Santa left some snow sliding saucers for Tasha and Ben for Christmas. And of course they needed to be tested as soon as possible. Fortunately, there’s a hill close by to Graham and Ivy’s house that was built especially for that purpose. Unfortunately, they don’t tell you that one part of the hill is almost suicidal.
That’s the hill I wanted. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, the house I grew up in was knocked down yesterday. Lot of memories there, but I’m kinda glad to see it go. It was almost ready to fall over by itself…
My last day in Maui and we’re up around 4:00 am so we can drive to Lahaina to be on the boat by 5:30. Sherry, Herb, Audie and I are going deep sea fishing.
With this many fishing rods (6 in total) we have to catch something! Read the rest of this entry »
After a busy day in the volcanic mountains we were away to the Old Lahaina Luau. Lots of good food and a beautiful sunset for desert.
More than anything, I wanted to see a volcano while I was in Hawaii. Unfortunately, there are no live volcanoes on Maui. I knew that before I left. The next best thing would be to see an extinct volcano crater.
The Haleakala Highway takes you to Haleakala National Park. It’s a narrow winding road that takes you from about a 1000 feet above sea level to a little over 10,000. And at the top you can see the collapsed crater of a volcano. Perfect.
Sherry was driving, and all was good until we passed a sign that said, “Turn headlights on while driving through clouds.” Haleakala means “the land above the clouds.” That’s when Herb began to clutch the arm rest. White knuckled, he mentioned about every fifty feet of the climb, “We are very, very, very, friggin high.” The rest of his conversation usually contained something like, “Do you have to drive so close to the side of the road?”
Sherry was driving perfectly. I don’t know what would have happened if she was a little nervous about the road. I think Herb would have simply passed out. Read the rest of this entry »
Sherry and Herb wanted to go shopping today. Of course, that didn’t interest me very much, but I tagged along with them because I told them I knew how to get to Lahaina. I thought a couple of hours of souvenir shopping, and then we could do something else. But the conversation on the way soon led to the impression this was going to be an all day event.
Uh oh. Time to move into alternate plan persuasion mode.
I convinced them to take a drive towards the western end of the island, and maybe head up to Haleakala National Park. We bought a road map and turned around with just a little griping from Sherry.
Our first stop was the Kula Botanical Gardens. Read the rest of this entry »
The reason everyone came to Maui was for Chelsea and Jonathan’s wedding. And the day was finally here. Not without some glitches, but that what makes a wedding special.
A beautiful location for exchanging wedding vows. I think it was called “Secret Cove.” And indeed it was secret. Somehow, the car leading the parade to Secret Cove got lost, and we ended up at a golf course.
Secret Cove has a tiny little beach, and at one point in time there was three wedding ceremonies happening at the same time. I didn’t get too many photos, because I didn’t want to get in the way of the professional photographer, or distract from the ceremony. But you can see some photos on the next page.
We were on our way at about 5:30 am to snorkel our way around the Island of Lanai. I was looking forward to this. I had been scuba diving a couple of times – but only in dirty old Saskatchewan water and this sounded fun.
We arrived at the docks at Lahania around 6:30 and once everyone was fitted with fins and snorkel gear – all given special names by the Captain of the boat and her crew – we headed out to sea. My mask and snorkel was called Mahi-Mahi. Mahi-mahi is Hawaiian for dolphin fish.
I had bought a small digital camera that was waterproof the day before just for the trip. Yeah – I know – I really needed another camera. But I didn’t think saltwater would be good for my SLR, considering how my cell phone reacted to dampness.
The Iao Valley State park was the last stop on my day trip. By now it was around 4:00 pm, and the sun sets at around 6:30 pm. I had no idea what to expect. There was a little star on the map the car rental place gave me that said “Iao Needle.”
The park is in the valley formed from a collapsed volcano (a caldera) Iao means “cloud supreme” from the bank of clouds that are usually hanging over the valley. Throughout the park, there are signs saying that flash floods occur regularly because of the frequent and heavy rains.
