Pouring My Art Out

A new kind of jungle… part 1…

Posted on June 1, 2014 by pouringmyartout

There is another kind of jungle on Maui than the jungle over on the wet side of the island…

My wife and I jumped in the monster-vomit-green Mustang and drove around the other end of the island. Here is that map I posted when I first started sharing these pictures of our second honeymoon…

We have learned about the rainy side and the road to Hana, and we have talked about our trip to the top of Haleakala, the volcano. This little adventure took us from our hotel on Napili bay out around the other tip of Maui… to where that little red X is at the very top of the map… and we found some really high cliffs…

The pictures don’t really capture how high these cliffs are…

We also saw lots of the red dirt that Maui is famous for…

This end of the island is covered with jungle…

And the cliffs offer some spectacular views of the sea and the other little islands nearby…

And then we found a little trail and walked down to this beach…

The trail led through a jungle that was very different from the jungle on the other side of the island…

But there were still plants growing on plants that were growing on other plants… and we saw a lot of chickens… but I already shared those pictures with you.

Posted in My travels, Stories of my life | Tagged cliffs, hawaii, humor, island, jungle, maui, nature, outdoors, photography, travel | 4 Comments

Lava is cool… once it cools… the final chapter…

Posted on May 31, 2014 by pouringmyartout

And now, some more random pictures of that romantic walk we took on Maui on our second honeymoon… with lava… and the ocean… and no words to get in the way…

Ha… I like the way you can see our shadows in that one… I could have cropped that out, but I… oh… sorry… shhhhh…

Posted in My travels, Stories of my life | Tagged hawaii, humor, maui, nature, outdoors, photography, romance, romantic walk, second honeymoon | 28 Comments

Lava is cool… once it cools… part 2…

Posted on May 31, 2014 by pouringmyartout

So there we were, taking a romantic early morning walk on Maui, on our second honeymoon…

And I spotted this awesome tide pool in the lava rock…

And because I was wearing my goofy all-terrain adventure shoes, I could walk right over those wet, slippery, dangerous, barnacle-encrusted lava rocks…

And take these pictures…

If you look closely, you might see some little fish in there…

Or you could just wait, because I just got a box sent from my in-laws who live on Maui, and it should have a bunch of underwater pictures I took while snorkeling… and that cool clock that Kirk made for us…

And I took a lot of underwater pictures on this trip. I went snorkeling every day except the first day we were there…

Posted in dogs and other animals, My travels, Stories of my life | Tagged crabs, hawaii, humor, maui, nature, photography, tide pools | 10 Comments

Lava is cool… once it cools… part 1…

Posted on May 31, 2014 by pouringmyartout

Lava is an important aspect of the Hawaiian islands. In fact, lava is what makes the islands. And because it is a durable rock, it keeps the shape that it formed into when it cooled. This makes lava interesting to look at.

We took a romantic walk one morning, setting from our hotel and heading out past our new favorite bar…

Wait, that picture is a little blurry. Let me try again, so you can see the trail we took…

That’s better. Here is a view from that spot looking the other way…

There you can see the beach in front of the hotel. Nice, soft sand. But the headlands are made of lava…

I am now curious about the sand. Is it made from the same lava, worn down by the sea? Somebody should Google that. Over there, sand…

But there is lava rock on that point of land too, just like over here on this one…

It is also suspicious that the bays where the sand is are cut back into the island. Why are some parts of the coast different from other parts? While one of you clever people solves this mystery, I will do some more posts about our walk, and show you more lava… and tide pools…

Posted in My travels, Stories of my life | Tagged hawaii, Hawaiian islands, humor, lava, lava rock, maui, nature, photography, tide pools, travel | 25 Comments

Lahaina Town… the final chapter…

Posted on May 30, 2014 by pouringmyartout

During our time spent in Lahaina town on Maui, I met this little guy…

Is that not the cutest little face? I also met this guy…

He is busy carving the date onto a little tiki carving that we bought… because it was the actual day of our 25th anniversary, which is why we were in Maui. I will show you a picture of the tiki sometime, but speaking of wood…

That is what that cute little dog was guarding… sort of… They are building a recreation of one of the deep-sea catamarans that the islanders used to use to sail thousands of miles across the Pacific…

They have been working on this boat for years…

It should show up on the news when they get it launched later this year, so keep your eyes open…

They even built a little hut for the guys to shelter in when it was too hot or too rainy…

I have been a volunteer on the Midway… an aircraft carrier that is now a museum here in San Diego. I was helping get it fixed up. I have also been thinking about volunteering on the recreation of a 15th century Spanish sailing ship they are building here. I love a nice historical boat…

Posted in dogs and other animals, My travels, Stories of my life | Tagged boats, catamaran, dogs, hawaii, humor, lahaina town, maui, photography, travel | 4 Comments

Lahaina Town… part 2…

Posted on May 30, 2014 by pouringmyartout

As I mentioned, Lahaina is built right on the water…

And that is some nice water. As clear and blue as water can be…

And you can plainly see that it didn’t rain on us all the time while we were on Maui…

