Dinner and a Show!

Our friends Seth and Vickie came out to Maui to visit us over the past week.

We thought the dinner cruise we went on would just be for a sunset, but we didn't realize we would get a show from a couple of whales that we wouldn't soon forget.

The whales hung around the boat for 20-30 minutes while we all snapped pictures of them.  You know you're getting a big head when you wait to snap the picture till the whale waves at you.  That is Trisha and Kristine with a whale fin in the background.

With all the whale activity we almost forgot about the sunset, but as you can see, it was beautiful as well.

Stand up Paddle Boarding

In the five months since we have been here we had not yet tried to stand up paddle board.  Essentially, you just stand up on a surfboard with a paddle and motor right along.  Lately the whales have been very active so we thought we would try and get as close as we could on the paddle boards.  I (Kurt) was trailing a group of three whales from a couple dozen yards behind them.  At that distance they are completely spectacular. Words cannot describe the immensity of these animals.  As we were going along, and I was getting a bit more confident, one of the whales broke off and turned 180 degrees back towards me.  I froze.  Just then he took out his right fin and his tail fin and slapped the water as if to say "back off!"  When he got close enough to slap him on the nose I realized how terrified I was and started to paddle away from him frantically (as if I could've outrun him).  Just then he went under and went the other direction.  It was easily the most spectacular and terrifying experience of my life.  I'll never forget it.

 

Saturday Night

It is one of our last evenings with Glenn and Kristine as they are getting ready to leave Maui. Kurt and Glenn watched the sunset from their surf boards in the water. Kristine and I watched the whales playing in the distance. 

The Southernmost point of the USA

The southern tip of Hawaii is the as far south as you can get in the USA.  

It had a black sand beach...

an expansive coastline...

miles and miles of wind blown fields...

and a green sand beach.

The semi-precious stone, Olivine, is in the volcanic rock of Hawaii.  These pictures do not quite depict how green the olivine truly is.

After a quick visit with Kurt's family friends, Cliff and Bobbi Acheson, Maui welcomed us back with a beautiful sunset.

It is good to be home

Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park

The first night we arrived to the national park, we were able to see Halema'uma'u Crater glowing in the distance. It is about 1 mile away from this picture.  Because of the hazardous volcanic fumes, we could not get any closer.

We "camped" in the park (aka: slept in our car) the first night and woke up to this gorgeous view.

This plume of smoke is coming from Halema'uma'u crater.   The foreground of the picture is an old lava flow from the early 70's.

Rather than exploding (ie: Mount St. Helen's), Kilauea Volcano oozes and bubbles lava.  The lava flows downhill to the sea, covering everything in its path.  The different textures of lava depend on the heat and amount of gas in the lava when it hardens. 'A'a lava is the sharp and jagged while pahoehoe lava is more smooth and ropy.

There is a lush forest right next to the lava fields

Kilauea Iki Crater erupted in 1959.  Over a 5 week period it made a lava lake over 400ft deep. You can see how hazy it looks in this picture.  This is sulfur dioxide gas in the air.  We were coughing and Kurt's eyes were beet red by the end of this hike.

Kurt is standing in front of the main lava vent.  Lava spewed 1900 feet into the air from this spot.

This trail is not handicapped accessible!

There are still steam vents throughout the crater floor.  It was too hot to stand in the steam so we let Stanley do it instead.

It took 30 years for the lava lake to completely harden. 

In the midst of a barren wasteland, new life is starting to grow.

Our Trip to the Big Island

We took Flat Stanley to the island of Hawaii to see the sights. In order to get there, we flew on this puddle jumper. There were only 9 passengers (plus Flat Stanley)

One thing we realized about the Big Island is... its big!  All of the islands put together are still smaller than the island of Hawaii.  It was wonderful how remote and secluded we felt compared to the slightly cramped quarters of Maui.

It was a true Hawaiian winter day- pretty cold and cloudy, but that didn't stop us from showing Stanley the sights!

 

We just "hung out" in the jungle.  Stanley is attempting his best Tarzan impression here.

'Akaka falls has a 420 foot drop.  Stanley attempted to fly down to the bottom...

We saved him... (look at that smug grin on his face)

A picture of downtown Hilo.  

We show this to you because we were looking at taking an assignment here. 

Good thing we ended up in Maui!!

We were told that the town of Hilo has Hawaii's best Mochi. What is Mochi? (don't worry, we didn't know either)  It's a goober textured combination of rice jello, black beans, and a strawberry.  Hawaii can keep their mochi!!! (and Stanley didn't like it either)

Hyundai Golf Tournament

The Hyundai tournament is on Maui this weekend.

If you want a good look at what we look at every day, watch the golf channel! 

Kapalua is usually very windy. A view of Molokai in the background. 

When we had a lull in the golf, we were able to watch the whales breach in the distance. It was definitely a day to remember.

We were rooting for Steve Stricker (a Wisconsinite). 

Lucky for us, he had a great day yesterday!

The Four Falls of Na'ili'ili-haele (props to you if you can say that!)

We went hiking up the Hana Highway to some waterfalls. 

Flat Stanley in a Bamboo Forest

 Falls #1

 Falls # 2

 We had to climb the rocks of falls # 2 to make it to the third and fourth falls

Falls # 3

After the climb, we swam up these pools and climbed Falls #3 in order to get to Falls #4. We don't have any pictures of Falls #4 (which was the best of the water falls!) It was quite an adventure!

Flat Stanley takes a trip to Lana'i

Kurt's cousin, Megan, is doing a school project with Flat Stanley. Stanley was unfortunate enough to fall off of a bulletin board and get flattened. However, now Stanley gets to travel all over the world to visit people... and we are lucky to have Flat Stanley come to visit us in Hawaii!! 

Kurt and I figured we better not be boring while Stanley is visiting us so we took him on a trip to Lanai. It was our first trip off of Maui since we arrived here 4 months ago.

We told him stories...

attempted to teach him the shaka sign, "hang loose braddah'"

And taught him a geography lesson about the different islands off of Hawaii.

We are thoroughly enjoying having a visitor here with us, even if he cannot talk or do anything but put his arms out wide!! :) He is always a smiling face in our house!

 Here are a few more Lana'i pictures

 Manele Bay with the Four Seasons resort in the background

(I took this picture special for you, Jill!)

 One nice thing about Hawaii is that all of the beaches are public. Even though Lanai is a privately owned island, we still get to go to the beach!

 We rented a Jeep and went off roading. This is a picture of the "Garden of the Gods"

It was just a bunch of smooth rocks.

Lana'i is much dryer than you would expect for a Hawaiian island. A large majority of the island only gets about 10 inches of rain each year.  However, one quality that we really liked about Lana'i was that is felt very relaxed and secluded.  Only about 1,000 people live on Lana'i.