This afternoon Gary got 2 of the 4 cards he’s filled up downloaded.  Hasn’t looked at them of course.  2 more cards in the case plus 1 in camera.  This could be a big task!  Joyce logged some caches and worked on the dinner plan.

We decided to check out a couple of sites for sunset photos, but decided neither was acceptable.  Then off to the Safeway for a few things and finally to the Library to check on internet access and printer availability for getting our boarding passes.  The library wants $10 for a temporary library card just to use the internet. No thanks!  We’ll do something else.

Back at the condo we opened the bottle of champagne to celebrate our early morning rise and drive to the summit.  Piper Sonoma Brut.  One of our favorites.  Joyce fixed dinner (chicken, green beans) and we enjoyed a nice dinner on the lanai so we could walk down to the beach and photograph sunset if it actually occurs and you can have good color and clouds.  We’ll see!

It’s very windy this evening.  Has been most of the day.  Some from TS Guillermo, but mostly the usual Trade Winds that blow here.

Another nice day in paradise…..

We planned ahead on Friday for the trip to the Haleakala summit for sunrise.  Stopped at a Shell to fill up the car to make sure we had adequate fuel for the ride to the top and back .  While there we got two large cups of hot water and tea bags so we’d have portable cups for the ride up early in the morning.  The we stopped at a Starbucks to get 1 cup of coffee and several paper rings to go around the hot cups. The tea water was really, really hot!

Back at the condo we drank the tea for an evening treat.  Knowing that the temperature could be as low as 47 F and winds 15 to 25 mph, we assembled our wardrobe for the morning adventure.  Long pants, 3 shirt layers, , warm socks, rain jackets and hats.  Also organized the photographic equipment so there would be less fumbling in the dark at the summit.  Made coffee for the morning.  Showered and to bed pretty early–about 9:30 PM.  Set the alarm for 3 AM.  Ugh!  A short night in store.  We plan to leave no later than 3:30 AM.

3:00 AM the alarm sounds.  It’s up and get dressed, make the coffee, load up the car.  We’re on our way about 3:15 AM.  Earlier departure means there is a higher probability of being able to park at the summit.

Not too much traffic to start out.  Only 1 car ahead of us until we turn off on the Haleakala Crater Road.  Then we caught up to about 5 in front and soon there were 5 behind us making the winding drive up the mountain.  So, we arrived got close to the NPS gate where  people have to pay.  There must have been 20+ cars in front of us and we were pretty much at a dead stop.  A traffic jam at about 4:30 in the morning!

When we got to the booth we showed them Joyce’s Senior Pass so we didn’t have to pay the $15 entrance fee.  Nice!  The attendant was also named Joyce and remarked on it.  A quick stop 1 mile up the road for a potty break and then continued on up the road to the top.

We were lucky!  The road to the summit parking was not closed and we drove up in hopes of actually finding a parking spot.  All the lined spots were taken so we just pulled along the curb and shut off the motor.  Now, it’s 5:30-ish and sunrise is at 5:55 AM.  We first climbed to the overlook building, but there were just too many people to get a good spot.  Since we had been there on Monday evening, we knew that the short path on the opposite side of the parking lot was a good spot.  Fortunately, there were only 2 or 3 other folks there.  Gary had a good spot to set up his tripod and get set for the sunrise.

Sure enough, the sun came up on time!  Got some photos and then turned around to capture a few images of the volcano’s shadow on the opposite side.  Finished up on the summit around 6:45 and drove down to the visitor center about 0.1 mile down the road.  Here we had some additional photo opportunities of the crater which we hadn’t seen in the dark nor on Monday when it was really cloudy.

We started down the volcano about 7:15 AM, but stopped to do two geocaches on the way down.  Trying to keep up our 3/day schedule so we can get to 2400 caches while here in Hawaii.  We are certain to make it now!

Had to make a stop at Target to get a card reader so Gary could download some photos from the camera cards he’s been filling up.  Maybe there’ll be some photos here some day!

Back to the condo around 10:30 AM and ready for a rest.  Gary napped in front of the TV for a while and Joyce logged our caches from the past couple of days.  The TV was on FOX (ugh!) where some of the Republican debate was showing.  Finally got tired of that and had a nice lunch on the lanai.

