Ever since we moved to Oahu, everyone has been telling us we needed to get off-island and see the other islands. While we've wanted to do this for the past year, the logistics of having time off and someone to watch Molly have kept us from traveling. So, with a lot of planning in advance, we had decided to take a long weekend at Easter to see Maui and celebrate Joe's birthday.
We took off on a Friday morning after leaving Molly at a doggie daycare and boarding place for the weekend. The flight itself was only about 40 minutes long, but we flew through a front getting there and had a bouncy ride. We had reserved a convertible for the weekend, so after arriving to Maui we got to pick our Camaro convertible out (I picked the red one...) and off we went.
The closest town to our cottage was Paia, a small, but very cute and active town on the north shore of Maui with lots of shops and restaurants. We stopped for lunch at a place called Rock & Brews and in a "what a small world" moment, our waitress was from Richmond and had lived 3 blocks from me while we lived in the Fan District. The food was great and it was a very fun atmosphere.
The place Joe had found was a great little spot on Airbnb, a little cottage on a 300 foot cliff at the beginning of the Hana Highway. It was very quiet, very secluded, and allowed for gorgeous views. That being said, it was 30 minutes from the closest town so we had to pick up a few essentials from the store. So, by the time we had lunch and stopped at the store, it was time to check-in. Good thing too, because at about that time the front we had flown through had caught up to us and the rain began. We had been worried all week that it would rain all weekend, but luckily it was just for the first day. We had some great views of the thunderstorm off-shore from our little cottage and, honestly, it was just nice to relax. Our cottage was pretty much off the cell phone grid, so we were able to just relax and unwind the first night.
All our dinners were in Paia, and they were all good. We ate at a pizza place called flatbreads on Saturday night and we both thoroughly enjoyed our meals. It was a surprisingly large place, but they seemed to have trouble keeping up with orders as the night went on. Despite that, it was quite tasty.
Our best meal by far had to be at Mama's Fish House. I had heard rave reviews of this restaurant on the Food Network and by people that had visited the island, so we had to check it out. It's a bit on the high-end of the Maui restaurant market, but we were celebrating Joe's birthday and it was very much worth it. I to a macademia nut encrusted, crab and lobster stuffed mahi mahi which was out of this world. Joe got a filet mignon (not a big seafood fan), but his was outstanding as well. We also had to try their Mai Tais, which they were very well known for. Again, outstanding. We highly recommend this restaurant if you get the chance to visit Maui, but make reservations as far out as possible.
We had an overall great trip to Maui and loved seeing how different it was from Oahu. There is just so much more space, so many less people, and it just feels so much more natural and beautiful. It's also so much easier to see the landscape even from just the car, it's beautiful. Coming back to Oahu was a sad reminder of how over-crowded the island is and has us looking forward to our next off-island adventure. Be on the lookout for the next couple of blog posts to hear about our Haleakala Crater adventure and our drive on the Highway to Hana.
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