**Wowie Maui** Out & About

Just to put any fears to rest, we did spend lots of time at the beach. Lots. And it was fabulous. But you can only beach it so much. Most afternoons when the sun was at it's fiercest, we would be out and about, adventuring and exploring. Going to places like...

The Maui Ocean Center. A very cool, interactive aquarium featuring creatures and species that inhabit the ocean waters there.

The shark and manta ray exhibit was our favourite part. We spent quite a bit of time there.

The Alexander Baldwin Sugar Museum. Lots of sugar cane is grown and harvested on Maui. We checked out a little museum that provided the background and history on how sugar cane was harvested years ago. (Right now I'm reading a novel called "Honolulu" and it's about the life of a picture bride from Korea who arrived in Hawaii about 100 years ago and worked on a sugar plantation. It's so interesting because alot of what we learned at the museum is included in the novel.)  Below is the big grabber (still used today) that lifts the sugar cane out of the fields and loads it onto trucks...

...trucks that look like this:

Keith and Max posing with some sugar cane. In the background, a sugar factory is busily doing what it does...

We drove past many many fields of sugar cane on our travels around the island...

The Banyan Tree in Lahaina. A well-known landmark. See this picture below? Looks like a park with lots of trees, right? Not exactly. It is a park but with only 1 tree. Yes, that is ONE Banyan tree...

Apparently, it grows and grows and the branches hit the ground. And they start growing like another tree. So even though you see all these "trees" they are actually the branches/roots of the main tree. Max had an absolute blast climbing them. That's the best part. They are not roped off. Kids are allowed to run and explore and climb. It's pretty cool.

Haleakala National Park. On our anniversary, we drove up to see the Haleakala Crater. 10,000 ft above sea level. The temperature change can be more than 30 degrees colder at the top from the ocean where you start off. Here we are at the bottom....approaching the park. The top of the crater is hidden behind the cloud.

Love the blooming Jacaranda trees along the way. So pretty!

Stopped for some pictures once we were above the clouds. Yup...check out the clouds...they are below us.

The stunning view of the crater at the top. It looks like a painting, doesn't it? You can hike into the crater. There are trails. I think you can even camp if you prepare and plan for it. The day we went up, it was very clear. No fog. However, we also had extreme winds. The gusts were clocked at 95 miles per hour. The summit was closed. We were able to visit the interpretative centre and see the crater from there. But that was as far as we could go. It was as far as we wanted to go. The wind almost blew us away up there. There were clouds of gravel/sand/grit blowing around and sandblasting us. Craziness!

Max made friends with one of the guides that was working in the centre. He asked a million questions and she answered. He's pretty inquisitive....just like someone else I know. And it's not me.

It looks so calm and peaceful in this picture below. But it wasn't. Those two were almost blowing away when I quickly snapped this picture.

Check out the parking lot up there....above the clouds.

Beginning our descent. Doesn't it look like we could drop right off the edge?

So it was our anniversary. We stopped and had Max snap a photo of us part way down. The picture we're holding was taken on our honeymoon up at the top of the crater. It obviously wasn't nearly as windy the last time we were there.

A beautiful view from the top...

Haleakala Silversword...

Towards the bottom, we stopped at this little roadside flower stand.

Happy Anniversary flowers from my honey. Aren't they beautiful? Fresh eucalyptus, bird of paradise, ti leaf and some other sponge ball things. It was awesome! And lasted fabulously in our hotel room for the remainder of our vacation. I would have loved to bring them home with us, but didn't want to go through any headaches at customs.

Dinner that night at the Hard Rock Cafe in Lahaina. :-)