Oh, what a beautiful mornin’
Everything’s goin’ my way
etc……..

We completed our errands and made a quick lunch.  Then we headed south to the End of the Road.  Our objective was to secure a virtual cache that required getting information on a monument at that location.  Got a few pictures from the lava fields.  On the way we visited another Congregational church to get a nearby real cache.

We completed the drive to the End of the Road.  On the return trip we stopped at Makeno Beach State Park for another real cache. This one required a short climb up aa lava hill to get to the top of a hill separating the Big Beach from the Little Beach.  Nice views from this elevation.  Got a few photos of the beach, waves and clouds.

We stopped by the Kihei Canoe Club to check out the area for photography.  Decided it wasn’t very good.

Then on to the condo for spaghetti and fresh pineapple for dinner with a good red wine. We were hoping for another sunset, but it’s too cloudy.  No sunset photos tonight!

We still need to gas up the rental car for the trip to Haleakalā for sunrise tomorrow.  I think we need to get up around 3 AM and leave no later than 3:30 AM to get to the summit before sunrise.  To bed early tonight!

Lazy this morning.  Late getting up and going.  Forgot to make coffee last night, so Joyce made the coffee this morning which we enjoyed while reading in bed.  Breakfast of cereal.  Joyce did laundry while Gary updated our blog from yesterday. Had the Today show on while getting the day off to a slow start.

So where are the photos you ask.  Still in the camera!  Need to get a card reader in order to download them to computer.  A trip to either Target or Walmart today.  Also, Gary wants to go to the Birkenstock store nearby to see about getting some water shoes (Keens maybe).

The plan for today is to go to the South of Maui.  Maybe take a hike……

Yep, it’s Friday morning.  Got back too late and too tired to post last night!

Since the weather was uncertain due to the tropical storm Guillermo, we decided on the Road to Hana instead of sunrise on the summit of Haleakala.  After a quick breakfast and loading of the car with the days water, lunch and camera equipment, we departed around 8 AM.  Our plan was to make only a few stops before the half way point thinking that we’d get the places we passed by on another day and avoid taking the entire trip again.

It was sunny when we left and we remarked that maybe we shoulda done Haleakala.  Of course, there were dark clouds and we had pretty hard rain just a few miles down (up?) the road.

We passed through Paia and by  Ho’okipa Beach Park (where we’d photographed surfers and sea turtles earlier in the week.  Then got on the Hana Highway where we passed the entrance to Twin Falls.  The sun was still partly out, but it was clouding up more.  We weren’t able to see much of the scenery because of the low hanging clouds.

Kaumahina State Wayside was our first stop.   By this time it was pouring down rain.  We got our raincoats and hats on to walk up to the overlook.  Just enough time to snap a couple of photos of the waves crashing onto the rocks.  Then back to the car to dry off and get on down the road!

We found cache #1 for the day in a guardrail along Hana Highway.  It was just before the Y camp.  Still raining, but not so hard.

By time we arrived near Keanae the rain had stopped and the sun was out again.  We stopped at a few waterfalls too.  The rest of the trip to Hana was pretty good weather.  We stopped around noon at the Pua’a Ka’a State Wayside Park.  Took a couple of photos of the two small waterfalls here.    One of them we had to cross a creek to get into position to take the photo.  Glad Joyce had packed the hiking pole and let me use it to cross!  Weren’t ready for lunch, so we put our camera gear away and kept on driving.

We were in Hana about 1 PM (6 hours on the winding road).  We tried to find a geocache down by the Hana Beach Park (black sand), but were unsuccessful.  Gary took some photos of the high waves crashing against the rocks.

Back in the car to head another 10 miles past Hana to get to the cache near the Palapala Hoomau Congregational Church where Charles Lindbergh is buried.

Around 2 PM we made a decision to stop at the otherHaleakala visitor center.  Planned to take a hike to see the waterfalls.  We started up the trail that had a stop in 0.5 mile to see the Makahiku and 2 miles to Waimoku.  After the climb to Mahaiku, Gary was too hot and tired to go any further.  Nothing to see and photograph at this first falls.  On to the cache!

Success on the cache #2 for the day.  This section of the Hana Highway is more narrow and less well marked.  Fortunately, there were not as many travelers on the road.  We met a couple visiting from Florida who came to see the Lindbergh site because he was a pilot.  And a young woman and her baby who seemed to manage access to the church.  Took a few photographs of the waves.

