Upcountry!

Up early again – 6:00 a.m.  The mornings here are too beautiful to waste.  Out the door by 8:00 – on our way to the Upcountry.  First stop:  The hippie town of Paia.

Paia ended up not being a “stop”.  We only drove through as it was pretty early and nothing was yet open (other than restaurants).  Headed on to Makewao.  What a cool little town.  The main street is loaded with quaint little shops and art galleries.  The first place we went in to was Sherri Reeve’s gallery.  Her stuff is lovely!!!  We looked around for quite some time and decided we’d come back and make our purchases as I wanted to buy some trivets and they were a bit heavy.   So we headed on down the street.  Many of the stores weren’t opened yet, so we made one pass and then came back.

The glass blowing place had beautiful stuff.  We watched the fellow make some of his stuff and then purchased a beautiful starfish for $60.  And headed on.

And, of course, we stopped at T. Komodo General Store and bought the mandatory cream puffs (yummy), malasadas (yummier) and coconut turnovers (yummiest)!  Good thing that place is too far to go every day or we would really be in trouble!!!

Lavender Farm

Having spent 3 hours and about $200 in Makawao, we decided we’d better leave before we spent more.  So off we went to the Lavender Farm.  Once off the highway, the road to the farm was AWFUL!!  Very narrow, with huge potholes.  Awful road!!!  I guess neither of us were too terribly thrilled with the lavender farm.  I really have no idea what I expected and yes, there were some beautiful views but, meh…. I was underwhelmed.  I sampled lavender tea and it was just ok.  Got away from there without having spent any money (whew!)

Holy Ghost Church

Came back towards Makawao and this time we stopped at the Holy Ghost Church.  This is a church built in the 1890s for the Portuguese farm workers.  There is a very ornate alter in there that was given to the church by the king and queen of Portugal.    We were the only people (visible at least) there at the time.  It was very quiet. We then went into the churchyard behind the church and there were a lot of graves there – from the early 1900s up till around 2000. Most of them were children.  So sad.

Makawao – And An AMAZING Sunset

Friday night had the most AMAZINGLY beautiful sunset:

Ack, how could I forget this!!!

We went to this cool store – I think it was called something or other:  Emporium.  Steve found the coolest hat – Carlos Santana lives out here on Maui part time, and he makes (designs?) these hats.  Steve bought one.  It looks great on him.  It’s got a funky metal guitar on the side of the brim.