Maui 2011 (Part 4)

The traditional way to see Haleakala National Park is at sunrise. To get up to the summit, you have to start driving at 4:00 or even 3:00 am, depending where you are on the island. Not so difficult if you have jetlag, but we didn't do this. We'd heard stories that even if you get up before dawn to see, um dawn, the weather might be crappy and you won't see dawn (3 times in one sentence? EEK!)

We left in the morning and arrived late morning. We missed the throngs of tourists and busloads of visitors and tootled around by ourselves. I may be biased but I don't think we missed a thing. Check out this snap:


I took this picture from the summit looking down at the visitor's center. You can see that you're actually above the cloud line. Fascinating to me.


I'd heard about oxygen deprivation at high altitudes but never experienced it until now. I felt pretty weird in my head, almost like a headache but more fuzzy, and it went away upon our descent. Yep, we were high up there and it was, literally, breath-taking!


An indigenous plant (Silversword, according to my guide book) and I thought it framed the shot beautifully.


I also became obsessed with the Nene bird, Hawaii's state bird. We weren't there during their nesting season so we didn't need to heed this sign's warnings. But we did manage to see a few in person. Cute little buggers. Ha, Puunene was my favorite street too!


After an exhausting excursion at the park, we stopped at Kula Lodge for lunch. It was recommended by both a friend back home and a park ranger. There was a lovely market next door where we picked up terrific local items. And during our lunch, we were treated to this view. A great place is an understatement.