08/04/2019

Time to fly to Maui and off to the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu. Our Airbnb host was kind enough to give us a ride and a goodbye hug too! I felt like I had made real friends here in Hawaii.

First thing I notice is that check in lines are a nightmare here. Maybe because it’s a Sunday and people are leaving but there’s one line and its for baggage check, printing boarding passes, and everything else. Plus it’s partially outdoors, so no relief from the humid weather.

I come to the part in line where you can weigh your bags. Since I didn’t get to tell you guys the final weight of my Osprey and New Outlander carry on pieces, this is the perfect time to do that.

7.0 pounds for the Osprey and 8.5 pounds for the New Outlander. That’s it!!

I couldn’t believe that’s all they weighed! If if wasn’t for the camping equipment, I would never travel with checked luggage again. It’s just too much of a hassle.

I also learned not to put bags of sand in these said carry-ons. I forgot to pack them in the checked luggage, and got pulled over by TSA in the “to be more thoroughly searched” line. I was patted down and they took samples of my sand. All 3 bags. I tried to look like an innocent person and was lucky that they didn’t just throw them out.

Now because of that delay, we barely had time to send our souvenirs home at the mailing service at the airport. It cost $28 to get it back home, including the darned sand. We made what my daughter calls “the Home Alone run” to the gate where they were boarding our group just as we got there.

You have to actually walk outside the gate to the runway to board the plane, so they give you a little card with your airport code to get access to the plane.

The flight to Maui was pretty quick, less than an hour. We got to watch Spider Man: Homecoming for a bit on the in-flight app with live TV. They gave you a little cup of Cran-Grape juice and it hit the spot after running to the gate. Then there was some scary turbulence during the landing! But it was a great view to see Maui for the first time.

Okay, so another thing I learned flying: do NOT stop and get food after you exit the plane. Go straight and get your luggage! We picked up some quick food and by the time we got to baggage claim, Southwest had assumed we forgot our bag and locked it up to be claimed. I had a quick oh-man-my-luggage-is-lost moment until I found out they did this. Oh yeah, and you have to track an employee from the airline to unlock it to get it; I wasted some time here doing all this, but felt better when it was back in my possession again.

Now I had to find the car rental places. There’s a tram that takes you to the rentals at another part of the airport, but they’re all conveniently in one spot. I didn’t have a reservation, and Hertz was the only place that took walk ins. I chose a sedan and the worker told us they were closing soon and brought in a vehicle that was ready to go: a 2018 red Jeep Sahara! Free upgrades are always a bonus. Now we could explore Maui in style!

The Airbnb I had rented was a room in a house about 10 minutes from the airport. I was really only going to need it for a few hours so we could catch our tour bus at the waiting point very early in the morning. The tour bus’s destination: the summit of Haleakala volcano in the National Park to watch the sacred sunrise!

My room was just what I said: a bedroom upstairs in a modest home. I heard other people in the house, but only once. The door locked, which is a must for me to feel secure. No WiFi or toilet paper in the bathroom next door though, come on, host, really?! Good thing I had some on me.

For some reason, I felt uneasy about the Jeep parked in the street. I looked for places to eat for dinner for us, but it gets dark here by 7:30 and we were just exhausted. The ceiling fan just felt too good, plus we had to get up by 2 AM. So we turned on the little camping lantern on dim and ate our snacks of nuts and Goldfish crackers and watched downloaded Netflix shows until we fell asleep.

08/05/2019

Woke up around 0200 AM and got ready to leave. As we went out to the Jeep, a vehicle was stopped across the street from it and a man inside asked if we were leaving because he was about to give us a ticket! Again, parking in Hawaii is no joke, people. We left just in time, and it explained the uneasy feeling I had all night about the Jeep.

The tour group I booked with was called Valley Isle Excursions, and I had read online in several places that they were the best tour group on Maui. Your entrance fees to the park and your reservation for the sunrise viewing is also included. This is important because if you don’t have a ticket, they make you leave!

The tour group picks you up at the resorts and bring you to a restaurant to meet for a light breakfast before heading up the volcano. Since we aren’t staying at a resort, I had to drive to the restaurant to meet the bus, which is also just 10 minutes away.

It’s now 0236 AM. We both pop a Dramamine because I read the roads can give you motion sickness and the bus arrives around 0245 AM. I only ate a muffin and a few bites of pineapple and strawberries with a 7UP because I don’t want to feel sick and not enjoy this tour!

