We went to Hawaii, which, Honolulu excluded, really is the paradise you think it is. Honolulu is just another crappy big American city, except with smaller roads and parking spaces. It still should be visited once, to see Pearl Harbor and, of course, to run Waikiki beach.
I also really enjoyed the Punchbowl cemetery. It has a series of amazing tile mosaic maps depicting the Pacific campaign of World War II.
The crazy lady we rented a VRBO from went nuts with her Label Baby Junior! I won't post them all, but we have snaps of "be careful on stairs" and "turn off the oven when finished cooking" and "display dishes only" in the china cabinet. But here's my personal favorite, which I think proves that she was just messing with us.
Here Heather plays "hiding in a banyon" like they did on Lost, which was filmed there.
The waterfall from Fantasy Island was also filmed on Maui. This waterfall is somewhere along the road to Hana which is a death defying drive that includes 59 one lane bridges and over 600 tight curves in just over 50 miles. It pretty much takes all day, and then you wish you'd just gotten a hotel on the other end because driving it back in the same day is even less awesome. The views and climates you drive through are amazing. Be sure to get the podcast that works with your GPS and they dude will talk about what you're seeing and make recommendations for where to stop. He'll even praise you if you follow his advice.
At the end of the road to Hana, I guess I should just say--in Hana--there is a restaurant with ukuleles on the wall. I wanted to steal the watermelon one, but Heather wouldn't let me.
This was a cave next to a black sand beech.
Quasi-lunar landscape!
We ran along the Maui coast.
Here's a great sunset pic.
And here's that sunrise I promised in the title. Oh, by the way, we're looking down on the clouds from the top of a volcano. Seeing the sun actually rise over the clouds was amazing. It was also freezing up there.
My brother-in-law, an amateur photographer, was snapping some photos at the volcano, and noticed a young man propose to a young woman, so he kept snapping photos of them. Then, he introduced himself and exchanged e-mails so he could send them the pics helping them commemorate their moment.
Hawaii was my 48th state to visit, and I hope to return to paradise someday. But for now, it's off to find an excuse to visit the Dakotas. Yeah.
