Haleakala (ha-lay-AH-kah-lah), when translated, means "house of the sun" (hale is house, akala is sun). Sadly, I did not enjoy this trip as much as I had hoped to.
The Fateful Journey
The alarm wakes me up at 3:30am. The previous night, my mom had told me that the latest we could leave is 4:30am to catch sunrise on the mountain at 6:38am. No problem, I figure, it'll only take me a half hour to get showered and ready. Unfortunately, I had stayed up until midnight, and had only gotten a little over three hours of sleep - just enough for one sleep cycle for me.
I was beat - literally and figuratively. My ass was tenderized by the deep tissue massage (a variation on Shiatsu) I had about ten hours ago, so I was totally dog tired. I drank at least a gallon of water over the course of the previous evening, but it apparently didn't help to get all the toxins out of my system.
My mom banged loudly on the bathroom door - "we have to GO!". It's a little after four in the morning, and I'm almost ready, and I remind her that she said 4:30 at the latest, and she disavows all knowledge of having said this to me. I was obviously hallucinating. sigh
When my mom is on a mission, she gets a little crazy. Her mission this morning is to see the sunrise, at any cost. She insists on driving. One of my dad's nicknames for my mom is "Leadfoot Laurel," and she once more lives up to this name. It's not too bad until we actually hit the state park entrance - but after that point, it's all hairpin turns and switchbacks.
My mom doesn't like to drive when it's dark out. She doesn't like driving near cliff sides. She especially doesn't like feeling the pressure of other drivers behind her, tailgating, who are also racing to see the sunrise.
Race up mountain. Brake HARD. Turn SHARPLY. Repeat until completely nauseous.
We got to the top, with at least ten or fifteen minutes to spare. I could not get out of the car, I felt so sick. I'd open the door, and this blast of cold air (the crater is 10,000 feet above sea level, high above all the clouds) would hit me and force me to shut the door. Eventually, I get out and throw on my windbreaker - my dad walks with me over to the cliff side, and lo and behold, here is the sun in all its glory... but I missed the intial "poking through the clouds" part. Sadly, I couldn't have cared less. We made our way into the park ranger's station, and a surly ranger delivered his rote speech about the surrounding area's geology and so forth. I was blowing all my willpower just to keep myself together. After a bit, I made my way slowly back to the car... and that's when it finally hit me, that horrible feeling in your gut mixed with uncontrollably flowing saliva. The combination of hard massage, lack of sleep, high altitude, and a violently churning car ride were too much for me.
I couldn't help myself; I wretched about three times right onto the parking lot in front of our car. A family of six right behind our car was just taking picnic accoutrements out of their vehicle. I couldn't even look at them after that...
Those intrepid men whom I went with to Limey's bachelor party in Montreal may remember the ride back, when I was so hung over I couldn't see straight... the ride back from the crater was a very similar situation. I moaned and groaned all the way down the mountain, but thankfully, my father was the one behind the wheel.
Upon returning to the resort, I spent the next ten hours in bed. Slept for a lot of it, got up, ate a piece of dry toast, then went back to sleep. Woke up again, watched the Cartoon Network for a while. I felt human again around three o'clock in the afternoon, when I finally ate something that was substantial.
At Last, The Night Sky
In the evening, the plan is to go to the Maui Prince Hotel in Wailea for dinner, my mom made reservations at the Prince Court restaurant. When we get there, I notice that there's a buffet dinner tonight at Hakone, a japanese restaurant also in the hotel; I make the recommendation that we eat there instead of the Prince Court, and my parents agree it would be a neat thing.
Never had Japanese buffet before. It was a nice change of pace, definitely much different from your average buffet fare - but it was still buffet quality food, so it wasn't anywhere near par to other restaurants we'd been to.
The whole time we've been on the island, I've been getting the urge to just look out at the stars. Unfortunately, the clouds had not been cooperating with me. Until tonight, that is... and lucky us, this is the night that Maui Nite Sky was happening at the Maui Prince in their garden.
The stargazing operation is run by an ex-marine turned tech support rep who happens to have great passion for astronomy. Great guy, he put on a terrific show for me and my folks (who happened to be the only people there that night). For twenty bucks each, we got constellations pointed out to us for an hour, and we got to look through a nice powerful 15 inch reflecting telescope and a pair of high powered binoculars. Sadly, the moon was pretty full, so we didn't get quite as much out of it as we could have - but at least the sky was clear.
Last Words
I can't complain too much; the rest of this vacation has been so much fun up until now. But I think I'm all paid up on bad karma this time around.
See you tomorrow...