Visitors continued

Since the tsunami kinda upset our plans, we took it fairly easy on Sunday.  We ended up driving upcountry to visit the Ali'i Kula lavender farm.  I think probably one of the more exciting things was discovering a pair of chameleons hanging out on a tree.

After wandering about, we ate some delicious lavender scones with lavender Liliko'i jelly (that's passion fruit).  Also, I was pleased to discover that there was a pumpkin patch here on Maui!  Since I freakin' love October, and Halloween we just had to stop for a minute.

That's right, a pumpkin patch.  In Hawaii!

Check it out, pumpkins and the ocean in the same photo.

We then headed off to Lahaina to go shopping and get some dinner.  We also spent some time hanging around the banya tree.  This was neat since it is a single tree that has all these little off-shoots taking over an entire park.  

We didn't stay out too late since we were planning on going up to Haleakela the next morning for the sunrise.  We drug ourselves out of bed at about 3 am, and made the 2 hour drive up the mountain in the dark.  It was much colder than it was the last time I went up, but I was determined that this time I was going to get the best spot while waiting for the sunrise.  (Last time I went the look-out was completely overrun by tourists.)  I ended up sitting out on the ledge for about an hour bundled up in my blanket.  It was actually very cleansing, and somewhat relaxing to sit and read a book on my phone while waiting in the frigid pre-dawn morning.  I was not disappointed when the sun finally came up, and I got some excellent pictures of the sun.

There is a little building up on the summit.  My friends kinda hid out there since it was so stinking cold.

Haleakala means "house of the sun."  I think you can see why.

I always love going up for the sunrise.  Also, this is supposed to be one of the best places in the world for stargazing, but both times I've gone up, it has also been a full moon, so we haven't seen many stars. I'm already planning a trip up during a New Moon so I can stargaze!

The rest of the day was pretty busy, especially considering we were only running on a few hours of sleep.  We stopped at the Surfing Goat farm to try out some goat cheese, then we spent a few hours at the beach.  We finished off the night by going to a fancy luau at the Grand Wailea.

Here are some very nice young Polynesian men opening up the emu, or the Hawaiian oven where they bury a pig underground and cook it.  This is how you make kalua pork.  Yum!

The food was delicious, they had an unlimited supply of virgin pina coladas, and they even convinced me to get up on stage and learn the hula.  I had a blast!  Not to mention the whole performance complete with hula dancers, and fire dancers.
It was great fun to have some visitors.  We packed a ton of activities into just a couple of days, and I'm pretty sure I drove over 300 miles while they were here.  It was crazy!  This was just a brief glimpse, since I took about 150 pictures of the whole weekend.  Thanks for visiting!!