I've been fond of saying, "I love doing nothing." But this trip made me realize, I should be more accurate: "I love having the choice of what to do with my day." Because I hate doing nothing. I am not a "lie around on the beach all day doing nothing person." Although we did do that for a day (no photos, though). So we had a day with no plans and the thought of doing "nothing" was bringing me down. But I couldn't find a longish hike that didn't involved driving the road to Hana to get to. Did I mention I hate driving? So we went back to Haleakala Crater and did the Halemau'u Trail to the bottom. It wasn't as pretty as the Sliding Sands Trail, but it killed the day and allowed me to get to what was the best part of this trip...eating tasty food at the Kea Lani. I should mention, I did love "upcountry." Cool weather and everything is green. I had a tasty espresso, chocolate-y bar at Grandma's. So food on Maui is expensive and not that good. In fact, in order to get a decent meal, we had to spend three times as much as what we'd have to pay for it in San Francisco. So even though I'm a cheap-ass, good food is mandatory on vacation and we ended up dropping a lot of dough at Nick's Fish Market and Cafe Ciao at the Fairmont Kea Lani in Wailea. Both had excellent, if pricey, food and outdoor seating. Go at sunset. Nick's is more formal and had excellent drinks. We had one meal at the bar where we just ordered the soup of the day, desserts and drinks. We came back for the two things we thought the most excellent from our previous meal...the soup of the day, a saffron, seafood chowder and for dessert, banana's foster. I had Molokai Monkey's and Marya had Espresso Martini's.