Feeling adventurous and more sure of my mountain driving skills, the kids and I headed out attempting to find the Olivine Pools – yes, the ones we were looking for when we ended up driving around the “top” of Maui on the one lane road. Fortunately, we’ve had so much more practice looking for mile markers since this is largely the way directions are given here, that we were pretty sure we were in good shape.

We found the turn off easily enough – the dirt road turn off right between mm 42 and mm 16 (isn’t cool how it changes #s when the maintenance moves from county to state…not confusing at all). And then….we couldn’t figure out where the pools were. OK, I know you’re thinking – by the ocean! Ahhh….but where by the ocean? The drops are steep and not so easy to see down without thinking you’re going to plummet down like some ancient Hawaiian god sacrifice…and the coastline tends to start looking the same.

What to do? What to do? Follow others of course! We got far enough down to be able to see others down near the ocean so we headed that way…

And made it…then we had to climb back up. We didn’t slip – although we did lose sight of Max for a bit because he scrambles up the hills like his feet are on fire…classic Max. No fear (although in this case there wasn’t a reason for him to be taking it slow).

We hopped back in the car – after buying a pineapple from a guy who had set up a table on the dirt turnout to sell water, pineapple, mango, lilikoi (passion fruit) and pineapple/mango jam. Seriously – he blocked our car in and had to move his truck so we could leave. I drove between scrub trees and the table to get through…always an adventure! After that, our BBQ rib lunch from Mama’s Ribs was just plain awesome..who would have thought that a carry-out place in a strip mall would have such good smoked meat?

Aloha!
Jennifer