Hawaiian Vacation - Friday, December 11, 2009

One precious day on Maui... Because of the huge waves on north shores of the islands of Hawaii we missed one day on Maui. Maui should have been our first port of call. Our ship would have docked on the north shore. As we viewed the lay of this island we could understand why. There is a narrow strip of land that connects the north shore and the south shore of Maui. The south shore has reefs and little islands like Molokini to protect it. The north shore is really completely open to the whims of the mighty Pacific Ocean waves. That is why, with 60 to 80 foot waves, we couldn't dock a cruise ship in the north shore harbor. We found a turtle to greet us as we disembarked the ship. This was a must picture for me and my turtle collection.

Our tour bus this day turned out to be 3 extended vans from U-Haul rentals. Each van was driven by a member of a family. There was the mom, Shannon, in one of the vans. Her two sons drove the other two vans. Shannon married a full-blood Hawaiian fellow. He has a full time profession that requires him to travel a great deal. Shannon and her family (5 boys and some daughters-in-law and grandkids) have this tourist business they keep up on their beloved island of Maui. Their family history goes back to the settling of the islands by the Polynesians. The also have connections with the first missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who came to Maui. We were in for a treat of a day with this wonderful mom and her 2 sons. The oldest son drove the van Claude and I would smash ourselves into the back seat of for the day. He was very talkative and shared lots of information about Maui. The family actually lives on the opposite end of Maui from our travels today. But they owned land, because of their family history, on the side of Maui we would play in. We all got in our vans and headed for Haleakala National Park, another volcano. This drive takes you up over 13,000 feet to near the top of the volcano. During this drive we would pass through 6 of the 8 temperate zones. You just watched the vegetation change as you climbed the mountain. It is a lot like driving up a mountain in the west where you reach what is called timberline and then there are no trees at all because of the oxygen level. On the way up the trees change from forests to scrubby trees that are sparse to no trees at all. Also we would note the homes at one level were very, very expensive. Some were pointed out as being owned by celebrities or leaders of one sort or another. There are cattle ranches also.

The road up this mountain is 40 miles of loops back and forth up one side of the mountain. The road was built by the Corps of Engineers and is a wonderful road to ride on. Each turn is precisely 180 degrees. At the top of the mountain (volcano) are government telescopes and parts of the 'Star Wars' space project. Because of this, a good road was needed to evacuate quickly if needed and to be able to get up and down the Haleakala Volcano for work purposes easily. The road is used by everyone to get to the Haleakala visitor's center. They have bicycles loaded on top of vans or pulled in trailers that are taken to the top. Then the tourists get on the bicycles and coast 40 miles to the bottom of the volcano. There is a spot where hang gliders take off to float in the air to the bottom. It was just nice to see how everyone works harmoniously. Made me think of the Jamaican phrase "Don't worry, be happy!" It is really the Aloha spirit of the islands. Everyone appreciates the beauty of the nature in which they reside. They all shared it equally everywhere we went.

After arriving at the visitors center we took some pictures of the Haleakala Volcano. We were at about eye level with the caldera. Here are a couple of pictures of the caldera. The one on the left is where the lava would have spilled over the side and you can see what its path was. The picture on the right shows the caldera surface covered with craters. To the right of these pictures was a little mountain shape that would have been part of the cone at the top. Claude and I would hike this next.

There are signs a plenty as you begin this hike cautioning you to take your time. Stop and rest. Do not rush. The oxygen level is much different than what you experience at the bottom and all the times we've been cruising. As we hiked these aging bodies up the rocky path we found ourselves commenting to each other that we are grateful we walk our treadmill each day. Couldn't have done this little hike without that daily exercise to prepare.

Once again I found myself walking around looking for the best camera shots. When I paused to look up, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a miniature Claude and some shiny sun rays...I'm doing this way to close to Christmas!!! We enjoyed being up here and looking down at Maui. What a great view of this portion of our planet. The pictures at the top are a lot like the ones I have shown you taken at the visitor's center except the objects are a little further away. We determined we might head back so as to not miss being smashed into our back seat portion of the U-Haul van. I tell you that could have been miserable but we enjoyed all the people in our van and the tour guide that was driving us. So I do not complain just make note of the facts.

