Now the thing about the sunrise in Maui, is that it happens at like 6am. And from our hotel to the summit of Haleakala was about a 2 hour drive, maybe a bit more because of traffic... it's a one lane road up to the top. If you signed up for a tour, they picked you up between 2 and 3 in the morning. Dan wasn't crazy about taking a bus up a curvy one lane road, and since we had a rental car, we decided to drive ourselves.
We decided to take the trip to Haleakala on our second to last morning. We had gone to dinner at the Pineapple Grill the night before, and tried to go to bed somewhat early, but I don't think you can go to bed early enough to prepare your body to get up at 2am. If I didn't have this list, you can bet we would have totally bailed on this mission, but I was determined to cross something else off my list while we were in Maui.
So, in the dark hours of the morning, we got up, put on layers and layers of clothes... it's cold at the summit. According to locals, it's "freezing", and we were told to wear "warm jackets" several times. Well, who takes a "warm jacket" on vacation to Maui? Not us!! So we just put on as much warm clothing as we could and I took a travel blanket that I'd brought for the plane. We were pulling out of our hotel by about 3:15 and well on our way. Poor Dan did all of the driving, and I tried to stay awake for him, but I may have dozed a bit here and there.
About halfway through our drive, I started getting really sick. For the second time in my life, I thought I was experiencing motion-sickness. Finally, I had to tell Dan to pull over, and less than halfway up to the top of Halekala, I threw up. But the best part of all, was that I was throwing up in the pitch dark with a spotlight directly on me every time a car drove by, which was constant. I think that at least 30 cars drove past me in all my glory. How embarrassing. I felt a lot better afterwards though.
We finally made it to the top of Haleakala with about 30 minutes until the sunrise. We found a place to park, and stayed in the car to keep warm. Even though we were layered up, it was still cold for us. While we were napping/staying warm/waiting in the car, I started getting really sick again, and threw up right outside my car door. Lovely. At this point, it was still really dark, but I told Dan, "The second that sun comes up, we are outta here." I could not believe I'd gotten sick twice on our sunrise expedition. I kept telling Dan that I couldn't believe I was having so much trouble with motion-sickness on our vacation, and his response was, "Um, motion-sickness? Or a hangover?" He then proceeded to remind me that I had enjoyed a cocktail before dinner, and then several glasses of wine during. Oopsie. The thought never even crossed my mind that I was possibly hungover. It started to all make sense.
Finally, the sky was getting lighter, and it was almost time for the sunrise, so we got out of the car and went to find a good viewing spot.
And sure enough, the second the sun was up, and we got our pictures, we hightailed it outta there on a quest to find a greasy breakfast for yours truly. The drive down was really scenic and it was nice to see what we'd missed on the way up.
At some points, it looks like you just drive off the edge of a cliff
We were above the clouds
In the distance, you can see Kahalui, which is where the airport is located
And this is a view of Molokini, the famous snorkeling destination
We were sitting down to breakfast at Lulu's by about 8:30am, and once again, after eating, I felt better.
It was a fun experience, minus the puking, and definitely the best sunrise I've ever seen, but probably the last.
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