Hawaii!! Day 5

  We had decided months ago that we were going to watch the sunrise at the top of Haleakala - when you go to Pintrest to plan your Hawaiian vacation the #1 thing to do on every list is watch the sunrise.  Tyler was all in - because he loves National Parks and loves checking another one off his list.  But the others - I wasn't sure were in love with National Parks or sunrises or middle of the night wake up calls.  But I just kept telling them it the awesomeness would blow their minds.
  So my alarm went off at 2:45 and then I started waking up kids.  The tricky thing about going to Haleakala is the temperature change.  I had read a bunch online that said how cold it is on top of the summit.  The temperature drops 30 degrees when driving sea level to 10,000 feet.  The summit is typically in the 30's when the sunrises at 6:15 am.  So I had packed jackets, hats, gloves, and pants for our Haleakala morning.  Hats and gloves doesn't seem like Hawaii packing to me!
   We were in the car by 3:20 and on the road - 4 very tired kids in tow.  The drive from Wilea to the summit was almost 2 1/2 hours.  Luckily all of the kids fell back asleep in the car.  The drive up was super windy and there was a steady stream of cars up the side of the volcano.  Derek kept saying, "I can't believe this many people are willing to get up this early!"  As we paid to get into the park that park ranger lady (who gets to work at 3:00 am!) said, "Straight on til morning."  I kind of thought it was the cutest thing ever.

  We parked and got all bundled up.  They fill up the top parking lot first, and then after that's full, they make you park in the next lower lot, and so down the mountain.  We were in the 2nd lot - so after we parked we walked the last 1/2 mile up to the top.  

They weren't kidding about the cold - it was!

We got our spots and settled in for the show.  And it was awesome!  I had worried about it being cloudy, but turns out when you're 10,000 feet up, you're above the clouds - so no biggie!

   

                                     

Pictures don't do it justice, but it was beautiful.  

The sun's up!

Heading back down to the parking lot

The ride back to the hotel was a little quiet!

  After we got back down from the summit, we all went back to the hotel for a nap - a little sleep and we were all ready to go again!  We headed north to Iao Valley State Park.  It was so gorgeous!  The green and vegetation there really are amazing.  We hiked all around the park.

                                      

The Needle

  Our next stop was Lahaina.  We had heard that this was a fun city to visit so we headed there for a little sightseeing.  It was definitely fun!  Lots and lots of little beach side shops and lots and lots of people.  

The girls all got flowers for our hair.

Bay got a cute Aloha hat

Lahaina has one of the oldest banyan trees in the US

A quick stop for Shave Ice

  After Lahaina we headed to Ho'okipa Beach on the north shore.  The night before Derek and a few of the kids had seen a turtle out in the water.  But Bailey didn't see it.  And she was so sad.  Our concierge had told us the Ho'okipa Beach might have turtles, and Derek was on a mission to get Bailey to see a turtle.  So we headed to the beach, and the kids were all playing on the beach.  After half an hour this random teenage girl says to Derek, "Did you know there are turtles down at the far end of the beach?"  What???  So we headed down the beach to hopefully catch a glimpse of a turtle.  We ended up seeing about 40 turtles laying out on the beach.  It was AMAZING.  We'd see them come in from the water, one at a time, and crawl up the beach and fall asleep.  Apparently they come up every afternoon for the night.  

  After we got our turtle fix we headed south back to Kihei.  We ate dinner at Stewz's - an outdoor burger joint.  And we enjoyed this beautiful sunset.

Funny to think that we watched the sun rise and the
sun set on this day.
Amazing!