There's No Time Like Aloha Time

Yes, I successfully managed to trade in the cold rains of Vancouver for 2 weeks of Hawaiian sunshine and beaches!

Bryden and I have been here for just over a week and it's been nothing short of wonderful – relaxing on the beach, snorkeling, eating fresh papayas, pineapples, and mangoes, exploring the island on our road bikes, and watching beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

This morning was an exceptionally special sunrise – we woke up at 4am and drove up to the top of Mt. Haleakala, a 10,023ft tall dormant volcano here on Maui. It was pretty chilly up there and strange as it may be to say, I'm sure glad I brought my fleece hoodie to Hawaii!

I thought this sign was kind of funny. It says: 'Caution: Walk slowly at this elevation'.

The sunrise was a little cloudy but still gorgeous, with views of the crater and parts of the island still visible below.

So today we're both a little on the tired side... our bodies are recovering from yesterday's fairly strenuous ride. We spent over 7 hrs in the saddle riding one of the most twisty, turny, hilly roads I've ever been on!

The Hana Highway, or Road to Hana, has about 620 curves and 59 bridges (most of them single lane), and pretty much no shoulder at all to ride on. That makes for a pretty interesting ride in itself! Add to that the fact that it goes through tropical rainforests and along the ocean for most of the way, and you have many things to look at and think about while riding your bike.

At times it was a little unnerving having all those tourist laden vehicles pass by so closely, but as Bryden mentioned we probably couldn't be much safer with all those eyes staring intently out the windows.

I tried to hide in a banyan tree but couldn't bring myself to get any farther inside... there were big spiders everywhere!

And this was our destination - Hana. We didn't stay long - basically had our lunch, lay in the shade for a little while, and then hopped back on our bikes and headed back out!

We figure our total distance covered was about 100km, which may not sound like much to some but considering the road we were on, I'm pretty proud of our accomplishment!

I picked my very first mango! This is a massive mango tree!!

The ride home...

Ok that's all for this update... bedtime again. Tomorrow is another early morning – up at 5am to go whale watching!

'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

Tomorrow I wake up, roll out of bed, and head directly to the airport - do not pass go, do not collect $200 (although that would be nice...).

Mr. Bryden and I are vamoosing to Hawaii for almost 2 weeks of sunshine and summery wonderfulness! Feels like Christmas to me! And so that we don't have to be sans bikes for 2 weeks, we're taking our road bikes along and are going to do some exploring that way.

We've been planning this all winter, so I'm pretty excited that the time has finally come! The last couple of months have been a pretty steady diet of working, spinning on the trainer indoors at 5:30am while watching an episode of "Lost" (totally hooked!), running, and riding mountain bikes on weekends. The time has actually flown by, and by the time we're back from Hawaii it will be officially spring and race season will be just around the corner!