Haleakala
On our second day, we bit the bullet and decided to see the sunrise at Haleakala. We woke up at 3:40 a.m. Maui time and quickly got on the road.
It's a 2 hour drive up to the top where the Visitor's Center is (the first one, anyway) and you have to pay $10 to get into Haleakala National Park. If we'd ever do it again, we'd probably try to show up an hour before sunrise because it gets crowded quickly. But like I said, we're lazy. So we showed up about 15 minutes before sunrise...
Sun starting to peek through...
It was beautiful and gave me chills (not because it was 40 degrees). We were completely amazed by this display of God's glory. Every day He gives us another sunrise, another day to live and He doesn't have to. Just in awe of His grace to us...
And then we decided to have a fun little photo shoot.
We got in our fill of silly face shots and then proceeded to drive the 2 hour road back to our hotel. As we were leaving, we noticed that there was a road that led to a higher mountain that didn't look crowded at all so my hubs was bummed that he didn't notice that before. I told him that's the beauty of photoshop. It's like those people were never there...
About 10 minutes into our drive back, we noticed another little Visitor's Lookout Center and decided to pull over and check it out. After all, we had driven 2 hours to this place so to hang out for 30 minutes and then leave just seemed like a waste...
It was incredible how high up we are. See the ground level stuff? We came from there but on the other side of the island to the left (which you can't see). Crazy, huh?
More artsy pictures by my amaz-az-ing husband
Okay, look to the left and see that inlet of water? Well our road back went past that inlet and around the mountain to the other side. It's only like 60 miles or something but with all the windy roads and low speed limits, it kind of takes a really long time to get anywhere on Maui.
And then of course... another little photo session. That's how we roll. First I sat on a cliff. It was about a foot drop to the ground. Scary, huh? (You can actually see the ground in this picture.)
Then I snapped some pics while my husband scrambled around on the rocks to find his own cliff.
His was about a million foot drop and my hands are sweating now just thinking about how nervous I was for him. I was safely on some ground at this point but not my hubs. Not only did he find his cliff, he then proceeded to stand on the edge like this.
It's a wonder that I'm not a widow by now.
It took some coaxing by my husband to get me this close to the edge to take this shot. I was clinging to my rock shouting "I won't do it! You can't make me!!!" And then he did.
And I'm kind of glad he did.
Side note: If you ever go to Haleakala, do NOT ride down on a bike tour. I think like 12 tourists almost lost their lives when we were coming down this curvy, windy road. We'd come around a bend and there'd be like 5 bicyclists in the road and my hubs would have to slam on the brakes. The whole trip down, we were marveling at what a horrible idea it was to put inexperienced bikers (including young kids!!!) on a road with drivers going 40 mph around sharp curves and corners. This is where I'd have to agree that there is some kind of Survival of the Fittest (or Smartest) in this world and those bikers were pushing their luck.
Tomorrow I'll tell about our Road to Hana trip. Or at least the part we made it to...
It's a 2 hour drive up to the top where the Visitor's Center is (the first one, anyway) and you have to pay $10 to get into Haleakala National Park. If we'd ever do it again, we'd probably try to show up an hour before sunrise because it gets crowded quickly. But like I said, we're lazy. So we showed up about 15 minutes before sunrise...
 |
| Before the sunrise |
 |
| It's cold and I'm sunburned. |
Sun starting to peek through...
It was beautiful and gave me chills (not because it was 40 degrees). We were completely amazed by this display of God's glory. Every day He gives us another sunrise, another day to live and He doesn't have to. Just in awe of His grace to us...
And then we decided to have a fun little photo shoot.
We got in our fill of silly face shots and then proceeded to drive the 2 hour road back to our hotel. As we were leaving, we noticed that there was a road that led to a higher mountain that didn't look crowded at all so my hubs was bummed that he didn't notice that before. I told him that's the beauty of photoshop. It's like those people were never there...
About 10 minutes into our drive back, we noticed another little Visitor's Lookout Center and decided to pull over and check it out. After all, we had driven 2 hours to this place so to hang out for 30 minutes and then leave just seemed like a waste...
It was incredible how high up we are. See the ground level stuff? We came from there but on the other side of the island to the left (which you can't see). Crazy, huh?
More artsy pictures by my amaz-az-ing husband
Okay, look to the left and see that inlet of water? Well our road back went past that inlet and around the mountain to the other side. It's only like 60 miles or something but with all the windy roads and low speed limits, it kind of takes a really long time to get anywhere on Maui.
And then of course... another little photo session. That's how we roll. First I sat on a cliff. It was about a foot drop to the ground. Scary, huh? (You can actually see the ground in this picture.)
Then I snapped some pics while my husband scrambled around on the rocks to find his own cliff.
His was about a million foot drop and my hands are sweating now just thinking about how nervous I was for him. I was safely on some ground at this point but not my hubs. Not only did he find his cliff, he then proceeded to stand on the edge like this.
It's a wonder that I'm not a widow by now.
It took some coaxing by my husband to get me this close to the edge to take this shot. I was clinging to my rock shouting "I won't do it! You can't make me!!!" And then he did.
And I'm kind of glad he did.
Side note: If you ever go to Haleakala, do NOT ride down on a bike tour. I think like 12 tourists almost lost their lives when we were coming down this curvy, windy road. We'd come around a bend and there'd be like 5 bicyclists in the road and my hubs would have to slam on the brakes. The whole trip down, we were marveling at what a horrible idea it was to put inexperienced bikers (including young kids!!!) on a road with drivers going 40 mph around sharp curves and corners. This is where I'd have to agree that there is some kind of Survival of the Fittest (or Smartest) in this world and those bikers were pushing their luck.
Tomorrow I'll tell about our Road to Hana trip. Or at least the part we made it to...
