Tour, Days 26-29 – Maui

This tour has been somewhat pegged around weddings. I chose to take the route that I did up to this point so that I would end up in San Francisco, where I would fly out to a friend’s wedding in Hawai’i. Did you follow that? Anyway, I get to cross another state off my list today! Up to 47! I will be here from Sunday to Wednesday. Then I’m back in the car heading to the Northwest.

Just a couple of things about my few days in Hawai’i:

It is a ridiculously beautiful state. I got to see a lot of Maui by driving all over the island and camping a different locations each night. On my last morning, I got up at 4am and drove up to Haleakala to see the sunrise. The temperature plummeted into the 40s above 10,000 feet. I had to put on all of the clothes I brought with me and still I was freezing waiting for the sun to come up. As I drove down, I couldn’t help think about how bizarre it is that so much of Hawai’i looks like various parts of mainland United States – there are pine trees and other flora that look very similar to what you might see on the continent. It boggles my mind to think that the islands were once black rocks jutting out of the ocean and devoid of plants and animals.

The wedding itself was at one of the most gorgeous venues I’ve ever been to. Haiku Mill is a beautifully broken down and overgrown sugar mill, built in the mid-1800s and located on the north side of the island. The photos on their site do not do the locale justice. It was really stunning.

A final note: when packing my bag before I jumped on the plane, I tried to get rid of everything that wasn’t essential. I brought my tent but overdid my paring down by leaving behind the (already extremely tiny) bag of stakes in my tent bag. I ended up paying for this error during my first night camping. It was extremely windy each of the nights I was there.

That first night, I was able to set up the tent by holding onto it and throwing my sleeping bag and mattress inside. I didn’t realize how bad it was, however, until midway through the night I noticed the tent was rocking hard back and forth, each side taking turns coming up from the sand to the point of touching my body. This was a bit annoying but tolerable until I had to go to the bathroom. I held it for as long as I could trying to work out what I would do. In the end, I had to unbutton my shorts first, then step out of the tent grabbing it with one hand, walk over kind of close to a tree and do my thing. The whole time I was going, the tent was flying up and down with the wind. I only barely managed to hold on to it AND not pee on myself. The next night, the first thing I did was find four big rocks to anchor the tent.