Hawaii- adventures

We broke our time in Hawaii up by having full days and lazy days. For example, we arrived (late) Tuesday night, Wednesday we just relaxed (+ Haleakala, which isn't really a relaxing endeavor...), Thursday was our adventures day, Friday was low-key, Saturday was Hana, Sunday was low-key and Monday we traveled home!

Adventure #1: Getting to our hotel 

Our flight arrived in Maui around 10pm, we picked up our luggage and rental car, pulled out the GPS (that we brought from home) and hit the road. We anticipated that the drive would take 45-60 minutes (according to the hotel directions), but we didn't know that there are two ways you can go to get there. Unfortunately, our GPS took us the bad way, and unfortunately, we didn't bother looking at a real map. Here is a visual:

We should have left the airport and driven south on the interstate. Instead, our GPS looked at the shortest geographical distance, and took us to the north "over the top" (as they say) on a road that doesn't even appear on most maps (Kahekili Highway- I guess they use "highway" pretty loosely). Notice that road goes from a thin, white, squiggly line to totally disappearing. Yeah, that's intentional. Most rental car companies discourage you (some forbid you) from driving this road. NO ONE would encourage you to do it at night. Ever. Here is a great website that shows pictures of how treacherous this road is during the day (one lane bridges, hardly any guardrails, giant cliffs [we heard there is a 3,000ft cliff at one point], unpaved road, etc... you get the picture). So, needless to say, we had a stressful jaunt our first night in Hawaii. Oh, did I mention that we had been en route for about 22 hours at this point? David (our fearless driver) had hardly slept at all, and I am really thankful that he is such a safe, conscientious driver. I was a bundle of nerves the whole time... Whew. Glad that's over.

Adventure #2: Haleakala Crater

After my parents told me about visiting this place (my dad's photo won a photo contest!), I knew we had to make it a top priority. I really had to drag David up there on Wednesday (he was more intent on spending the day resting than spending another second in the car), but he definitely thought it was worthwhile in the end. We took a bazillion pictures, but none of them do this place/view justice. At 10,023 feet you are totally above the clouds. We watched the sunset and it was breathtaking. The ride back down made me sick (first motion sickness in my life!)... crazy drive #2.

Adventure #3: Helicopter tour

Monday afternoon I was laying out by the pool and reading (I read 4 books!) when David (who was inside sleeping), came out and told me he had just booked a helicopter tour for the following day! I was SO excited. I had mentioned early on that this is something I have always wanted to do, and he made it happen :). He's wonderful.

I can't even put this experience into words. It's impossible. First of all, I cried when we took off. It was the craziest sensation! I think I was emotional too because my dad flew helicopters in the Marine Corps and I have always associated the two together. It was really special to finally be able to experience something that was such a big part of his life. Second of all, the view was unbelievable. We flew all around Maui and to Moloka'i and Lana'i. We saw whales in the ocean below us. We saw 1,300 ft. waterfalls. We saw remote villages that don't have electricity. It totally blew our minds! We couldn't stop smiling and saying how awesome it was.

Adventure #4: Whale watching tour

After our helicopter tour, we spent lunchtime in Lahaina eating and browsing through the shops. That same afternoon was the time we had scheduled our whale watching tour (2 for $29.95!). At first it was totally lame. We kept taking picture of tiny grey dots a mile away because those were the only whales we saw. Oh, and the "tour guide" lady was crazy annoying. Then, the captain got a call from another boat, and he took off to a different part of the ocean. We arrived to find 5 male whales (humpback) that apparently were fighting. It. was. so. cool.

We couldn't tell that they were fighting, but man were they active and SO close to our boat! These animals are MASSIVE. Like, 40-45 feet long and 1 ton per foot! 80-90,000 pounds! Totally incredible. Our boat was full of people, so we were all clamoring over one another to try and see and take the best pictures. Obviously, we didn't succeed at that. If you want to see some amazing humpback whale pictures, google it. If you want to see some amazing humpback WHALES, go to Maui,