Our last day in Maui was a REALLY fucking good one. We woke up super early, threw our shit in the car because I didn't want to risk not making it back in time to check out of the hotel, and headed to the helicopter airport.
The helicopter airport!!!!! I've been on two different helicopters, but this is the one I was most excited about.
When Derek and I went to Jamaica, we took a booze cruise and I get really fucking land sick for two days after. Ever since, I've been paranoid about motion sickness. Do I get motion sick? No. No I do not. Does that matter? No it does not. I bought the little motion sickness bands in the helicopter airport and put them on, feeling like a doofus but knowing I'd rather feel like a doofus and look like a doofus than be too ill to appreciate the lovely treat Derek had arranged for us.
We waited for our turn, loaded into our helicopter, and I told our instructor he could leave Derek at the helicopter airport because I was way more fun and a superior photographer. Sorry, honey, but I suppose the moral of the story is he didn't believe my lies and he let Derek board.
Here we are, pre-flight, delighted despite the early hour:
Guess what, assweeds? We are the authorized personnel now!
There's our helicopter doctor, who was absolutely wonderful, and I absolutely cannot remember his name. Mr. Wonderful Helicopter Doctor was an amazing tour guide.
Eeeeee! The take off was a little bumpy and topsy turvy, but it was thrilling. Derek and I gave each other a squeeze and then it was click click click click for the next hour, with little gestures in between places. What a fucking amazing trip.
Just the edge of the island and one of the other outer islands. I know Mr. Wonderful Helicopter Doctor told us which one it was, but I don't really remember. I think it's Kaho'olawe, but my guess is as good as someone else's.
Derek and I have this habit of thinking that premium almost always means better. So when Derek upgraded our seats to the first class, up front, big bubble window sitting next to the pilot seats, we assumed we'd have the optimum vantage for getting the kind of photographs we had been lusting over since booking the flight.
We were so fucking wrong.
So.
Fucking.
WRONG.
Now, I am disappointed that there weren't any helicopters offering photographer friendly, door off helicopter tours. There's one on Maui, but they only let you bring your cell phone, and I aint about that bullshit life. If it isn't my 5Dmkiii, it aint the shit for this bitch.
I could tell the second we really got up in the air that the photos I could get weren't going to be amazing, because of the glass, and because of the position I had in the helicopter. The girl sitting in the row behind me with her panel of window had a far better place and I wish I could have traded her. I was so envious of her spot the whole entire flight. That didn't stop me from enjoying the tour, though. Or from trying to take pictures. I have had to dehaze these A LOT, so if they look unreal, I apologize.
But you guys.
These views were fucking sickening. I kept laughing outloud because I just didn't know how else to react to what I was seeing. Shit was unfuckingreal.
See the waterfalls? You have to really get in there with your eyeballs, but they're there!!
I gave Derek a lot of shit for booking our helicopter tour for the wrong time of day. Not like, nasty shit, but I shouldn't have given him any shit at all. It was such a fucking great experience. I really loved it.
Except Derek.
These shadows are your mother fucking fault, and I love you.
I tried to lean in to the shadows, I really did. I'm not too terribly upset at that photo. The more I look at it, the more it grows on me. I haven't quite gotten the hang of dehazing, and I fear that when I look at this tomorrow, I will hate the overly processed look of it.
Hullo, Maui! We are old friends and I am certainly not guilty of being a smooth poser!
It's just neat, right? This won't get me a one way ticket into NatGeo stardom like I've always dreamed, but it's just fucking cool. How fucking lucky am I that I am able to take BAD pictures of Maui from above? Sometimes I forget that I am filled with existential dread and repulsive urges and I just concentrate on how fucking cool it can be to be alive (when you're not filled with panic about your unyielding march toward death).
Mr. Wonderful Helicopter Doctor taking us by Haleakala. This was a far better view, without pushy ass tourists bumping me out of the way.
While Mr. Wonderful Helicopter Doctor was swerving around Haleakala so the people on Derek's side could get a good photo of it, I was looking down onto the wonders of erosion and time. Fucking. NEAT.
