ROAD TO HANA

I am so glad I went.  But what a long long day.  We were up and out the door by 8 am.  I woke up around three in the morning and could NOT go back to sleep.  Neither could Spod but unlike him I did not get up and make many forays out to the fridge to rummage around, make coffee, make stinky snacks and wake the household.  I have been sleeping on the lazy boy still, out in the living room.  But with Cookie coming today, I shall be back in the bedroom (I am pushing the chair in their) and he is simply going to have to stay in bed and be quiet.  No tv left on all night.  No bedside lamp left on all night.  Maybe he will actually sleep better and all night long!

I made our lunches, filled a cooler with the ice from the fridge and drinks (and now the ice machine is broken and won't make ice) and off we went.

The trip is truly beautiful, but very very tedious.  I don't remember how many hairpin turns there are or single lane bridges, but the average posted speed limit is 15 mph (about 30 K).  The entire trip is over 100 miles, fortunately the last half is much less windy road and we can go a lot faster. 

  I have gone to  Hana many many times and I am always astounded by the beauty we go through.  Spod drove.  And here's the thing.  He is not a good driver…anywhere else.  But the Hana road was made for him.  He can drive at exactly the slow speed that suits him the most, and he is very very experienced driving that road.  So he drove and he was awesome!

We made some stops here and there, at all the familiar places.  But our main goal was to get to the seven sacred pools on the other side of Hana so the kids could jump off waterfalls and swim the pools.  And…guess what?  We got there and the waterfalls and pools were closed due to the recent torrential rains stirring up dangerous, bug infested, you will sue us if you get sick, mud.  Sooooo disappointing.  But they still hiked up to the very top.  Up there is a very dense claustrophobic bamboo forest with a boardwalk through it.  

The place was packed with cars.  We parked in the secondary beautiful grassy parking lot.  Off they went.  Spod and I instantly fell asleep, and slept for 1 1/2 hours!  After three very relaxing hours they came back, tired and sore and happy and HUNGRY!  We were a really long way from food!

It took almost two hours to get back to civilization and seated in Zippy's and actually biting into delicious food.  We were all so hungry and the food so good.  And cheap.  Here in Maui the average dinner works out to thirty to forty dollars per person, not including booze.  We all had big dinners and iced teas and a second order of mac salad and second order of fries…for 65 bucks!  Can't beat that.  You just have to know you will be sitting amongst Filipino families with many many children…some of them not too happy to be out at 9:30 at night.  I am not sure what is up with that.

Now its today and Spod and I are headed into town.  We need to get some stuff and I am going to do the driving.  I want to make sure we get back today!  TTYL

 CRUMMY LOADS OF OLD PEEPS FROM THE CRUISE SHIPS DO THIS ROUTE AND AS WE ALL HAVE EXPERIENCED OR KNOW, THEY CAN'T GO MORE THAN AN HOUR WITHOUT A HAPPY ROOM STOP…SO NOW WE HAVE A WHOLE LOAD OF AWESOME BATHROOMS ALONG THE WAY…WE ARE STOPPED AT ONE RIGHT HERE

MY FAVE ROCK IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD

I WANNA LIVE HERE

FENTON AND I CALL THESE TREE TUNNELS

YOUR AVERAGE SCENERY (MINUS THE HOUSE) ALONG THE ROAD TO HANA

SILLY SPOD…I HAD TO RUN OVER AND HANG ON TO HIS PANTS SO HE WOULDN'T GO OVER

JUST SOME PRETTY LOCALS