Saturday, Day 6

After Ryan and I dropped James and Tiffany off at the airport on Saturday, we took a drive to the 'Iao Valley, not too far from Kahului. The 'Iao Valley. This was the site of a major battle when Kamehameha the Great was trying to unite all the islands under his rule.

'Iao Needle in the background

There was a garden area where some environmental group was trying to weed out all non-native plants to give visitors an idea of what Hawaii was like pre-Captain Cook. We had a good idea what that might have been like, thanks to our history lesson at the Haleakala visitor center. Did you know the Polynesians who settled in Hawaii brought the Taro plant(or Kalo in Hawaiian) and coconuts? Also, chickens, dogs and pigs. Pre-Captain Cook, there were no mangoes, bananas (if I remember correctly), guavas, pineapple, macadamia nuts and many other things considered Hawaiian.

Fish watching.... at the arboretum close to the 'Iao Valley park.

This little photo op was outside the Bubba Gump restaurant in (where else?) Lahaina. We were amused enough to go go inside for dinner. Besides, it was actually cheaper than the other restaurants we looked at. And it had really good shrimp.

The tables were equipped with the as-seen blue "Run Forrest Run" sign and a red "Stop Forrest Stop" sign. When you needed anything, more drinks, ready to place your order, etc. you would flip over to the red sign and about 3 seconds later, someone would be at your table. Nice! And then before you got your check, the waiter gave us a Forrest Gump trivia quiz, and we only did ok on that. I think we got a little over half the questions correct. (quick- name two sports Forrest Gump was good at besides ping pong....) The restaurant was actually built partly over the ocean, so when the waves broke, people sitting by the windows enjoyed the ocean spray.