We started our return trip about 3 PM.  We had seen a big waterfall that we had seen on the way up to photograph it. Name unknown.  Probably Honolewa.   Gary got out his tripod and variable neutral density filter to takes some photos.  Hopefully they will turn out great!

Back in the car to continue our return.  We had identified a cache on the way up that was down the Nahiku Road.  There was a sign at the top indicating the road was closed 2.25 miles because a bridge was out.  We decided to see if we could find the cache anyway.  Sure enough the bridge was out and the cache was still 0.2 miles away, but there was a nice parking area (school bus turnaround}.  We parked and walked across the bridge.  Greeted by the locals as we walked by who said it was a 10 minute walk to the beach.

Crossing the bridge on foot, we made our way to the cache.  Joyce looked for it while Gary went on down to the cliffs to photograph the big waves crashing and the clouds.  Very scenic!  Back to the car and up the road to the Hana Highway to finish our return to Kihei.

Arrived home about 8:30 and made a quick dinner of Spam with cheese and toast.  Finished with popcorn. Watched a little TV news about the Republican debate.  Showers to wash off the days dirt and to bed about 9:30.  Tomorrow is laundry day!

We had a Hawaiian dinner of Spam with tomatos over rice, pineapple & mango and bread served with pinot grigio.

Then it was a quick walk to the nearby beach for sunset. On return we watched the Maui visitor channel on tv for some ideas. Watched a little msnbc to catch up on politics.  Had  popcorn.  Made plans for tomorrow.  We think we’ll be doing the road to Hana tomorrow.

We got a late start on today’s activities.  After coffee and breakfast of cereal and fruit, we packed up folding lawn chairs, beach towels, photography equipment and lunch to head out for the day.

Our first stop was the Lahaina Pali trail and Old Honoapi’ilani Highway to get a geocache (about 8:30 AM).  It was on the Old Highway after a short climb up the trail.  We made a mistake and took the Lahaina Pali Trail up for some distance before realizing that we’d made a wrong turn.  So, we kept on for a bit more to get to the higher views of the trail, ocean and new road.  While stopped to photograph Joyce on the trail, another hiker came along and offered to take a picture of both of us.  Then we continued back down to the junction with the Old Highway and turned left to get to the cache in about 0.2 miles before continuing to the car parked below.

Next up (about 11 AM) was a stop at one of the many parks next to the beach for surfing and beach access.  Joyce finally got Gary into the water!  We photographed some surfers and clouds.  After about a half hour of being in the sun, we packed up our chairs, loaded up the car and headed for Lahaina.

In Lahaina we participated in an Event Cache  (12N to 1:30 PM)which gets us another souvenir o(Meet Your Road Trip Friends)  geocaching.com.  Met some nice folks from Austria, New Hampshire and California.  Ate pizza and drank some beer.

The event was followed by getting a couple of more geocaches in Lahaina at the Banyan Tree Square and the Wo Hing Chinese Museumk and the Lahaina Public Library.  Checked out the location of the Old Lahaina Luau that we plan on going to next Monday night.

On the way back to Kihei we stopped at the Lighthaus Camera shop to see about getting a charger for Joyce’s camera–Gary seemed to have missed it in the packing.  They might have one next week…..

Another nice island day!

Since we’re waiting on tropical storm Guillermo to decide where it’s going, we have decided to put off until Friday the “Road to Hana” drive or seeing the sunrise at Haleakala.  So today we did some other things.  After bagels, peaches and pears (coffee too) we headed up to a Hawaii state park (Iao Valley State Park) to see the Iao Needle.  This is a geologic feature that the early Hawaiians considered important.  Got a few pictures of clouds and mountains.  A couple of geocaches, too.  Got a lot of “stairs” on our fitbits what with all the climbing up to the view points.  Got geocache..

After finishing the Iao Needle we drove down the mountain a short way and visited a Kepaniwai Park Heritage Garden.   Saw some monuments for the various immigrants that had influence in Hawaii over the centuries.  Got a geocache.

