Hawaii—Day 1

We were thinking about going up to the top of the volcano to see the sunrise our first morning in Paradise Hawaii.

This particular volcano is named Haleakala, which you pronounce holly-ah-kah-la. I think it's a very lovely word to say. Give it a shot--you'll see what I mean.

It's a very long drive up to the top of Haleakala, so in order to be there early enough to get parking, you have to leave wherever you're staying around 3AM. We knew that because of the time change our best shot at accomplishing this would be our first morning there. We had brought the necessary warm clothes--several long sleeved layers, ear warmers, and gloves--because Cindy Lynn and I were pretty sure we were going to freeze to death up on Haleakala waiting for the sunset. And sunrise was supposed to be colder. But then Russ had the prudent suggestion that instead of setting the alarm, we should just see when we woke up. That way if we woke early, we would go see the sunrise; and if we were lucky enough to sleep in, we would be just as happy about that.

Much to my surprise we both managed to sleep until after 5AM, which after our long day of travel felt really wonderful. Then we sat out on our little lanai (known as balcony on the "mainland") and watched the palm trees and ocean as the sky lightened. We were facing west, so did not expect much of a sunrise, but the reflected light was very lovely.

I should stop for a minute and tell you about where we were staying. Originally we were going to fly into Maui on Saturday night, stay overnight in a hotel near the airport, and fly to the Big Island Sunday morning to go and see the lava, then stay there overnight. Once the lava changed it's course and we changed our minds, there was no reason to stay in the hotel by the airport--and we needed to stay somewhere for two nights before we could get into our condo. I was shocked to see that two nights at the Best Western in Kihei (South Maui) would be amost $200/night--that was far more than we wanted to spend. I finally found a place on an internet travel board that was $90/night. The reviews were mixed and it was only listed as a 1.5 star hotel, but I decided that since there were some positive reviews and the price and location were right, we would go for it.

What a great place it turned out to be!

Without even asking they upgraded us from an ocean view to an ocean front room. It was terrific. Here is what you saw when you walked in.

(Except that Russ wasn't there already when we walked in--I brought him with me.)

Here is a picture without the flash so that you can see the view from the lanai.

There was a tiny flight of stairs up one side (very tiny--a bit scary to come down to the bathroom in the middle of the night!) to a little loft with a bed and dresser.

It could not have been nicer. We had such a great time sitting on the lanai watching for whales and were surprised at how many we saw.

The one thing our hotel room didn't have was a kitchen, so for breakfast we went to a restaurant that I'd read about online. We couldn't have afforded lunch or dinner there, but breakfast was rumored to be under $15 each. (Unless you ordered a glass of OJ, which was small, delicious, and $5!!) The restaurant was in the middle of a golf course overlooking the ocean. The view was incredible.

We sat out on the patio while we ate and watched the ocean the whole time we were eating. The meal was beautiful as well as yummy.

We also enjoyed watching the bold birds look for left-overs.

After we ate the waitress took a picture for us.

When we were done we walked around the building and looked at the golf course. There was a small pool with waterfalls facing the golf course and one of the golfers stopped and chatted with us and said that the whole golf course was like that. Beautiful!

In the evening we took a long walk up the beach. Not every area has such a long uninterrupted area of beach, and we really enjoyed it.

We passed a monument that seemed to be honoring someone for bringing the potato to Hawaii.

I had to laugh at both of us--we were scanning the ocean for whales the whole time we were walking. But it was just so cool to see a whale blow in the distance, and then the hump, or every now and then a breach!

We turned back to our hotel and watched the sun set as we walked back. I must tell you the truth about Hawaiian sunsets. I have never seen one that I've thought is that extraordinary. Fortunately for you sometimes my camera enhances things a little, so this picture is pretty nice. And the fact that it was happening while I was on a beach with my husband looking out over the ocean made it pretty excellent for me as well!