I was very excited last week to spend some time with my parents!! They came out to celebrate their 25th anniversary! Woo!! I have tons of pictures and stories to share, so check it out!
Their plane came in on Tuesday night, and I surprised them at the airport with a lei for each of them. Mom got a little ready, of course. I guess they were kind of happy to see me or something.. ;) So I waited while the bags came out and walked them over to the car rental place and sent them on their way. While walking back to my (well, Sandy's) car, I had a bit of a panic attack. When I got there, I parked in front of a tree and next to a big gray truck. When I went back, there was a tree, a big gray truck, and no white car! My heart stopped for a second. Good news though, the next row down had another tree and gray truck. And this one had my car! Thank goodness! :)
So Wednesday morning, 2:30 a.m., we met in Haiku for our sunrise bike tour! The bus ride up to the top of Haleakala was a bit frightening, because the road is very narrow and full of switchbacks and drop offs. I was just glad it was dark so I couldn't see how high we were! Our bus driver was very knowledgeable about the history of the volcano and the ecosystem of Maui. It was a lot of interesting information with just a touch of bitterness regarding the "influence of man" on the islands. That does seem to be a typical native Hawaiian viewpoint.
Anyway, we got to the top around 5:00 and it was COLD! Like I needed a winter coat cold. The wind was very strong, and we were standing outside for about 45 minutes waiting for the sunrise. It was worth it though, because it was gorgeous. I'm sure my pictures won't do it justice, but here they are.
What you see there under the layer of clouds is the west side of Maui. Looks kinda small from way up high.
After the sun came up, we went to the observatory did a little more looking around. From the very top, we could see the top of the big island sticking out above the clouds 100 miles away. Unfortunately, all of those pictures are still on my camera, except this one from the very top!
After all of the looking around, it was time to go down to the park entrance and get on our bikes! Here we are, all ready to get started in our super attractive gear!
You can barely tell that between the three of us there was a cumulative four hours of sleep! :)
The ride down was both fun and scary. Then"bike lane" was really just the shoulder of the road that varied from being four feet wide to nonexistent. Sometimes we had to ride in traffic, which I wasn't a fan of, but other than that I really liked it. It was gorgeous riding down the mountain. It was still early, so the clouds were mostly cleared and it wasn't too hot. Hawaii has 12 of the 14 climate zones, and I think we rode through most of them. The views were fantastic. We stopped in Kula and grabbed some muffins for breakfast, and Dad stole some leaves off an avocado tree. I'm pretty sure Mom wanted to steal the whole tree. :) I still have the leaves, Matthew, if you want to use them for your biology project.
We made it back to Haiku sometime around 10 or 11, got some lunch in Kahului, and then went over to the West side of the island to Ka'anapali, where they were staying. It was nap time for all of us!! By the way, be sure to ask them how to pronounce all of these Hawaiian. Dad especially had a real knack for it. ;)
After we logged some sleep time, we went out to the beach to swim and relax. Dad attempted to float in the salt water; sadly it was no more effective than pool water. Guess he's just a sinker! :) We got some food at the little grill shack at the hotel, and we watched their nightly hula show for a bit. Then we went back out to the beach to watch the sunset! It's kinda cool that we got to see sunrise and sunset in the same day.
There they are! 25 years strong!
Thursday morning we came to Makawao, where I've been living, and went to the Piiholo ranch for a zip line adventure! If anyone reading this is ever planning on coming to Maui, DO THIS ZIP LINE! It was so much fun!! The views were breathtaking, the crew was fantastic, and the lines were so exciting!
These are some little pools that we went over as we were zipping across the gulch. I don't know exactly how high we were, but it was way up there.
Here is dad going across the last line! That little hut on the left is where we got off the line before, and then we had to drive up to the top of the hill for this last one.
Dad going across line two! We were the only group of three in our tour, so one of us had to ride across with the sender each time. It worked out pretty well, because he was the one taking pictures, so we ended up with a lot of pictures of us!
This is right before Mom and I went down the first big line. Line one is sort of a practice line; you just go across a big yard. Line two is when the real fun starts! That is when you first cross the gulch.
Here they are at the highest point of our zip line tour. Behind them is Haleakala, the volcano where we watched the sunrise. The views from here were unbelievable.
There will be a lot more of these zip line pictures on Facebook when I get back to my computer, but this is all I have for the moment. Also, look for a video of me getting stuck out in the middle of the zip line! On line three, I came in to the landing platform really fast, and my harness slipped out of the catcher's hands. So I rolled backwards and ended up hanging way out in the middle, right over the huge deep scary gulch. The best part was that I had been recording as Dad and I went across, so my camera was still on the video when I was rolling out there! After I shut off the video, I got some great pictures! I think I made it into a few other people's videos as they were going across the other lines and saw me hanging there. I just waved as they went by. :) The rescue mission mission started with Dad. They were talking about how to get me and he asked if they would send him out to try first. I think they were a little surprised that he asked, but they let him, so he was kind of excited. They tied a rope onto him and gave another rope to swing to me. They gave him a push, but unfortunately the rope didn't let him come out far enough, so they pulled him back in and one of the catchers hooked himself on to my line and came out to get me. The catchers have different harnesses then the riders, so they can reach up to the cable and pull themselves along. My harness was lower, so I couldn't do that. The whole time that this was happening, Mom was behind me at the start of the line waiting to go down with the sender, and apparently she was the one that everyone was worried about! I finally made it to the platform, and the other families with us immediately asked "Is your mom okay??" I suppose it's really a good thing that no one was concerned about my safety. We all knew it was no big deal. I wasn't going anywhere. My mom asked the sender while they were waiting if stuff like that happens often. According to him, it's pretty rare. I guess I'm just special. :) To be fair to the catcher though, it might have been a little bit of my fault. I wasn't really watching the landing because I was recording, so I forgot to do the "starfish" (spread your limbs out to create air resistance) to slow myself down until right at the end. Oh well! I ended up with a pretty good story about it. :) It was an awesome time. I definitely recommend it to anyone, even if you're afraid of heights! Mom is, and she loved it too!
After we were done on the zip lines, we went to Baldwin Beach Park. We didn't swim, we just walked around and Mom took some pictures. Then we went to Sandy's house for some delicious short ribs grilled by Cole. We hung out and chatted for a few hours, and Mom and Dad got to see where I've been living all summer. After dinner the rents went back to their hotel, and I went to bed. We had an early Friday morning coming up!
That is all for part one; part two will be posted shortly!
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