Then on to get a geocache at a Hawaiian sacred site overlooking the harbor of Kahului.  Got the virtual cache and some so so photos of the clouds and the mountains.  We then decided to go on over to the town of Paia which is famous for surfing.  We found the park Ho’okipi, parked and ate the lunch Joyce packed.  Bought a couple of sodas and chips to go with the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Tasty!

We got out our long lenses and photographed a few surfers from up above.  But some nice folks pointed out the sea turtles that were on the beach below.  We took a few photos from high up and then decided to walk down closer to see if we could get some better ones.

Along the way we got another geocache near the guardrail between the upper and lower parking areas.  Then on to photograph the sea turtles.  What a treat to see these large turtles close up!

Joyce wanted to photograph a building in the town of Paia that had its gps coordinates painted on the building.  She missed them on the first pass, so we turned around and went back to get another chance.  Success!  Of course, by this time the traffic was getting jammed up on the two lane roads that intersected at  the one traffic light in town, but we made it back out in just a few minutes.

Tried to find another geocache on the way out of town, but had no success.

Returned to our condo about 4-ish after touring the local shopping centers by car to see what choices we had for restaurants and other stores.  Put our devices on charge as they were very low on battery.  Then spent about an hour logging the geocache finds today and updating the family blog.

We plan on spaghetti for dinner and hopefully a beautiful sunset to photograph.

Sunday Aug 2, Monday Aug 3 and Tuesday Aug 4

Well, Sunday we visited with Aunt Janet in the morning.  Rhonda came over too–coffee and computer technical support.  Gary fixed up her access on a new hp notebook that has a detachable screen.  Got her on Aunt Janet’s wifi and also got her Office 360 activated.  We had a nice visit.

Then we packed a little lunch and walked on the beach walk along the ocean.  Through the fancy hotels.   Found a couple of geocaches and ate lunch at a covered trolley stop where it was shady.  The sun is ever present here on Maui.  Warm too!  We walked about 2 miles and got a lot of our steps for the day.  Upon return, Gary took a short nap while Joyce went to the nearby park and spent time in the ocean.

When Joyce got back we had finally persuaded Aunt Janet to try getting on facebook.  So, we helped her set up an account and make the privacy very restricted.  Then got her children and Joyce on as friends.  It took a while for Joyce’s first post to be seen, but then Aunt Janet had a call from Kurt when he got her invitation.  So we showed her around some more on facebook.

Sunday evening we went to the Ka’anapali Beach Hotel to watch Rhonda’s daughter Courtney (and Aunt Janet’s granddaughter) hula dance with two others and a live Hawaiian band.  Had some pupu (appetizers….!) and a pizza along with the local beer Bikini Blonde.  Mom was disappointed in the beer and said she hoped if we got something else it was a bit more robust!

Bedtime came early again.  Then it was Monday morning!

We took a walk on Monday morning to the nearby park to show Aunt Janet what this geocaching thing was about. We had scouted out the one in the park and knew we could find it.  Although Aunt Janet has no intention of geocaching, she had her curiosity satisfied.

On the way back we stopped at the Farmers Market to get a pineapple..  The guys doing the selling were very good at working the crowd and we also got some coconut macaroons for our travels on down to Kihei (key-hay) where we will spend 10 more days as we explore Maui.

Gary spent a while updating Aunt Janet’s old Vista computer to make it work some better.  Did Windows updates and set up her Google Chrome browser to make it easy for her to get email and facebook access.  Also put on a shortcut to my photography web site so she can easily find the family pictures.

We left about noon for the drive to Kihei stopping along the way to get a couple of geocaches and see what passes for a lighthouse on Maui.  Got to our condo rental a little early and so we checked out the nearby shopping center.  Had lunch about 2:30 PM. BLT for Gary and tuna salad for Joyce.  Walked back to the condo and unloaded the car and get settled in.

We had decided on the way down to go to Haleakala to see sunset from the volcano. The drive up was nice and winding.  It’s about 45 miles from where we’re staying and took about 90 minutes.  Had plenty of time to check things out, get a couple of caches on the way up , eat our dinner and see some clouds and a sunset.  The drive back down was in the dark with only a couple of other cars seen.  They wanted to go faster, so we let them pass by pulling of into a view area..

It was late when we finally called it a day–almost midnight after watching the weather and the Tonight show.

More on Tuesday later.