Hawaii - Day 1

Bryce and I celebrated our 10th anniversary this year and wanted to celebrate with a trip for just the two of us... first time we have been away just the two of us since having kids 6.5 years ago!  We figured if we were going to all this trouble, we might as well make it worth it.  We splurged on a trip to Maui and Kauai, two places we had really wanted to visit.  Mema and Papa came down a few weeks early to watch the kids while we were gone for 10 days!

We went to Maui first. It's amazing how easy travel seems to be when you don't have little kids tagging along!  We arrived without any troubles on Saturday evening. We had dinner and found our hotel and went to bed pretty early.  The next morning, we had planned our sunrise bike tour. Having been to Hawaii before, we remembered how those first few days your internal clock is way off so we figured if we had to get up early one morning, might as well be the first one!

We were up very early to make it to the bike place by 3:30am.  Then we got fitted for gear and headed up the mountain to the summit of Mt. Haleakala.  It was VERY cold and windy.  We waited in the van for awhile before venturing out to watch the sunrise.  It was gorgeous.

Picture just after sunrise

See the sunrise just coming out of the clouds 

After watching the sunrise, we were taken down the mountain to just outside the park where we mounted our bikes.  We chose the tour that allowed you to go down at your own pace so we weren't in a big pack.

Geared up!

Part of the view on the ride down

I had read a lot of differing opinions on the bike ride about safety, etc. I was glad we could do it on our own so we could go as fast/slow as we wanted. I never felt unsafe. We even stopped for breakfast along the way.

After making it back to return the bikes, we headed back to the hotel for some food, a nap, and relaxing at the pool before a delicious dinner at Spago.  Overall, an incredible first day!