Getting High on Maui - Part 2

Getting High on Maui - Part 2

Map of Maui - We were mostly on the lower portion of the island this day

Early morning at our hotel, the Maui Seaside Hotel

In the morning, Chuck and family drove over from Lahaina. Chuck turned their car over to Sherb to be our driver and guide for the day.  We headed off to pick up our "breakfast to-go" at Krispy Kreme Donuts!  

All this talk of donuts and I did not take any photos of the only Krispy Kreme shop in the state of Hawaii!  Sorry!

I ordered a large Coke, which turned out to be a costly mistake as later while climbing up to the summit of Haleakala (Holly-AHH-kahh-lahh) Volcano on East Maui.  I set my camera down into the large styrofoam cup of Coke sitting in the car’s center console!  Oh! Rats!

This completely soaked my camera.  I dried it with napkins immediately, but later, up on Haleakala summit I was getting condensation inside the camera lens.

After the trip, I had to ship the camera to a repair shop in the Los Angeles area to have it disassembled, dried and cleaned out!  That large drink ended up costing $109 and left me with no camera during the Chinese New Year celebrations in Honolulu this year.

You may notice some of the effects of the camera being drenched in the remaining photos taken that day.

Beautiful Bougainvillea at the start of our drive

We were soon climbing up the volcano on the steep, twisting highway to the Haleakala National Park and volcano crater. 

Climbing up the volcano

Above the clouds looking down toward the middle, flatter agricultural areas of Maui  

 

Wowee!  Very high on Maui ! (The sun's Ultraviolet rays are turning my Photo grey lenses very dark)  I am doing the Hawaiian "Shaka" sign.

We definitely got very high on Maui !

We saw the beautiful silver sword plants that only grown at high altitude on the Hawaiian Islands.  The plants are hardy enough to grow in the intense sunlight, the cold and very bleak environment of the tops of the volcanoes.  Very fine filaments on the leaves give them protection from the sun and give the plant its distinctive color. 

Silver swords and other high altitude plants

Silver sword plants

 

Silver sword plant - detail

We could see the top of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Mauna Kea was 100 miles south of where we were standing, on the summit of Haleakala.   

Summits of Mauna Kea and Moana Loa 100 miles away on the Big Island of Hawaii

Observatories on Haleakala Summit

 

Relief map - The Islands as if looking from the southwest to the northeast.

Other hardy high altitude Hawaiian plants

A poem about Haleakala and its plants and birds  Ahinahina is the Polynesian Heliotrope, Nene is a Hawaiian species of geese, ohia is a red flowering tree the first plant that grows on new lava flows, 'o'opu is a Hawaiian species of fish.

Other hardy high altitude Hawaiian plants

Haleakala Crater

Sherb drove us down from the National park through the rural lower slopes of the volcano.  We had a wonderful lunch at the Kula Lodge.

Still above the clouds

The Kula Lodge

High pasture land near the town of Makawoa (Mack-ahh-WOAHH) 

Catholic Church in Makawoa

 

Rural town of Makawoa

We ended back on the coast road going north into Kahului.  There were quite a few windsurfers out enjoying the waves on this Saturday afternoon. 

 

Sherb then drove us down to South Maui to the end of the road near Makena Beach.  The road ends at a lava flow from the late 1780's.

Property near Makena Beach

The road ends near a lava flow area close to Makena State Beach

Historic marker for the spot where the first European made landfall on Maui - A French Count

Detail of the Historic marke Jean Fancois Galaup, Comte de Laperouse leadeer of the first group of Europeans to land on Maui - May 26th, 1786.

We returned though a truly wealthy, area along the coast with many very private, seaside gated communities being developed. It looks and feels very much like the Gold Coast in Orange County California.

Soon we were back in Kahului where we stopped at a Ruby’s Diner for dinner. We said our good byes to Chuck, Priscilla and Nicole at the parking lot of our hotel. 

Early Sunday morning, we had another Krispy Kreme Donut before arriving back at the Kahului Airport.  

Kahului Airport

Our flight home to Honolulu arrived early enough for Sherb and I to have our routine Sunday morning breakfast at the Original Pancake House.  


A week later, I celebrated my 70th birthday with my friends at Outback Steakhouse in Honolulu.

Life is good!

L to R - Richard (also his birthday), me, Jan, Sherb

Please click the colored link to view my other blog about my more distant journeys - Travler Al's Wanderings

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