Tsunami!

On day three of our trip, we were blessed with an unusual experience, a tsunami. We were woken up a little after 6 in the morning (4 Portland time) by the resort manager banging on the door tell us all the particulars regarding evacuation! Kristel and Brent (who stayed about an hour away that first night) were stuck in Lahaina and were evacuated up on a hillside outside of town. For Six Hours!! We, luckily, were on the fourth floor of our hotel and had the choice to stay there or evacuate up the hill at a local school for the morning and afternoon. We choose to stay in and watch the news to see how it effected the big Island. We would make our final decision after that. We were told that there would be about 20 minutes between the time it hit the big island and then us, plenty of time to run up the hill if needed:)

We got our evac bags packed with food, water,
some clothes and all our paperwork.

Then we waited...

And waited...

Then we met some new friends. They were staying on the first floor of our building and had come up to just hang out on the fourth floor to watch the show. We invited them to come in and hang with us:) We watched the news, enjoyed the lullaby of the tsunami sirens, chatted about the Northwest (they were from Eugene) and generally had a nice time:)

This is how the island looked before, during and after the Tsunami:)
No change that we could see.

After the all clear was given and the roads were opened again, we made the drive to Lahaina to meet our poor, sunburned friends who had eventually made it back down the hill and into a pool. That's what you do after a tsunami, you go swimming in the resort pool (Just for future reference:) ).

We had dinner in town and then trekked back to the car to make the drive back to Kehei.

And found out that Kristel and Brent's luggage had been stolen right from the trunk of our rental car! What a day! Our next fiasco started after we searched and searched and then finally found their new hotel (not where we thought it was) and left them in a dingy, smelly, loud, room for the night. Chad and I dragged ourselves back to our hotel and Chad immediately started finding them a room in our hotel. The very next morning, we had them booked and moved in.

We all voted to re-start our vacation from that day on...we were going to have a great time!! Whether the vacation fates wanted us to or not:)