I need some input on this...

I don't know quite what to think of this gift that I received from a student...

I was very thankful at first. But the longer I looked at it, I began to question the intentions. Is it a nice gift intending to wish me Happy Holidays? Or did she intentionally give me a present that looks like poop on a stick?

Sunrise at Haleakala

Day 6 Monday, July 28th
Haleakala Sunrise Tour, Maui

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Wuh huh?

It’s way too early to be waking up as we stumble about our room getting ready for the ride up to the top of Haleakala. I even forgot to make coffee for myself. To be perfectly honest, I don’t even remember a whole lot between the alarm going off and ending up outside the boat. We found other people waiting outside where the shuttles pick up passengers. There were a few different companies that did the sunrise tour, so it was pretty busy for 3 am.

We found other people who were waiting for the same company we were and stayed with them. Apparently I was not the only one who forgot to have a cup of coffee yet. There were some grumpy folks wondering why the heck they were doing anything that required them to be up and ready to go at 3 am.

When our shuttle showed, we all piled in for the ride to their “base” before we went to the top. For those of you who ever plan on going to Maui and doing this tour, I highly recommend the company we used; Mountain Riders. From what we heard of others, they were hands down the best, and safest option. The ride to the “base” (and to the crater, for that matter) were pretty entertaining. Our guide talked the ENTIRE way. There were a few of us who really enjoyed the cultural history lesson we got on the way up, but there were many who were visibly angry about the amount of energy this guy managed to have at 3 am. Luckily, they had coffee at their home base, which was basically a big garage with a small office next to it. We had to watch one of those boring safety videos that they always show and no one pays attention to. They also loaded us up with all of this gear to wear at the top. It seemed a little excessive at the time.

The last time I felt sustained, bitter cold wind like we did getting out of the van at the summit, it was November in Wyoming. Hawaii is not supposed to be that cold! It was a good thing they gave us that extra layer! We were all huddled around the visitor’s center at the top (it’s a national park) facing east, and unfortunately, right into the wind. As the sky grew brighter, we could see deep into the crater. We watched as clouds formed when the wind bought the moist air up the side of the crater.

Those clouds were soon filling the crater so that it looked like we were on top of a fluffy pillow of white. It was a beautiful sight to behold…for a short time.
Soon after, those clouds came right up at us. We were literally in the clouds. It was a neat experience, but we couldn’t really see the sun break the horizon.

Just before we started our long descent down through the volcanic mountain called Maui, we were able to see the sun as it came up through the clouds.

Because of the number of bad, sometimes fatal, accidents involving bicyclists descending from the crater, the park service doesn’t allow people to bike down until you are out of the park. I am willing to bet that the accidents mostly involved people on the unguided trips that others from our ship had done. Once we had left the park, they found a place to pull over and we all piled out. They emptied the trailer that housed all of the bikes and equipment (helmets, etc.) for the descent. We got on the bikes and the guide gave us one last explanation of how it was going to work. The guide led us on his bike as we rode down single file, with the van and trailer following which prevented traffic from passing. This gave us the whole lane to travel in. When it was safe and convenient, we would pull over to let traffic pass and then begin riding again.

It may sound like a boring ride, but we were moving pretty fast the whole time (top speed was around 20 mph). There were only a couple of instances in which we even needed to pedal at all. During those breaks to let cars pass, we could peel off layers and the guide would tell us some story about the history of Maui. He was really knowledgeable about the island.
These stops also gave us a chance to take in the some of the beautiful views that Maui has to offer. We stopped about halfway down at this small, local store for a quick breakfast. There were some unique flowers that I took pictures of at the store and happened to catch the bee in mid-flight you see here.

After breakfast, we continued down and ended in the little hippie town of Paia (Woody Harrelson is a local). It was a good thing we were done when we got there, too, because it started POURING as we piled back into the van. When we got back, we spent the rest of our day napping poolside. We had a Big Island waiting for us the next day! It wasn't until later that week that we found out some of the people on our ship got into accidents on the unguided tours. One man separated his shoulder. Another was going too fast and lost control, crossing the road (luckily there were no cars) and went off the road, getting fairly banged up.

Day 5 Sunday, July 27th
Kahului, Maui

Many mornings on the ship, including this first one, went like this. I would wake up, make a cup of coffee, sit on our balcony as we came into port and read. Most ports that the ship pulled into were not that appealing, they were basically merchant ship docks. When Rachel awoke, we would go to the Aloha Café for the breakfast buffet. Rachel would get her fresh fruit, yogurt, and cereal. I would have my eggs, bacon, sausage, French toast, pancakes, or whatever else they had to pack some weight on. I would also have fresh fruit; it was too good to pass up.

After breakfast, we left the ship to with the plans to rent a car to head to Lahaina for the day. It’s funny how plans change. First of all, we were told there was public transportation that would take us to Lahaina and with me being the cheap guy that I am, I thought that was a much better idea than renting a car. Unfortunately for us, this was not exactly the case. There was public transportation all right, it was just impossible to find and only left every hour. We wandered around looking for it and found it about five minutes after it had left. So, with my tail between my legs, we went back to the ship and boarded one of the shuttles that took us to a rental car facility at the nearby airport. Kahului is not quite what I had thought of when I thought of Maui. The port and the airport are just about the only visible reason why there is a city there. After boarding the shuttle, the driver said to us, “I hope you are not trying to drive to Lahaina, there was an accident on the only road that goes there. The back up is about 5 hours.”

Plan B. We rented a car with Avis and throughout our trip, we had the BEST experience with this company. I would highly recommend them. We tried renting with Hertz on the Big Island and they didn’t have any cars despite giving us a reservation (classic Seinfeld scene). There were other people were having the same problem as us. We canceled our reservations with Hertz, went next door to Avis and did fine.

Anyway, we decided to head south to Kihei and Wailea. We were going to be getting up VERY early in the morning for the sunrise on Haleakala and wanted to take it easy, so we planned to go to the beach for some relaxation and sightseeing. We ended up at the beach right in front of Grand Wailea Resort and the Four Seasons in Wailea. It was a beautiful beach (is there any other type on Hawaii?) with some fun waves. It did get a little windy which made our decision to depart early a little easier.

After the beach, we headed south on a narrow road toward Makena. A pseudo-local (transplanted from New Jersey) that we met at the beach told us that it was a nice ride and it takes you through the last active lava flow on Maui. It was great; we saw fields full of pumice, great views of Molokini (a crescent shaped island off the coast), and we experienced some of the unequaled Hawaiian hospitality.

We had pulled over on the side of the road in order to take some pictures along the coast. There were a couple of locals fishing right next to us. As I set the camera up, one of them came over and offered to take our picture. We gratefully accepted and he took the pictures of us that you see here. In one of the pictures, you can see Molokini behind us. If memory serves me correctly, the local told us that Molokini was a military site where they used to test weaponry. He then gave us a mango that he had picked that morning to take home with us. Not quite the treatment you get from strangers in Massachusetts, or just about anywhere else for that matter. That was a great note to end our day on, so we headed back to the ship for an early dinner and bedtime before our trip up to the top of the island.

Post trip comment: Many people have already asked us about why we skipped the road to Hana. Our feeling was that we really wanted to do the sunrise on Haleakala and that the road to Hana would have taken up too much time for only being there a day and a half.