Maui 2016 Day 2: Haleakale National Park, Lahaina Again

Cool trees!

What an amazing experience today!  We took a day trip to Haleakala National Park.  We left the condo around 7:30am, and had to make a quick stop at Target to pick up extra protein bars and water.  As we were heading up the windy road to the park, my motion sickness started kicking in and I had to just drive the rest of the way up.  We got to the first visitor center at around 10:15am.

It was very windy.  I was planning for extreme cold, but it wasn't too bad.  The sun was a lot stronger up here though, so having my hoodie and capris was useful.

First stop up the volcano; behind the full tour bus!

Sans Chinese tourists.

It was absolutely surreal.  I've never seen anything that looked like this combination of desert, crater, and outer planet.  The smaller craters were so smooth, it's incredible that it was all caused by wind erosion.

Out of this world.

We were determined to go on a hike, so we chose a short one on the Sliding Sands trailhead.  A portion was closed, so we decided to make it down to this bend, and then come back up.  Of course, the walk down was easy.  Walking up was slow and steady.  It was very surprising to see some older folks and kids walk down, as the trek up took a while.

The path!

At one of the bends on the way down.

Yummmm

I'm glad we took the time for the mini hike.  Although, we felt absolutely dirty and dusty afterwards.  We didn't want to eat anywhere special because of this, so decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to go to Zippy's!  YUM.  I haven't had this in 10 years.

Of course, we overate and felt gross.  This did not stop us from making an impromptu stop at a putt-putt course though!  Seemed like a fun, easy activity that was better than heading back and being inactive and lazy.  It was a cute place, and we were the only ones there for half the time.

On the way back from golf, I had to try Ululani's Shaved Ice.  It was on my must-do list while here.  It was heaven.  SO delicious.  The fruit syrup was so fresh.  Happiness as I ate / drank it, while standing at the beach in Lahaina watching the sunset.  Absolute bliss!

Happy.  Coconut, passion fruit, mango, with macadamia nut ice cream.

A beautiful sunset to finish off the day.