Lahaina is a good place to go if you want to take a boat cruise to look at whales or scuba dive or just see the other islands near by…

I love boats. Spend some time in this little seaside town, if you get the chance…

See the art galleries, do some shopping…

Or grab a bite to eat…

Ha… I just noticed that my brother-in-law, Kirk, is standing on the porch in that picture above. Maybe you will see him if you visit Maui… Anyway, if you do stop to eat here, you will either have a view of the mountains…

You can watch the clouds dance around the tops of the old remnants of an ancient volcano…

Or you will have a lovely view of the sun dancing on the water…

Either way, you should find it enjoyable…

Posted in My travels, Stories of my life | Tagged hawaii, humor, lahaina, lahaina town, maui, photography, shopping, travel | 6 Comments

Lahaina Town… part 1…

Posted on May 30, 2014 by pouringmyartout

I made a horrible mistake! If you scroll back down to that post called: In-laws… part 2, you will see that I posted pictures of a huge Hawaiian breakfast that we ate at a restaurant on the beach… complete with Portuguese sausage fried rice and Spam. And I showed pictures of a stroll we took after breakfast on a lovely beach. And I told you that is how we started our ‘busy day’ that I just did all those posts of. But looking back, I now recall that on the day we went to the volcano, the winery, the goat farm and Mama’s Fish House, we actually picked up some breakfast sandwiches at a little bakery near Kirk’s art studio. We ate the big Hawaiian breakfast on the day that Kirk and Laural took us to Lahaina Town. I know this doesn’t matter to any of you, but this is why I am doing all these posts of our trip to Maui while it is fresh in my head… or as fresh as anything can be in my head…

Lahaina is a sleepy little town only a few miles from our hotel…

Yes, it is sort of touristy, but it is also full of history and rather quaint…

It is the kind of place where even a parking lot can have a beautiful view…

Where an empty field can catch your eye…

You are constantly reminded that you are on a tropical island…

The town is also famous for its giant banyan tree…

That is all one tree. I know it looks like a bunch of trees, but it isn’t…

The tree waits until the spreading branches are getting too heavy, and then it send roots down to the ground to support them. In the middle of that picture above, you can see my wife’s sister and her husband. You can’t see my wife standing next to them. Because I removed her with the magic of Photoshop. Because she likes it that way…

Anyway, this giant banyan tree that covers an entire city block is located right in the center of town, and is worth looking at. All in all, Lahaina is a fun place to go for a little shopping…

I had a great animal adventure while we were there, but I haven’t gotten those pictures from my brother-in-law yet. Oh, and you might not got a sense that Lahaina is located right on the coast, because all these pictures are looking the wrong way, but we will get to that later today…

Posted in My travels, Stories of my life | Tagged banyan tree, hawaii, humor, lahaina, lahaina town, maui, photography, travel | 6 Comments

Our busy day on Maui… the final chapter…

Posted on May 30, 2014 by pouringmyartout

Yes, if you ever visit Maui, you should stop by Mama’s Fish House…

It is like eating in Tarzan’s tree house. It seems to be cobbled together from old bits of sailing ships… including the sails. There are big gaps in the roof, surrounded by rain gutters, and when it rained, you could hear the water gurgling around up there. And there was a lot of exotic tropical wood and bamboo. I can’t really explain it, but it was nice. It was also full of artistic flourishes…

And the food… oh man… the food…

Oh, you can get fish, but that isn’t all they serve…

It was a little expensive, but it was an experience…

Especially the desserts…

Oh, yeah… the desserts…

That was a fun place to go.

Well, it took more than two days just to tell you about that one day on our second honeymoon on Maui. And that wasn’t really all we did. My wife and I stopped by our favorite bar, the one right there on the beach just a few dozen yards from the hotel. And the rest, I will leave that up to your imagination… hey… stop imagining that… what is wrong with you? Can we have a little privacy, for cryin’ out loud? HA!

So, thanks again, Laural and Kirk… not that we are done with them yet, because they did take us on some other adventures.

Posted in My travels, Stories of my life | Tagged fine dining, food, hawaii, humor, maui, photography, romance, travel | 10 Comments

Our busy day on Maui… part 6…

Posted on May 29, 2014 by pouringmyartout

We finished up our exciting day with a nice meal at a really weird place… Mama’s Fish House…

The architectural style was quite unusual… there was this weird awning thing our front… and yes, I blacked out my wife in this picture by using the shade. She looks like one of the support beams holding up the entryway. You can, however, still see my brother-in-law, Kirk, standing under there…

The whole place looked sort of homemade… but in a very nice way…

It was all just sort of stuck together, but somehow, it worked…

They also had an awesome private beach, where we waited for a while…

This beach is famous on the island for good windsurfing, and if you look carefully at the next picture, you can see a windsurfer way out in the distance, over to the right under the tree branch…

Right as you enter the restaurant, there was an arch made of trees. I guess they trained the trees to grow like that from when they were very small. They might have just been tree roots, it was sort of hard to tell…

You might also notice the walkway is made up of tiles in the shape of little lizards like that famous Escher print. The whole effect was very pleasing to the eye…