In the bus, our tour guide, Michael, has us all go around and say your names, where you’re from, what your favorite Hawaiian island is, and how many times you’ve been to Hawaii. (Ugh, it’s middle school all over again). There’s some other people from Dallas, Texas, and one lady had been to Hawaii 9 times already! Who does this?!

The drive is totally in the dark but it’s quiet and most people are asleep, my daughter included. I’m too excited to sleep so I just kinda close my eyes and before I knew it, soft Hawaiian music was playing on the speakers in the bus and we were here! It’s around 0530 AM now.

Michael tells us we are one of the first tour buses there so we get an area right by the guard rail, prime spot for viewing the sunrise. Why is this so special? Because the Hawaiian people consider this place sacred. Haleakalā means “house of the sun” and legends say that the demigod Maui caught the sun at it’s summit and moved it across the sky slowly.

When we get out, the view is incredible. The Milky Way can be seen across the sky, and there are more stars than sky when you look up. It’s also very very very COLD. I’m grateful for my Arc’teryx jacket but the tour group also gives you stadium-style floor length ponchos lined with fleece and it helps so much. It’s now 0530 AM, and the view changes dramatically over the next hour.

I’m looking like a gnome here….

And then the sun slowly rises and the colors change. You notice you’re above the clouds as if you’re floating above the ground. People lead a Hawaiian chant, and the sun moves up into the sky. It’s a breathtaking experience that I can’t even describe, and definitely a memory I’ll treasure forever.

Now that it’s light out, I can see how many people have come to witness this!

I absolutely had to go to the visitor center to get my pin for my backpack and a sticker for my collection from this place.

Back on the bus for some much appreciated hot chocolate. The bus had video screens and Michael spoke of facts about the culture, volcanoes, and the park, such as it’s the only National Park that has a 3.7 million dollar fence surrounding it to keep feral pigs out, and how the brochure for the park is the only one published in 2 languages, English and Hawaiian. (By the way, they give you a brochure as part of the tour). You can also bike up and down the volcano, either on your own or with a tour.

We make a few more stops around the volcano before we descend and the tour guides take photos for you if you’d like. We get to sample a chocolate covered macadamia nut, which are super popular here, and tour guide tip: he said buy them to take home from Costco or Walmart instead of tourist stops and stores; it’s the same product and way cheaper!

Back to the restaurant to have a buffet breakfast and some good pineapple juice.

Now it’s only just past 0900 AM at this point, so we have a whole day to explore. First stop: Maui’s police department about 10 minutes away, and they do patch exchanges so I picked up mine from them:

We were only 20 minutes from the town of Paia, so we headed there for a while. It’s a sleepy little touristy town with one stoplight and lots of stores that were pretty high priced in my opinion, like $9.99 for one fish taco. There’s one public parking lot and that’s it; if not, you’ll have to find parking in the street. Another important thing here: a gas station. It’s about $4 a gallon, though!

One stop here we loved: Ululani’s Shave Ice where this one was half vanilla, half banana, 100% delicious! It’s soft and just melts when you eat it.

Paia’s beach is within walking distance, and it’s absolutely lovely. The sand is both hard and soft, possibly the most perfect texture I’ve seen here yet.

We are supposed to camp the next 2 nights at Wai’ianapanapa State Park, but when I call, the lady tells me that the sites have all been washed out by the tropical storm and most of the them are flooded and not safe. You can’t just park anywhere and sleep in your car; you’ll get fined, the police will make you move, and there’s just too many homeless people roaming the beaches at night for me to sleep with the windows open on the Jeep and feel safe. So we leave Paia and drive west 45 minutes to the area of Lahaina, where there’s more choices for accommodations, however; it’s more expensive! So I spend an hour looking online and find a place called Lahaina Inn, where the lady on the phone there tells me to book it online through booking.com to get a much cheaper rate. I booked the last studio room for the rest of our Maui stay for $308, a steal at this part of the island where it’s usually $300-$500 a night.

The Inn is in the historic district. It’s got an old feel with newer upgrades. It’s a block away from the water and this touristy area is much nicer and alive, with lots of food choices and things to see.

But because we are so tired from the early wake up, we just grab food at a little place called Lahaina Luna Cafe: chicken Katsu and Teri-fried chicken bites:

We then ended the night with Hawaiian Gelato where I got Maui Mud: macadamia nuts, Kona coffee, and fudge: the best tasting gelato yet.

It’s around 8 PM, and an early turn in for us: tomorrow is the adventurous drive of the Road to Hana.

Mahalo!