Iao Valley State Park

A few days in, we decided to try our hand at another destination on our "Must Do In Maui" list.

We found that the Iao Valley State Park was only a 15 minute drive from our hotel, and decided to head there.

I am so glad we did.

It was the perfect outing for our little family.  If you are in Maui, I would put this destination at the top of my must see places [and forget about that Hana drive, mmmmkay?].

The park takes about 30 minutes to walk around in its entirety.  It's small, but BEAUTIFUL.

View As you Pull Up to the Park 

View Looking Back From Where We Came

I mean seriously.  Could the mist, sunlight, and greenery be any more perfect?

All in all we explored the little area for about an hour and a half.  Just enough time to take it all in, and short enough to keep the boys attention.

The main attraction of the park is a rock formation that is supposed to represent the phallic symbol of a Hawaiian God or soemething.  It was also the meeting point for some ancient battle or something.  I'll be the first to admit that I'm not big into history and all that.  I just like to look at pretty things.

To see the rock you hike up something like 300 stairs to get the best view.

And there she be.  The giant rock-penis.  [He, he].

I loved everything about the park.  Everywhere you looked, BEAUTY.

There was also a trail system below the main area of the park where you got to walk through a jungle garden.

We had walked through the garden area ahead of my grandparents.  When my grandparents came to it, my Grandma didn't want to navigate the steep stairs down, so Kaeden took it upon himself to be my Grandpa's presonal tour guide.  I could hear him saying things like, "So here you have a plant.  Here is a rock."

Here I had him pose next to the "waterfall" he told us about on our tour.  It's really a pipe spewing water, but whatever.

Great day trip.  Definitely would do it again.

Especially with these two.  Can't get enough of them.