Skip to content

Maui – Oct 09

2009 November 1
by Isaac Peloquin

Yeah, so I have been keeping all of my boarding passes from my traveling since April, and I have gone 61 segments. (A segment would be Fargo to Minneapolis or Memphis to Lexington) The shortest one being Duluth to Minneapolis and the longest continuous from Amsterdam to Minneapolis.  Lots of airplanes.

My latest trip brought me to the island of Maui in Hawaii.  The connections weren’t the greatest so it took me 21 hours to get there not including the time changes.  I got to spend some quality time in the Los Angeles airport.  Let me tell you the Minneapolis is a good airport to get stuck in, LAX, not so much.  I arrived in Maui at 8 PM local, walked off the plane, a took a breath of nice warm air.  I had an idea of how nice it was going to be, but it far exceeded my expectations. Preston, Liz and Aaron picked me up at the airport, then we went to the Alehouse then to bed.  I was exhausted by that point.

I knew that I only had 72 hours in Maui, and there was a lot to see.

The first morning I was there we woke up about 4:00 am and drove out way up to Haleakala to watch the sun rise from above the clouds.  I went to Hawaii thinking that I wouldn’t need a jacket, but it was about 45 degrees and windy up there.  When the sun peeked over the clouds it was instantly warm and wonderful.  That was the first time I had ever experienced a sun rise from above the clouds. After that, we drove back to the hotel to finish our night of sleep.  We then headed to the beach for a day in the sun and the ocean.  We put our swimsuits on to go cliff jumping, snorkeling, and swimming.  Wonderful.  To finish the night we drove up the hill and watched the sunset into the ocean near Lahina.

Day two started with a long twisting and turning road along the south rim of Maui to our campground near Hana.  We made several stop along the way to photograph and enjoy the surroundings (and to rest our gut from the roller coaster ride).  There were several changes in ecosystems as we rolled around the island.  It started with green grasslands, changed to a wasteland where nothing grew, then changed to more of a tropical landscape.  We set camp, then set off on the Seven Sacred Pools hike.  The hike is beside a channel where the rain flows down to the ocean.  There were many guava trees with fresh ripe fruit to eat.  It is so good fresh!  Check out the photos, they can describe it better than I can in writing.   We then drove to Hana for food and drinks.  The night ended in the tent listening to the rain fall and the ocean roar.  Wonderful.

Most of the third and final day were spent driving.  We packed up camp and made our way back from camp to Kahului.  As with the rest of the trip, there were plenty of places to stop along the way to explore the forests.  There was one place that we stopped that had a waterfall that we could hear (and we knew that it was a good one), so we spent a good hour and a half hiking up the river to find the waterfall.  Unfortunately we ran out of time and had to head back to the car so we could make our flights.  Running through the woods in a swimsuit and sandals with the rain falling and still being warm and content is great.  That night I hopped on a plane to make my way back to Fargo.  Lets just say that I would go back again in a heartbeat!  I didn’t take all the photos below, but hey, this was my vacation!  Enjoy.

No comments yet

Leave a Reply

Note: You can use basic XHTML in your comments. Your email address will never be published.

Subscribe to this comment feed via RSS