Today we go back to ‘civilization’.

We had brought the fixings for macadamia nut pancakes for breakfast but I wanted to explore the grounds of the condo we were staying at a bit, and Steve wanted to explore in another direction. This got is going on breakfast a bit late. We asked one of the staff if it was ok for us to leave a bit late, and she said it was fine.

So we made breakfast (Ok, Ginny made breakfast) and we ate Around 11:10, as we were cleaning up, the owner of the property knocked on the door and asked us to leave soon. I asked him if 20 minutes was OK, and he said we were already 20 minutes late (check out was 11am). I wasn’t sure what time zone he was living in, but 10 minutes after 11, does not make you 20 minutes late for a 11am checkout. I told him we would try to be out in 10 minutes he groused a bit and left.

As a small peace offering to the owner, Steve helped him out with his Apple Airport base station.

Just before we hit the road, Ginny saw some kittens playing near the house next door… of course we had to stay and watch them a little.

We finally got back on the road around 11:45 we’re heading back to Lahina via the back way (not the way we came). This road is much less developed (dirt & gravel in many places, quite narrow most of the way). The car rental companies don’t like folks to take this road, but there’s really not much they can do about it. I’ve checked the rental agreements every time we’ve been to Maui and have never found a clause indicating that driving that road is forbidden.

The other thing about this road is that it’s very beautiful. Since it’s not traveled as often as the main road to Hana, there can be some very ‘interesting’ people along the way. There are also two geo caches that can be found, so we were on the hunt.

The first cache site was pretty easy to find it was hidden in the rock wall near a store in Kaupo. We bought some sodas at the store, and chatted with the clerk (she was kind of a flake). We also chatted with the operators of a little coffee stand who knew a bit about the cache. Mono and his girlfriend (didn’t get her name) were quite friendly and we talked a bit. Ginny got to play with there cat a bit, so she was happy. We bought some iced tea, logged our visit to the cache, dropped off the travel bug we picked up a few days ago, and got back on the road. .

We tried to find another cache along the way, but were not successful. It was hidden up on a rocky outcropping, and it was really windy. I was kind of nervous up there, so we decided to give it a pass.

One of the funny things about this route back is that the road is incredibly inconsistent. At one point we were on a very rough road that obviously hadn’t been maintained in quite some time, the next we’re on a nicely paved two lane road over a bridge and, quite literally 2 blocks later we’re back on the poorly maintained road again.

Ginny’s theory is that the bridge needed to be rebuilt and the federal program that would provide the funds requires any new bridges be two lane so there’s a brand new two lane bridge in the middle of a rough and rocky highway.

Finally back in civilization, we checked into our hotel (Marriott Wailea), we had to high tail it to see Warren and Annabelles show.