THAT IS A FUCKING VOLCANO, YA BASTIDS. Just so fucking neat. It's neat! I can't stop saying it's neat, but what else do you say?? Honestly. I am never not in awe of this planet. I sure as shit hate the people in charge of it, but I love the fuck out of our lonely little rock.
This waterfall was the bane of my existence. I had been reading about how to get my settings right for shooting in a helicopter without the doors off, and after spending the bulk of the ride thus far agitated at my photos coming out looking like shit, I decided that the dude who wrote the article I read last that gave the same advice as all the others could suck my butt, he wasn't the boss of the world, so I gave up the settings and used my own intuition, and I fared so much fucking better. Always trust my own gut rather than some stranger, I don't care how many blogs he writes a week.
I was really fucking freaked the fuck out that I wasn't going to get that waterfall. So freaked out. There are about fifteen photos that I'm not posting in here that had fucked up settings because I listened to some strange photography professional instead of listening to me. I really wanted to get this waterfall. It was so fucking gorgeous. Just look at it there. Stunning.
I had wanted to cry over the last set of waterfalls we flew over that I fucked up. Check it:
Do you know what that is? Yes you do, it's garbage. It's hot garbage that's pretending to be a photograph of so many waterfalls on Maui. I really wanted to get a good shot of those, too, but here we are, without one. Here's another:
But I assessed, I trusted myself, and I put on the settings I thought would serve me better.
And I nailed it. As best as I could through the glass of a helicopter and with no chance to correct if I fucked it up, I nailed it.
NICE TRY! I BET YOU DIDN'T GET IT AS GOOD AS I DID! Just kidding, I bet he got a great shot.
Just some volcanic hills, as seen from the air.
You guys, I lost track of how many waterfalls there are. I have dozens of photos of waterfalls where the settings weren't even close to fixable. So. Many. Waterfalls.
The views are even good from the fucking floor, what is this magical space vehicle????
So apparently, the huge draw for taking the helicopter tour is flying over the rock that you see in the beginning of the original Jurassic Park. Derek and I didn't care much. We had avoided the Garden of Eden, where you can get a solid view of the rock, because eh. Why? It's a rock. And we've seen so many. But guess what?
CHECK OUT THESE MORE ROCKS.
Sorry about the feet reflections at the top. Can't get it right all the time.
PLAY YOUR FUCKING MELODICA.
And after that, the flight was pretty much over. We cruised around the edge of the island, as seen here:
Look at those non-dumb and non-uppity assholes, enjoying their unobstructed, non-warped view. I HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT, JERKS. I am still giving you both the frowning of a fucking lifetime.
Hello, Kahului!
Look at all of those cows, plotting to overthrow the turtles. I just know it.
And that concluded our helicopter tour. It was fucking fantastic. I loved Mr. Wonderful Helicopter Doctor, he was great, I wrote him a little thank you card. Derek and I bought a shot glass, and we G'ed the Fuck O.
We were starving, so we found a place in Paia to have breakfast. It was empty and bourgie as fuck, which is exceptionally on brand for us.
Even with eating animal products, there were still places where I found it difficult to eat. The restaurant staff were all as accommodating as they could be, and I only got sick a couple of times from eating sugar and carbs.
We started with our favorite appetizer, shishito peppers.
I love shishito peppers because they are mild, but sorta feisty. These, though. These were like playing russian roulette. Some were sweet, and some were fucking BRUTAL. Derek thought I was making it up, but then he got a hot one, then another hot one. Then more hot ones. We couldn't eat all of them, though the sweet ones were perfection.
I ordered the drab omelette with some kind of red pepper coulis on it, and I didn't relize it came with potatoes, and now I had wasted shishito peppers and potatoes. I hate wasting food, but Derek was stuffed from his fucking GORGEOUS shakshuka:
I sampled a bit...just delightful.
After that, we really were kind of aimless, so we drove back through Hana Highway. There was a hike Derek had wanted to do every single day, but the first day there was no parking, and then each day after it was raining (and also no parking. Rain stops no one in Maui). We finally had a sunny day and parking, so out we popped.
I'd never heard of this band. I was intrigued.
The trees do not look that fucking busy to me. Certainly not busy enough where I have to be quiet. YOU be quiet.
