(Belated) Honeymoon Photos!

I've finally put all of my honeymoon photos up online and labeled them, even the ones Jen took. Yes, my honeymoon was in May of last year. There were so many beautiful things in Maui that I highly encourage you to check out the whole photoset here.

It got off to a bumpy start when we narrowly missed the cutoff to check in for our flight to Maui (thanks, United!) This turned out not to be such a big snag, since not only were we able to instead get a flight to Honolulu and take a short interisland flight the next morning to Maui, but thanks in part to booking through Pleasant Holidays, we got what would have been our first night in Maui refunded. We ended up spending three nights at the Hyatt Regency Maui in Ka'anapali, which was really nice.We had never snorkeled before, but with the help of Snorkel Bob (tip o' the hat to Pete Choi), we did a lot on this trip. It was loads of fun, and a lot easier than we had imagined. At Black Rock Beach in Ka'anapali, in front of the Sheraton, there are a ton of fish in the water. Later, we got a waterproof camera, but I haven't scanned those photos in, so you'll just have to imagine the tropical underwater wonderland beneath the surface in this photo.In nearby Lahaina, we attended the Old Lahaina Lu'au, which is said to be one of the most best and most authentic lu'aus in Hawaii. There was a ton of good food, including a pig cooked in an in-ground oven called an 'imu.Dancing, too!

After finishing up our stay in Ka'anapali, we took the scenic route (Kahekili Highway) around the north side of West Maui.We stayed the next three nights at a pleasant bed and breakfast on the outskirts of Wailuku. Since Wailuku isn't really a tourist area, there were several excellent, cheap restaurants serving "local food," including one place, Nazo's, with the best oxtail soup we've ever had.

One all-day trip we made was the big loop around Haleakala, starting with the amazing Hana Highway and continuing clockwise around the eastern lobe of the island. The Hana Highway takes you around the rainy side of the island through some of the lushest scenery imaginable.There are so many waterfalls on this route that eventually you'll reach waterfall fatigue from seeing so many.It had been pretty rainy when we went and the flow of the waterfalls was all quite heavy. Contrast the video I took with the shot of the same waterfall that I borrowed from this excellent photography site by Katrin Andreeva.

One side trip will take you to Ke'anae Peninsula, where there is a small town and an awesome volcanic shoreline.At Wai'anapanapa State Park, there is a black sand beach.We continued past Hana to the Pools of 'Ohe'o. I've seen photos where there was just a trickle from pool to pool, but with the rain there had been, the water in the pools we saw formed a veritable raging torrent. Compare my photo (first) with a more typical shot of the same area (from Maui Traveler).West of Kipahulu you're on the much drier lee side of the island, and the road (Pi'ilani Highway) gets pretty hairy for a while.Another day we went up to the 10,000-foot summit of Haleakala. Seeing the clouds move beneath us as the sun set was one of the most astounding, surreal spectacles I've ever seen.We also did some snorkeling down at Ahihi Bay in South Maui, too, but I don't have any photos of that. The guidebook we used the most was Maui Revealed, which is especially good for locating points along the Hana Highway and Kahekili Highway. Anyway, the whole trip was totally awesome and I highly recommend going to Maui.