Week 27: Adventures in Paradise

This week, we’re staying in Maui. I bought this shirt on my very first trip to Hawaii. We picked Maui for our first trip since we thought it would be a good balance of nature and evening activities.

This trip was many years ago. My friends and I were young(er) and adventurous, so we went all over the island. This shirt represents the activities that we enjoyed.

The first panel represents our trip to Hana. We took the (in)famous Road to Hana. All the tourist brochures were correct; the road was quite narrow with a lot of one-lane bridges. We really did not encounter a lot of traffic, perhaps it was not as popular back then, so it is not too nerve-racking. I even drove part of the way. However, the locals drive really fast – they probably drive this road everyday. Obviously, we let them pass us.

We did not spend that much time in town, but did enjoy the natural beauty. Hana had a number of beautiful waterfalls and pools. We even tried to swim in the seven sacred pools (but we were too tired to even complete one pool).

The next panel represents our trip to Haleakala. Folks usually go to Haleakala for the sunrise or sunset, but we did not wake up early enough nor stayed late to do either of that. Once we reached the summit, we enjoyed the visitor center and some short walks. It was fairly challenging to hike at 10,000 feet, especially if you did not get acclimated.

Haleakala was like going to a different world. It was covered in red soil and there was almost no vegetation, quite different from the lushness of Hana. It was like being on the surface of Mars.

The last panel represents all the time in the water and rainbows we saw. It seemed that everyday we saw a beautiful rainbow; rainbows always make me smile. Although the last panel of the t-shirt has whales, we really did not go whale-watching. We did spend a lot of time snorkeling, enjoying the beach, and just hanging out. We are in Hawaii, after all!