Hana Hwy

Well what an excellent day we had! Yesterday we went to Mile Post 14 and snorkeled with our certified dive instructor Lissie. We saw some great fish, but the water started to get rough; Matt and I were really far out from the shore so we headed back in. Nancy and Lissie went to this channel that was much closer and had some really good views, but Matt and I missed it. I guess it's good we still have a couple more days.

Today we went up the Hana Hwy. It was probably my favorite trip up there so far. Nancy gave us this CD that Emily and Kyle found in their rental car and it's all the sites to see along the Hana Hwy. It was pretty good, but I wished we had the map to go along with the disc. But we saw more waterfalls and hikes than we had before because of the disc, and I didn't get carsick (thanks dramamine), so it was an awesome trip up to Hana. We also found a really nice beach just pass Hana at Hamoa. The water was so clear and the white sand was just breath-taking. There was this cute little island that you could see from the shore and we heard the story from Craig, the narrotor on the Hana disc, about two brothers going off to war during WWII and they swam to the island, climbed to the top and planted coconut seeds so that if they didn't come back from the war their family could look over at the island and see the coconut trees growing big and strong as they would have. Luckily the story had a happy ending and the sons came back and now there are lots of coconut trees growing, but two really stand out and you know that those are the ones the brothers planted.

It started raining when we first started and as we stopped in Keanae to buy some banana bread from Aunt Sandy's Fruit Stand, it started mansooning! It reminded me of Oregon, but it's much nicer when it rains in Hawaii since its' warm. The rain stopped shortly after leaving Keanae and the waterfalls were really nice right after. It didn't rain enough closer to Hana so the waterfalls there, and especially at Haleakala National Park at Kahului, which is the coastal side of the park, the waterfalls were pretty puny. We also tried to find Charles Lindbergh's grave site, but I guess we'll have to save that for the next trip.

Pictures to come!