Maui 2: Donuts and Wedding Day

A cemetery we passed on our walk.  In case you don't know, I love cemeteries.  They are beautiful, peaceful places that remind us of the legacies of those who've gone before and inspire us to be a better person today because our own time on earth is limited.

When summer had begun, Steve and I started going on walks together in the mornings.  We decided to go for a walk and explore Wailuku, plus I had a destination in mind, Donut Dynamite, that we heard so much about from my cousin the day before.  So, we google mapped it and set off on our walk.  We saw a lot of chickens and some, like the one in the following picture, were trying to do a wobbly-walk-balance thing on top of the bushes. It was funny to watch.

Weird chicken doing the wobble-walk on the bushes.

We made it to Donut Dynamite!

The owner and creative genius herself served us these tasty treats.  They were $4 a piece, but like chocolate truffles, you just gotta try more than one.

Since we were new to the place, it was recommended we try the honey-goat-cheese-walnut (with a sprinkle of fresh thyme, and a molokai sweet potato (made with sweet potato in the brioche dough giving it a more tender consistency).  We also decided on a lilikoi malasada and a pop-your-cherry fritter (with cracked pink peppercorns and chocolate shavings).  So with our wallet $16 lighter, and a box of fresh, delightful donuts in hand, we set off back to our room to "carb-load" after our 3-mile walk in the hot Maui sun. Yeah, I know, that's not effective carb-loading, but it's a second burst of endorphines, right?

When we got back to our room at the Wailuku Guest House, we cut the donuts into pieces and tried them all.  My favorite was the goat cheese one!  It was so YUM! Steve wasn't as impressed with that one.  He was all about the lilikoi malasada.  It was heavily loaded with the sweet-tart lilikoi custard that just made your tastebuds pour tears of joy with hyper-activity.  My second favorite was the molokai sweet potato because it really did have a lovely texture and the purple icing is so pretty.  In case you're wondering, it doesn't particularly have sweet-potato flavor, it mostly tastes like a really yummy donut.

What we termed as the "hotdog" tree.  Those seed pods look like long hot dogs.

Me holding a fresh mango that had freshly fallen from the tree along our route and one of the "hotdog" seed pods from whatever that tree is.

The flowers on this tree are really cool and interesting, something we had never seen before.

Just a picture out our rental car window showing some of what things looked like there.

After our walk and breakfast of donuts and fresh mango, we headed off to where my cousin was setting up for her wedding in Kihei, about a 20 minute drive.  The countryside along that drive is beautiful and green.

Getting the ceremony set up.  The wind wasn't on our side.

The backdrop had to be weighted down with large rocks to keep it from taking flight.  Uncle Joe was the brains behind that engineering operation.

Steve helped hang the lights in the pavillion, then he photographed it.

The ceremony started late, but was short-sweet-and beautiful.  I decided I really like the shorter ceremonies.  It was a blast photographing her wedding.

My cousin, Uilani, and our grandmother, Linda Guting.

The ceremony was followed by a photoshoot and then a rockin reception with dancing and dinner.  We kept clicking photos all through the night.  As things were winding down and people started getting really drunk and others were starting to clean up the party, we decided it was time for us to turn in for the night.  We took the groom's mom and aunty to their hotel and then headed to our own for the night.  Apparently we missed seeing the drunk groom pass out and have to be wheelchaired up to his room.  The drunk bride was throwing up in the rental car.  I think we left at a good time.