We All Made It!

The last time we were in Hawaii, we didn’t make it to hike Diamond Head. I have wanted to do it ever since. The rest of the family wasn’t too sure, but I convinced them to all do it. :) We had heard that it was a very steep, hot, exposed hike, but that the view at the top was well worth it. That was all correct. We all hiked it on Saturday. It was about 85 degrees when we started the hike, and it was pretty much straight up. There are no trees and no shade, and some of the hike was a little bit of scrambling over lava flow. Some of the hike is also through old bunkers, so steps had been built to get through some of the steepest portions of the hike. At the very end, there is even a spiral staircase through a bunker, and then a ladder that you have to climb, ducking your head and kind of sliding through a gap in one of the bunkers.

One particular set of stairs close to the top has 99 steps. That may not sound like much, but after already climbing up the mountain, those 99 steps feel like an eternity! But the view from the top was definitely amazing. We could look out and see all of Waikiki.

Apparently on normal days, you can see several other islands from the top of Diamond Head. However, with the eruptions of Mauna Kea on the Big Island, there is a lot of ash in the air. It makes for gorgeous sunsets, but not great views from the top of Diamond Head. That’s ok, what we saw was pretty awesome.

This view is looking back into the crater at the parking lot where we started the hike.

After we hiked Diamond Head and were all hot and sweaty, we flew to Maui. I’m sure all of the people around us on the plane appreciated that we had gone directly from our hike to the airport. We got to Maui, got our rental cars, went shopping at Costco and Star Market, and checked into our condo. This is the view from our lanai (balcony).

Today (Sunday), we attended the Kihei First Ward at 9:00 am. It was one of the neatest meetings I’ve ever attended. It was the homecoming for one missionary, and the farewell for another one. After the closing prayer, the whole congregation stood and sang "Aloha Oe" to the departing missionary while members of his family and other ward members put leis on him. It was a very touching thing to be a part of. Ryan was kept watching as the leis got higher and higher on the missionary, and he had to keep pushing them down to see. We talked with him after the meeting, and walked out with him. Ryan wanted a picture with him. I think the departing elder thought it was cool that he had a little fan.We went for a drive to the end of the road on South Maui. We went all the way to La Perouse Bay, where the road ends at an enormous lava flow (from the last eruption on Maui in 1790). It was so cool! There is a path on the lava flow called The Hoapili (King’s) Trail. We walked on it for a little while. It was also an area where a lot of coral had washed up on shore. It was interesting to see the contrast between the black lava rock and the white coral all over wherever we walked.
Sunday evening we had a private family screening of “Forever Strong.” Marc had brought a copy of it, so we all watched it together. My parents went to the premiere a couple of months ago, but since it was on a school night, Ryan and I didn’t go. So it was fun for us to see it. Ryan got up and did the haka every time the players did in the movie.

We kept Sunday a fairly mellow day. We’re excited to do more exploring, snorkeling, swimming, and shopping tomorrow.