2 hours of sleep and we crushed it!

We had some flight delays on our way here yesterday, so we arrived at our Airbnb at around 1230am this morning. We had a 3am alarm so we could see sunrise at Haleakala National Park, so that meant just 2 hours of sleep. But, it was worth it!

We started the morning with a dark, windy drive to the top of Haleakala. It took us about 1.5 hours to make it to the top and Michael did a great job driving all those windy roads. We had sunrise reservations and were super thankful there was a park ranger there enforcing those reservations despite the government shutdown. Shout out to those folks!

We got one of the last parking spots at the summit and picked a spot on the wall to watch the sunrise. We had to wait about an hour before things started to happen, but in the meantime we saw some great stars! We didn’t have the prime viewing spot (those are in front of the summit glass building...just FYI), but we still got some good pics before we were too cold to stand it any more. It was pretty frigid up there despite jackets, gloves, and a blanket from our room. Definitely pack lots of warm things! The sunrise was very magical and the clouds sitting just below the sunrise were amazing. It was totally worth getting up early for.

After we warmed up and took a few more pics at the summit, we headed back to the visitors center and did a 1 hour hike into the crater on the Sliding Sands trail. We hiked down for about 35 minutes and then came back up. Up was miserable. Just so you know. The scenery here is like something from another planet. We would have done the whole hike, but we had other places to be this time. Something to keep in mind for next time.

Next up was Surfing Goat Dairy Farm. We got to try a flight of their cheeses and it was amazing! So yummy! We even bought some for snacks later this week.

Then, lunch at Tin Roof. This is a fast casual restaurant by Top Chef alum, Sheldon. We ordered some garlic shrimp and ahi tuni bowl. You take this stuff to go as there is no seating inside. So we brought it back to our Airbnb and ate here. It was a bit of a disappointment. :( Maybe we ordered wrong or maybe he’s focused on his new place now, but we wouldn’t recommend it even though we’re big Sheldon fans.

After that we took a nice little nap before heading to Lahaina for the afternoon/evening. Tons of fun in this little town with shave ice, a brewery, shopping, cool trees, and Feast at Lele luau at sunset on the beach. So fun! Maybe not your traditional luau, but it was a five course meal with dishes from the different Polynesian islands and dances from those islands. Tons of fun!

Now to sleep for another busy day tomorrow!