Hawaii Trip 2014 - Maui Day 1 & 2

August 29, 2014 (Friday)

View from the room

Maui bound! We had an early morning flight to Maui, with a layover in Phoenix. As normal, the car rental line was thirty plus minutes long. The airport (OGG) was about 45 minutes from where we were staying in Lahaina. The place we stayed, Aston Kaanapali Shores, was really nice and we even had an ocean view.

After settling in, we headed across the street for something to eat. We decided to try L&L Hawaiian Barbecue. I had the Kalua Pork (shredded smoke flavored pork with cabbage) and absolutely loved it! Mike had the Chicken Katsu (breaded deep-fried chicken) and thought it was pretty excellent also. Portions were very large so there was leftovers for the next day.

Sunrise over Haleakala National Park

August 30, 2014 (Saturday)

The time change, 6 hours, was a bit hard to adjust to. We were up at 3:30am, which worked out well since we had a bit of a drive to get to Haleakala National Park. We just missed the 6:00 sunrise, which I guess we did not miss much anyways – apparently it is very difficult to get photos due to clouds. The sunrise colors on the drive up the summit were very pretty.

Cinder Cones at Kalahaku Overlook -
Haleakala National Park

We checked out the short walk to the Lelewi Overlook (supposedly great for sunsets). We then continued to the visitor center, where there were a few displays. There were a few trailheads around the visitor center. We hiked the White Sands trail and then drove up to the summit (elevation 10,023 feet). Returning down, we stopped at the Kalahaku Overlook, where we were welcomed by great views of cinder cones and an awesome cloud display. We also visited the Hosmer Grove nature trail – not that great of a hike, but it did smell nice.  Our last stop was the Halemau’u Trail to get a view of the rim. We left the park at about 10am. There were some other trails that looked interesting, but I was not too excited to walk around in the blaring sunshine to do the longer hikes.

'Iao Valley State Park

After picking up sandwiches at Safeway, we headed to ‘Iao Valley State Park. It was $5 to get in and parking was tough to get (the lot was way too small). The cost and wait for parking was definitely worth it. There were lots of beautiful flowers and waterfalls. We spent about an hour at the park – mostly because we hiked on part twice because it smelled so great (thanks to the smashed passion fruit).