Day 4
Today is the road to Hana. For those who aren't up on Hana, its way off on the East Side of Maui and is accessible only by one long and winding road (that leads.....) (and Sheri always points out regularly that Ringo lives here which I bring up because of the road that leads to your.....) and I mean one looooooonnnnnnggggg and winding road. It is about 54 miles to Hana from civilization. The roads are up and down and all around. It is like the Rockies driving along cliffs except their is rain forest all around and their about 20+ one lane bridges along the way. Its a 3 hour drive as the speeds are 10-15 miles per hour in most places. Sheri has her Hawaii books out and has atleast 10 stops picked out along the way for us to visit.
Each stop talks of wonderful secluded waterfalls and the like. I laughed. Yeah, fat chance, I don't buy it but since I am the navigator, I have the list, the books and the mile markers to watch for. At first, we stop at a little place called Picnics in Paia where the guide books say you should pick up your picnic lunch to eat at one of these waterfalls along the way. Remember, I'm skeptical but we are on our way and the first stop at Picnics does pan out and we get sandwiches which we put in the styrofoam cooler Sher bought just for this occasion late last night (just before the McD's sundae with no topping ritual cause as usual we get locked out of the HDaaz store nightly).
Now for some pictures of what was truly a beautiful drive.
Oh and there was one mixup worth telling about. Kevin who is notorious for not wishing to go on vacation is always crabby in the begining which makes for lots of marital strife early in each vacation. Once he gets there he relaxes and loves it. In this little vacation, Kevin had a couple days off before leaving to prepare and was ready willing and extremely able to head off for this one. No grunts, groans or anything, even through the AA debacle. Came real close but didn't blow, not even once 8-). Well here is where we came close. Sher has this list of mile markers and page numbers in the travel books. I'm supposed to call out the mile markers and read out of the book so we can go do and see these things. So we get to the first mile marker I have on this list (and I even gave her the paper to write this list, what was I thinking) and there isn't much there. So we head for the next mile marker, this one there is a road at the mile marker but none of the stuff described in the travel book. Sheri pulls off down the road, we find nothing. Hmmmm....this is not going well. So we chalk up this one too and head for the next. When this one doesn't pan out its all Kevin's fault for not reading the stuff in the book fast enough so she can find it. OK now we are headed for the first vacation battle, I'm ready to pitch the travel books out the window (Hidden Hawaii my *&^, its non-existent not hidden) when when all of a sudden the next mile marker says one again.
I was never so glad to see mile marker one again (atleast for this vacation). Turns out that we now had the right mile markers and things got better from here (and I mean REALLY better).
Stop number one, I think it was called Pookamuhumpa Falls or something like that. They say just off the road is a waterfall with fresh water and some even swim.......
This is the path in. Its wet, rickety but who knows where it will lead.