This is Claude on our path as we go back down to the visitor's center and parking lot. It was kind of like a moon scape with all the lava rocks except that every so often there would be a green plant growing out of the crevices in the rocks. It is actually beautiful in a bare beauty sort of way.

As we walked down I found this green plant to show the top of the caldera where the craters are located.

Jim Dear and Darling were trying to hike up to the top as we were coming down. We took their picture and they took ours in return. Our background in this shot is the island of Maui with the south shore on my right shoulder and the north shore on Claude's left shoulder. (I'm sitting here at my computer raising and lowering my shoulders to be sure Iim telling you the right side. My Nissa is genetically my child. She would do that to be sure of left and right as well.) Jim Dear and Darling were a fun, interesting couple from the Houston, Texas area. Their real names are Roy & Jeannie Dase. Roy is a chiropractor by profession. Jeannie is going to school again. They have both been married before and were adult singles that met at a Church dance for adult singles and later married. They have been married 4 years now but they are still just like on their honeymoon. You would think they were on their honeymoon. Claude took to calling them Jim Dear and Darling because that is exactly how they spoke to each other. Several times they were in the seat in front of us on one of the tour buses.

This plant is the Ahinahina or silverswords. The base we found in lots of places. It is the silver color that just reflects the sun in a gorgeous way. When the plant is totally mature it sends up a tall spike that has lots of little stems coming out of it with little blossoms on the end of each stem. It is truly other worldly looking. It only grows here. They actually use it in films as a plant from another planet. Many, many, many years ago there were tons of these Ahinahina growing all over. The locals pulled them and tossed them into the volcano. Now they are protected so they might grow again. We never saw a mature one with the blossoms on the top. After sending up the tall spike and it flowering the plant dies. So seeing one in bloom would have been a rare thing. But I have a picture of a mature one in the brochure for Haleakala National Park.

As we drove off Haleakala, I was in a better position to take pictures out of the window of the van. This one shows the complete span of land between the south shore of Maui on the left side of the picture and the north shore of Maui on the right side of the picture. In the center back are the West Maui Mountain. On the other side of them is Lahaina which my sister, Junie, tells me is the best shopping in Hawaii. It is also the home to the enormous banyan tree. We would have seen this on our 1st day in Maui but will now save it for another trip back to the islands.

As we got lower on the mountain the vegetation changed from nothing to scrubby little bushes. At one turn I caught this shot of a little gully coming down the mountain. It made me think of traveling in the western part of the United States.

One of the things we saw on Haleakala was the 'cloudline'. I have spoken about the timberline. This is where the oxygen level is so low that trees don't grow. They just can't survive. I always knew that when flying in a plane if there was turbulence the pilot would try to get above it. I had noted this usually meant getting above the clouds. Somehow when I looked at clouds I saw this as soft, fluffy innocent things. The reality is there is a lot of turbulence when you fly through them. But I never equated getting above those clouds as being above cloudline. When we reached the top of Haleakala I saw the sky in a whole to way. I hope this picture helps you understand what I'm going to try to explain in words. In the picture you have land at the bottom, then the clouds rolling into Maui from the north side of the mountain as they do each afternoon. The next thing is a layer of dark blue topped with a layer of lighter blue. When we were at the top of Haleakala at the visitor's center I first noticed that the sky was two distinct shades of blue almost like someone put an invisible barrier up and said, "Dark blue, you hang lower. Lighter blue, you take the top position." The clouds had not started to move around from the north shore and across the land to the south shore yet. But there were a few clouds and they all seemed to hang right at the top of the dark blue and couldn't quite make it into the lighter blue. The invisible line is the 'cloudline' where clouds just don't form. I guess I knew on some level that happened from flying in planes but here on Haleakala I saw it delineated in color. It was amazing and again I marveled at the hand of our creator making such a varied and beautiful place for us to live. For this I am thankful and intrigued.

