Back to Hawaiian Vacation

After a couple of days in Honolulu, Michael and I took a short plane ride to Maui. We wanted to experience more than one island, while in Hawaii. I wish we could have spent a month exploring all the islands but we could not. We arrived on September 1st and got checked into our hotel room which had a beautiful view of the ocean. We spent most of the day relaxing on the beach and driving around the island looking for good food. We had a gorgeous sunset on the beach the first evening, but we had to go to bed very early. The plan was to rise at 2:00AM to drive to a bike shop at the bottom of Haleakala National Park.

The Hotel beach

The Sunset

Morning came very quickly. Surprisingly Michael and I were both up and ready to go. The excitement of watching the sunrise from the top of a volcano was too much. We arrived at the bike shop by 3:00AM and they were getting everyone ready to come back down the volcano. The drive to the top was winding and long, it took about 45 minutes to get to the top. We got out of the van to freezing cold weather. We were dressed for the part, but it was still very cold. The sun came up right on time and it was the most amazing experience ever.

Here comes the sun...

There it is!!! Bad photo but only one of us on top Silversword in bloom (only happens ever 50 years)

After the sun came up, we jumped back in the van and drove from 10,000ft to 6500ft to begin our 28 mile bike ride down the volcano.

View from the top

I expected the ride down the volcano to be a little more on the warmer side, but we did not start removing layers until we were almost to the car. The views were awesome. We stopped about halfway down at this little breakfast place. It reminded me of a home cooked breakfast, but with the views of the Hawaiian mountains.

Biking down

Cool trees
Safety first!

After we were all done, we decided to drive back to the hotel for a little nap. If I was to do the entire over, I would skip the nap and do the drive to Hana.

Drive back to hotel

After our naps, we decided to go to dinner in the town of Lahaina. We ate the best seafood and did some fun shopping in Lahaina. Good food, good scenery, and great company.

Us at dinner
Sunset from restaurant