Monday

Early! We got up at 1:45 a.m. to get ready for the Haleakala Crater sunrise experience. We left the room at 2:30 and drove 2 hours to the Haleakala Crater summit. 10,023 ft. That was another winding road that lasted a long time, not sure if there were cliffs or what. We got to the top summit and got a parking spot and found out that sunrise wasn't even until 6:18 am - 2 hours?! What?! We were told that if we left by 3:00 we would probably miss it and didn't understand that until about 5:00 am when all of a sudden a flood of people start coming to park at the summit. Well, after awhile they were being turned away for no parking. They had to go back down about 1/3 mile at the visitor center.
At the summit was an enclosure that you could see it from. Thank goodness, because it was freezing and very windy and we didn't bring our warm clothes (I don't remember why). It was probably in the 30s and we were in shorts and t-shirts. N took off the bed sheet and brought 2 beach towels. Thank you!
At about 5:15 we saw light and thought it was city lights but when it got brighter we figured, SUN. We went up to the building and hung out and watched it slowly come up. The clouds made it so beautiful to peek over. It finally peeked out over the clouds at about 6:18 am. I was in and out a bunch of times taking pics of the different stages. Funny how fast people cleared out afterward. I'm putting a slideshow of the sunrise, hope it works.



After that we drove down and in the light could see how beautiful the scenery and the hills were to our left and right - no cliffs. One of the package deals was to be driven to the top and bike down. Glad we didn't do that. Here is a pic of others that did it.

After we came down we went for another drive. This time we stopped at the Kula Lodge for breakfast. Steak and eggs for me (yes, I was hungry) and N had a belgian waffle with strawberries and coconut syrup - yum.
After breakfast off to Tedeschi Winery down south. We thought, we've never been to one, let's see some grapes. Saw no grapes. The little building had wine tasting (yeah, don't worry) and then a tour. Then we headed home for a nap before our dinner cruise.

The dinner cruise was beautiful, wonderful sunset, yummy food, good company :) It lasted about 2 hours. We drove out, ate, listened to some music, looked at the city lights on the way back, and finally lost my dinner.