A week on Maui

On Thursday, March 5, we took a short 30 minute flight to the island of Maui. We picked up our rental car and drove to kehei to our condo home for the week, right across from the beach. We could see whales breaching and playing in the ocean. This is the winter home for the humpback whale and they give birth here before they make their way to the waters of Alaska for the summer.
Jack and I both read James Michener's "Hawaii" before this trip, so we were interested to see some of the places that he wrote about. Lahaina was a whaling town in the early 19th century and was the place that missionaries arrived at from New England when they went to Hawaii to "Christianize" the heathens. They did not change their habits or clothing to suit the tropical climate and brought diseases that dessimated the native Hawaiians so that today there are only about 1000 full blooded Hawaiians left. King Kamehameha also had his capital here and we saw the remains of that building as well as the taro patch that grew that staple of the Hawaiian diet - taro root is pounded into a mush called poi and is eaten with your fingers. We also saw the prison where the bingeing and roistering whalers were tossed til they sobered up. We drove to the northern tip of Maui to Nakalele Point that day.
The island of Maui was formed by two volcano cones. Mt Haleakala is 10,023' above sea level and another 20,000 under the water making it the world's highest mountain. On Saturday we drove the 38 miles to the top of the mountain. When we left the beach area it was sun and cloud and as we drove higher the clouds engulfed us and by the time we got to the top on the switchback road, it was full out raining and we could not see the crater or the grand views that we had read about. but we did see several bicyclists going UP that steep road in the rain. Quite a feat! Later that day, drving to the south of the island we drove across an old (1790) lava flow that still has nothing growing on it's jagged black peaks as it flowed to the ocean.