Aloha!

We just got back yesterday from an incredible eight days in Maui! My amazing husband decided to put this trip together last year when we were in the throws of caring for my mom in the last three months of her life here on earth with us.
He planned the entire trip down to the convertible he rented for tooling around the island on dry days or in the dry areas. If it's raining on one part of the island you can always drive to another and find the sun shining.
I have loads of photos and I will post them over this next week or two as I am just barely starting to cull through them and we took soooo many pics of waterfalls, the ocean, the scenery, and the main reason Fred timed our trip for this time of year...the whales!!!
Before we left I came down with the 14 day respiratory virus that many of your suffered through yourselves and then it was followed a week after recovery by a good case of shingles. Lovely! So when we were barely a week from leaving and I came down with a painful case of shingles I was getting nervous that we would even get to go. Thanks to good diagnosis work by Fred and my friend Marti (long distance via a phone conversation) we were able to get on the anti viral drug early enough that I recovered fairly quickly and we were on our way on Saturday February 26th early in the morning!
I owe a huge thank you to the many sweet friends that prepared meals for us that week before we left as it left me free to focus on packing, which if any of you know me, I hate that part of traveling! Thanks also to our friend Karen for the ride to the airport at the  ungodly hour of 6 a.m.on a Saturday and also to our daughter-in-law Missy and grandson, Teddy,  for the ride home upon our return on this past Monday morning.

So, "it takes a village to raise a child" and it takes a lot of loving friends to help me get myself out of town while getting over two crummy illnesses and trying not to stress about it! Above is the view from our lanai and ONE of our bedrooms views!

The next few are from our drive on "The Road to Hana" It's winding switchbacks so I had to drive or be sick the entire time. It was sort of overcast part of the time and too chilly to play in any of the waterfalls or pools, but it was still stunningly beautiful!

The vistas and the numerous waterfalls are the draw for this long, long drive!

(You need to click on this waterfall picture and the sunset picture below for the full frame and full effect!)

This was the perfect end to another perfect day in Maui! This was taken on our way back on a little stretch of beach just off the main road along the coast in West Maui.

So, there's some teaser photos, unedited. Whale shots will follow after I do some cropping and enlarging as even with my amazing lens I was still on land and not out there with them. Our binoculars (Nikon 10 X 40) were awesome to watch them and spot for one another to shoot pictures then enlarge the photos!)