June 8

Our flight was early but short—it is an open air airport.  We got through security quickly and then walked through What I would call a breezeway? Literally a roofed hallway where we walked in the air was blowing through. Quite interesting! The airplane was on the tarmac, so we had to walk through the building and then across the parking lot or tarmac and then up the little stairs to get into the airplane. The flight itself was about 20 minutes, that was it.

The Airbnb that we booked for these next few nights was not available when we got there so we decided to take the car and drive around the island. The most famous drive, of course, is the Road to Hana. It is a road that has hairpin turns, narrow roads that require “yielding” quite often, beautiful waterfalls, and other luxurious floral and fauna! Our first stop was twin falls, which were several waterfalls dropping into large pools of water of which many, many people take it vantage of and jump in and swim. We did not. There was a sign that said we could go on a more strenuous hike, that included lots of mud! We opted not to do that. :)

The landscape was just outstanding. They have so many lava rocks everywhere, so what do they do? They use them to build walls that line the road.  This area is part of the Mac a while forest reserve. Beautiful! Lots of philodendron hanging just everywhere with leaves that are really big. We saw a sign that said Smoke Shack and so we pulled over to the side of the road, and had a grilled chicken and grilled pork served in a banana leaf with homemade chopsticks along with an onion tomato salad and rice and fresh pineapple. It was outstanding.

Part of this road borders the ocean, while the other side where is the cliffs and hills. Did I mention the roads are very narrow and winding? Some people were not as good about sharing the road, and sort of got angry when they popped QUICKLY around the turn and expected us to back up or make room for their large vehicle.

One thing interesting, and we noticed it in Honolulu yesterday also, where chickens run free. Yes, chickens. Just randomly walking around everywhere. There’s also a rodent that looks like a squirrel lizard combination. Yes, just picture that. It’s a squirrel, but it walks on all for like a lizard.

The Road to Hana is actually about 64 miles, if you do the entire thing. Most people go only to the town of Hana. The road beyond Hana tends to get even more narrow, and the roads are less kept up. We were enticed by more food trucks? Some of them may not count as a food truck, it’s more of a shack. But we got a Hawaiian coffee espresso milkshake and a coconut pineapple mini loaf. Outstanding. There is also a shack grilling chicken and other meats in this automatic turning device that was pretty interesting.

We stopped in Hana to grab a drink. Then decided to go further down the road to pay our respects to Charles Lindbergh. Yes, Charles Lindbergh, the famous aviator. Apparently he loved to Maui so much that he had a retreat home there, and when he found he was dying, he wanted to be buried there. The cemetery is unique in that all the plots are covered with lava rock.

We then turned around, and headed back the way we came, again, encountering large vehicles that take up a lot of space on narrow and winding roads. We also saw the drive from the other way I guess you could say. Beautiful.

We made an impromptu stop to explore a “cave.“ It was actually a lava tube. A lava tube is when the lava sort of creates a way out of the earth so it literally is a tube under the ground. Interesting. The most interesting part was this was a self-guided tour. Yes, you read that correctly. They gave us a flashlight.

As we finished the road to Hana, we stopped at Ho’okipa Beach to see turtles! AND there were turtles, on the sand. The wildlife fund that watches over them, and protects them, had cordoned off the area. They were probably 20 to 25 large, 500 pound turtles just vegging on the sand. It was amazing!  What a great day As we got to watch the sunset while watching turtles.

We stopped at a Safeway grocery store, as this was later than we had planned and we wanted something light to eat for supper. We found our Airbnb apartment easily and it is a really nice apartment. Literally 20 steps out the front door and around the office building is a pool. Through the apartment parking lot across the street there is the beach and the Pacific ocean. Great location.  

We have an early day tomorrow, as it starts at 3:30 AM.