As we settled into our hotel room on the first day, I snapped these pictures of the nightly torch-lighting. These young people are actually the dancers from the Luau - just before sunset, they would first stop at the pool-side and light the torches and do a ceremonial dance. I kept thinking I'd get better pictures but never did.
The view from our room was spectacular!
We sat on our balcony and watched the sun set.
We stayed near the historic town of Lahaina and the first full day we went into town to do a walking tour of the highlights. It was very hot and a lot of the places were just - such and such used to be here - so all of our pictures from this day are from the two museums we saw.
First was the Baldwin House, which is the house where one of the first missionaries lived - a medical doctor and his family.
Below is a photograph of Dr Baldwin shortly before he came to Hawaii, in front of his passport (note that it is hand-written).
The house was two-story - but the stairs are blocked off now, as the second floor is used for museum offices.
This quilt on the bed in the boys' bedroom is exquisite.
This was our guide, standing in the doctor's office, which was a portion of the house, but had a separate entrance for patients.
The current walls did not always look like this - here they show a preserved portion of the walls as they were in the 1800's, along with the doctor's license on display.
Fee schedule
Photo of the interior before restoration.
Note the whale-bone stays
The sewing box belonging to "Mother Baldwin".
And a photograph of the lady.
Our next stop of note was the court-house which held a sea-farer's museum. First, we rested for awhile under the shade of the biggest Banyan Tree I've ever seen. This looks like several trees, but it's all one tree, with offshoots coming down to support the limbs. The Banyan Tree was planted in 1873 by the Sheriff to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first Mission. The tree was brought from India, and was only 8′ high at the time of planting. It now has a dozen main trunks, and spreads over the better part of an acre.
The tree is behind this courthouse.
On the second floor is a museum dedicated to historic Lahaina, especially the whaler days. Lots of ships in a bottle and wonderful scrimshaw.
Another day, we went to Mama's Fish House - for one of the three best meals I've had in my life! Spendy, but soooo worth it!
Here are some photos of the grounds and the view we had while we waited for our table (we arrived early).
Each night, we'd go to the lounge to listen to music and watch the hula dancer - she was amazing. She spent her time between songs making up flowers for the ladies' hair and leis. Here are a couple of pictures of me with the flowers she gave me. The "rosy glow" is from the mai-tai's!
The last few days were to be dedicated to the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Festival, which turned out to be a disappointment. But on the first day, I took a quick hula lesson from the ladies whose backs are to you in the picture. Here they are giving a couple of other ladies a lesson. It was fun, but much harder than I thought it would be.
We had breakfast outside a few mornings and this little fellow seemed to be everywhere. I remember how hard it was to get a good picture of his cousins on Oahu - this one loved to pose for pictures.
This trip was much more laid-back than our Oahu trip - we loved our time there and found the island to be very beautiful.
