Haleakala Day

Sorry my posting has been a little delayed since I've been home, but I'll try to get them all up now! This post all happened in one day, the major event being Haleakala Crater on Maui.

Kim, Megan, and I all got up and were out the door at 4:30 am so we could watch the sunrise. We got up to the summit at about 5:40 and the sun came up at 5:50, so we just made it. I love this shot with all the people in shadow.

There were a TON of people up there. Several lots were full!

I about burned my eyes out to take this, but here's the sun rising above the clouds. Haleakala is so awesome to watch the sun rise from because you are so high above the clouds.

It is so cold up there that you don't see many plants. These plants are some of the few that grow up there. It's called a silver sword.

I love this shot of the crater right after sunrise. There were tons of colors.

Here we are freezing to death. Thank goodness Megan's brother had some extra warm clothes because I had forgotten to bring a jacket!

I was in the backseat going down, but couldn't resist taking this picture of us descending the mountain. I loved watching us get closer and closer to the tops of the clouds.

Here we are just a little below cloud level now.

Kim's stomach did not take kindly to the windy switchback roads going up and down Haleakala.

We did make a stop before we got all the way down. Megan's brother Nalu and his family bought property up there and are currently building. The road is CRAZY and is not yet paved. You have to have 4-wheel drive to get up there. We tried this 4 wheeler - all three of us on it. It got a little too scary, so Megan went up and sent her sister-in-law down to get us!

This is the view from their property. It was quite pretty.

These are two of Meg's nieces - Lanea and Kalena. They were so cute and we dancing for us.

Here's Meg with Nalu and Malia's family - minus Nalu.

Kim used the neighbor's outdoor bathroom before we left and was shocked to see this large goat head in the shower.

This is actually what you see when you first round the corner after walking in the door. It's quite a shocker even though you know it's there!

They also had a real boar. It don't know why . . .

They had a total of 14 dogs!

After coming back down the volcano, we stopped in Makawao to get some breakfast at the bakery. It was delicious. I walked down Baldwin Ave. for a picture of my favorite little plate lunch place, Kitadas, only to find that it was no longer there! I guess it's been closed for about 9 months. Super sad!

We drove down Baldwin Ave just a little ways so I could get a picture of the last place we lived on Maui. I missed it the first time we drove past, because of this new house. That's all you see in the driveway and it wasn't there when I lived there. I guess it's the owner's house. They were kind enough to let me walk around and take some pictures.

They didn't change where my parents lived that much. The little house where Susannah and I had our little room is way different now.

They've added a really nice pool that I wish was there when we lived there!

The big house stayed just the same on the outside. This is where about 30 boys lived while working at the pineapple cannery for Maui Pineapple Co.

I had to get a view from the outside edge of the yard. Susannah and I used to love to play out here.

This is from the other direction.

The rest of the day we did some shopping in Paia!