We traveled on down the mountain and passed again a grove of trees. These were pine trees brought to Maui by some enterprising men. They thought they would grow these trees then sell them to make their fortune. Hawaii does not have lots of timber for lumber forests. This was a great idea the guys had. They planted and let the trees grow. When they felt they were big enough to begin their lumbering operation, they cut down a few trees only to find they had no rings on the inside. That's right folks, not a growth ring in any of the trees. Why...There is the same season all year long and so it is just one long growth period for trees. Hence, no growth rings. To a person interested in timber for lumber this was not a good thing. It makes for very weak trees that are no good for building.

Our destination would be Giggle Park in Hana. This would be our picnic lunch spot and sits on land owned by our guide family and inherited through their Hawaiian blood lines. This is the view from the edge of Giggle Park. The photo on the left is the south shore of Maui and in the water on the left is Molokini a little island that provides protection to the south shore. The bigger mountains to the right are the West Maui Mountains. The photo on the right is the north shore of Maui and, if the picture were bigger, you could make out a white object that was our cruise ship at port. The fence in the foreground of both pictures if for a cattle ranch. There were several cattle ranches on this portion of Maui.

There were several picnic tables throughout the park. Shannon put tablecloths on enough for us all to sit at a table. Most of us chose to sit on the grass on this beautiful hill and take in the loveliness that is Maui. My heavens it was beautiful. While we ate the meal Shannan prepared of sandwiches on bagels and big slices of pineapple that had marinated overnight gauva/strawberry juice (yum!!), her sons played their ukulele's and sang beautiful Hawaiian songs. Shannon would stand occasionally and tell us the words in English or the story the song was about.

Then the youngest son treated us to a poi pounding demonstration. Shannon first showed us the taro root that they grew in their yard. She boiled it the night before in preparation for today's demonstration. It looks a lot like a huge sweet potato that is really fat and thick. It has a skin on it with eyes like a potato. Her son took out a knife and peeled away the skin and cut out the eyes. You don't want these in your poi as the ruin the non-taste!! The the young man took out the lava stone that had been crafted by his great grandfather and showed us how you pound that taro into poi. He used a wooden plate on which to do the pounding. The plate curved up at the edges a bit. As he pounded he would knead the pounded poi into the center of the plate. You do not pour water on the taro you are pounding. You pour water on your hands and that provides enough water for the poi. He would pause every now and then to pour more water on his hands as he felt it was needed. The finished poi looked like mashed sweet potatoes. It was nothing like the purple pasty poi I had eaten before. This purple poi is often described at tasting like wallpaper paste. Each guide who told this story assured us they had never tasted wallpaper paste but apparently many people from the mainland have and know that is what poi tastes like.

We were instructed in the proper way to eat poi. You really are to dip your meat you are eating in it. It is not to be eaten alone. It is quite bland and takes on the flavor of the meat something like soy beans do. When you eat it this way it is much more palatable. We all got a sample taste of this different kind of poi. It was not bad. It turns out that poi is fed to premature babies who need to gain weight. It has such great nutrative value it can put the pounds on a baby. It can do the same for an adult if over eaten. Next we would go into Hana to a little church house. This beautiful little church is the first LDS Chapel built on the islands. The original building did burn down but it has been rebuilt exactly as the original. The setting is gorgeous. Many moving spiritual experiences have taken place on this spot. There was a pond to the right of this building and down in the fields. That is where they performed the first baptisms in Hawaii. There is an enormous tree that I think I heard each member of our tour group comment wanting in their yards. It was just a tender, quiet place to be. They have built a tiny home next to the church and and the missionaries live there.

Then we headed back down to our cruise ship passing fields of sugar cane as we went. They don't grown as much sugar cane as they used to. Like the pineapple business it is labor intensive and has been moved to lower income countries that will work for less wages.

Back on the ship we would get into swim wear and head to the pool and the shade respectively. As it approached time for the ship to depart I walked around Deck 13 and noted the long canoes taking passengers out for a paddle in the waters near shore. That might be a fun things to do sometime.

Then Claude and I enjoyed a sunset for the record books. At least for our record books, the people of Maui see it often. From our position on the upper decks of the cruise ship the sun set behind Haleakala where we had hiked in the morning, where I took pictures of Maui, where we had picniced near its base. The sun looked like it was shining right out of the crater. It was a wonder to behold. This could possibly be my favorite ever sunset ever.