This hike was pretty, but shorter than we expected, and we found ourselves at the beginning in about fifteen minutes, even though we thought it was a two mile hike. It turns out we are stone cold morons and we didn't take the picnic loop, which is the correct loop for the long version. Did we correct? No! We drove down to Honomanu Bay and hike down that instead so we could finally check out this black sand beach the app had been promising us for days and days.
I am very guilty of trying to visit #Maui, but I am very pleased that I ended up visiting Maui instead and I liked it WAY better.
Black sand indeed. You can't fool this dummy, those are just rocks. MORE ROCKS.
SEE? That isn't sand yet!
Walking up and down the beach, and trying to crouch down and get some cool angles to take interesting photos here, I noticed this little dude:
And then some more:
Turns out the beach was fucking riddled with man'o'war, and I didn't feel as good about running around in the water trying to get shots anymore. Derek stayed around to photograph them for a little while I hung out in the shade, and then we made our way back to the car (even though, as Derek will all too happily tell you, we could have easily driven down the road rather than hiking it. But I enjoyed the walk).
We both had our macros on from photographing the jellies, so we both investigated the smaller bits of the hike back up. I think my macros are honestly my favorite photos from the entire trip.
I was absolutely dripping sweat by the time we were back to the car, and I could have spent another hour or three taking macro shots of all the delicate little ferns and the bamboo and the tiny critters, but I would have overheated. So we got back in the car (it was mutual, don't worry. Derek wasn't clamoring to stay and I didn't twist his arm to leave) and drove through Kaenae one last time.
After that, we left Hana Highway and headed back to the Kahului area to wait out the next few hours until we had to bring the car back to the airport. We were starving, so I looked up lots of places to eat, and we settled on Da Kitchen.
This place...this place is fucking amazing. It looks totally unassuming, I hadn't heard anything about it, I hadn't read anything about it, and I had zero expectations. When we went in, there wasn't a wait (that would change VERY quickly, but as a general rule, I have fucking stellar timing for arriving at food places right before the rush), and as we waited for a table to be cleaned off for us, I spotted the last dumb memento we'd purchase on the island:
It is proudly displayed on our fridge, and I love it, and you cannot talk me out of loving my stupid fucking magnet.
As had been pretty common with most of the restaurants we visited, my options were fairly limited, but man, I have never wanted to cheat on keto so bad in my life.
It was dumb of me to not take a photo of all of the menu(s), but here's the section Derek ordered from. He got the Polynesian Paralysis Moco.
He just...it...I mean, look at it.
It just looks like it will kill you but you won't even care because it's so delicious. I'm not sure this picture sells the scope of exactly how fucking ginormous this thing was.
My husband, seen here looking fucking gorgeous but small next to that plate of food, is a 5'9 man with no weird proportions. This is not a trick of the eye, that bowl is as big as a god damn bassinet. Derek looks like a fucking tiny ass hobbit, look at the size of that bowl! And it's deep, too. And full of food. They do not skimp on the portions at Da Kitchen.
I ordered fish and bok choy and mushrooms with a butter sauce and nothing else because it all had sugar and carbs and I can't ever eat anything, but they also gave me like, four fucking fillets.
And the bok choy were local AND hugenormous. It was scrumptious.
That is the face of a defeated man.
He made a super valiant effort, though!!!!
We left Da Kitchen and have been wanting to go back ever since. I tell Derek the flight is only fifteen minutes, we could take a day trip and eat every meal there and then come home with a shit ton of leftovers! So far, no dice on that plan.
We still had a fuckton of hours to kill, so we sat in the Walmart parking lot and did crossword puzzles, cleaned out the car, tried to nap, but did more crossword puzzles instead, and then it was time to go. So we headed back to the airport, milled around for an hour and a half, took the 19 minute flight home, and there we go. That was our Maui trip.
Filling out these blogs took me literally days. Hours and hours and hours went into this. I culled and edited and culled and edited as I went along so I could jog my memory of how our days transpired, and it really helped. I wish I had done this with all of our other trips, but I vowed to Derek that this is how I'll do our trips from here on out.
And that's all she fuckin' wrote about that.
