Maui

What a lovely view from our balcony.

All three of us could of slept a lot more, but we had a mission!


Today we are going to drive “The Road to Hana”.

Although Hāna is only about 52 miles from Kahului, a typical trip to Hāna takes about three hours, as the road is very winding and narrow and passes over 59 bridges, 46 of which are only one-lane bridges, requiring oncoming traffic to yield and occasionally causing brief traffic jams if two vehicles meet head-on. There are approximately 620 curves along Route 360 from just east of Kahului to Hāna, virtually all of it through lush, tropical rainforest.

This journey, is my parents’ one regret from their 2 week visit to Hawai’i for their 25th Anniversary - it's the one thing they didn't do.  So when I got this assignment and invited them to join me, I wanted to make this part of the trip possible.

Our plan was to drive to Hana and turn around and come back. The road beyond Hana requires 4-wheel drive in some parts.

We stopped and got a CD guide at a gas station – as suggested by our tour brochures.

Then we got boxed lunches for later…

And stopped at a coffee shop for a fabulous breakfast.

Then we started on our adventure.

All the research we had done was true. The road is insanely narrow and you can literally put your hand out the passenger side window and touch the mountainside.

Out of nowhere, there will be a bridge that is only 1 lane.

So you stop and try to peer around the next curve to make sure there is not oncoming traffic.





I drove for probably the first hour. Then dad took over because I was making him nervous.

One of the stops we made was at a beach that has black sand. I had never seen it before – very weird.

So many amazing sights to see!

Acient Burial Airport? What!?

Look for the waterfall…

It was an overcast day, so most of my video and photos don’t show the true color of the amazing rain forest. And there is TONS of video! Most of it was driving video and it, like most vacation videos, got to be very boring (when watching it later).

Therefore, I had my friend Dave make a video recap of the day. He has much better editing software than I do and actual editing talent.

Enjoy!

Waikiki > Maui

Spent the morning relaxing by the pool. Rather cloudy, but still nice out.

Checked out of the hotel and took my work suitcase over to my friend Ed’s hotel. He is staying at the Sheraton – where I will be checking in on Monday.

Tonight, I am meeting my parents at the airport and we are flying to Maui for the weekend. So I didn’t want to lug a suitcase will all my work clothes in it.

This way, I only had to take a bag for the weekend with my essentials.

In the late afternoon, I took a cab to the airport.

I waited for my parents and then we walked to the Hawaiian Airlines terminal to check in.

We tried to switch to an earlier flight, but there were not any seats. So we walked, what seemed like 10 miles to the SkyClub.

Got settled in with some snacks and drinks and then I said it was time to go.
Hustled to the gate and no one was there. Huh?

That’s when dad informed me that he and mom had no idea why we had left the SkyClub because our flight wasn’t for another 1.5 hours.

Damn it!

See, I don’t even change my watch when traveling. I keep it on Eastern time. Which at times (like now), tends to cause problems due to my math deficiency.

Since the SkyClub was so far away, we decided to just stay put.

The flight to Maui was only like 25 minutes. Landed, got our stuff and then I headed to National on the bus to pick up the rental car. Went back and picked up the parents.

Headed to the Wailea Beach Marriott Resort. It was night time, so it was hard to the view of the beach – but the resort itself was beautiful!

Got settled into our room and ordered a pizza. Ate and went to bed. Mom and dad had been up for 22 hours.

Oahu

Today I took a bus tour of almost the entire island. We didn’t go on the west coast of the island, however, I had already seen part of it earlier in the week when I stayed in Ko Alina.

One of the first stops was Hanauma Bay. It is a state park and nature preserve.

We did not go down to the beach, however, the view from up top was beautiful.

I definitely want to come back here to snorkel.






Our next stop was Halona Blow Hole.

The blowhole is a natural occurrence formed by molten lava tubes from volcanic eruptions thousands of years ago. The lava tubes run to the ocean and, when the surf is right, the blowhole shoots water up to 30 feet in the air. The larger the waves, the larger the spray.












Situated to the right of the Halona Blowhole is the Halona Beach Cove, also known at the “Peering Place.” This small sandy beach at the cove is great for swimming when the surf is calm. The site is known for the famous love scene between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in the movie, From Here to Eternity

As we started our journey up the windward side of the island, we stopped at Pali Lookout. The lookout overlooks the 985-foot cliffs of the Koolau Mountain Range. It is extremely windy. The trade winds blow through the valley between the high mountains on either side, forming a strong wind tunnel of sorts. On extra windy days, you can even lean into the wind and let the gusts hold you up.

The Byodo-In Temple was our next stop. It is located at the foot of the Ko'olau Mountains in Valley of the Temples Memorial Park. It was established on June 7, 1968, to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. The temple is built entirely without nails. It is a scale replica of a temple in Uji, Japan, that was constructed over 950 years ago.

The Byodo-In Temple is a non-denominational Buddhist temple which welcomes people of all faiths to worship, meditate or simply appreciate its beauty.

The TV series Hawaii Five-O and Magnum, P.I. featured several episodes where the temple is incorporated into the plot. The temple and its gardens also appeared in an episode of the ABC series Lost, "House of the Rising Sun" in season one as the home of Sun's father.

Next we stopped at the Kualoa Ranch. Established in 1850, Kualoa is a 4,000-acre working cattle ranch, spread from the steep mountain cliffs to the sparkling sea. Located on the northeastern side of Oahu in the Hawaiian countryside. The ranch terrain varies from dense rainforest to broad open valleys and from beautiful white sand beaches to verdant cliff faces.

We went on a tram tour around part of the complex. You could spend days here. Lots of activities to enjoy.

Kualoa has been the site of many television shows and Hollywood films such as Jurassic Park, Windtalkers, Pearl Harbor, Godzilla, Tears of the Sun and 50 First Dates. TV shows including the old and new Hawaii Five-O, Magnum P.I. and LOST.

There was a great view of “The Chinaman’s Hat”.

Mokolii, also known among locals as Chinaman’s Hat because of its shape. Mokolii means “little lizard” in Hawaiian. It’s also called Chinaman’s Hat because of its cone shape, which resembles the peasant’s hat worn in rural China. Besides a few lonely palm trees and two small beaches, there isn’t anything else here.

Other views from Kualo….

Sunset Beach – the North Shore was our next stop.

As we continued our drive, you would see people diving off the tops of lava formations.
Eeek!

We headed to our final stop. The Dole Plantation. As we got closer, you started to see pineapples for acres and acres.

The Dole Plantation is your typical tourist stop.

Lots of crap to buy. I guess there is an actual tour you can go on – but that was not part of our tour.

I enjoyed walking around the garden.

There was this super cool tree…

I wish I could remember the name of it. It looks fake.

The pineapple ice cream is pretty good!

The drive back to Waikiki took quite a while because the traffic was rough.
I napped a little.

In the evening, I met up with my friend Ed and others from the office and tried to eat at Chuck’s Cellar – Ed’s favorite place. But the wait was too long. He eats there daily for the 2 weeks he is here every year so he knows the staff. They got us a table across the street at Chuck’s Steakhouse which is upstairs from Duke’s. The food was good and there was a nice view.

Whew! I am exhausted! Time for bed!!