"It's Wednesday. We have two more full days in Maui. It's bright and sunny. Whaddaya want to do today? Sit by the pool and have people wait on us?"

"Let's take the Road to Hana and see if it's really raining on the windward side of the island. And then we can take the road past Hana and come around the south side of the island so we can find out why the rental car companies say we can't take that road. In other words, let's make the loop around Haleakala."

"OK!"

At 11:00AM after breakfast, we hit the road...the infamous Road to Hana, Hana Highway, Route 36/360. Popular T-shirts boast, "I survived the Road to Hana!" Talk about the long and winding road! This has got to be what the Beatles were talking about. 65 miles and 3 hours later, we found Hana right where the maps told us it would be. And no, it was not raining in Hana. But it rained and was overcast all the way. If it is raining on the mountain (Haleakala) then we have a good show down on the coast with lots of waterfalls.

Going past Hana, we found ourselves at the "other" visitor's center in Haleakala National Park. One center is near the summit; and this one is at the southeastern foot of the volcano at O'heo Gulch, pictured here. At the base of each of the waterfalls is a pool of water where swimming is allowed if the flow is not heavy. Because there were heavy rains in the mountains the night before, swimming was prohibited today. The pools become a swirling, rapidly moving river which can sweep people over the rocks into the Pacific Ocean. The National Park Service closes the access trails to the pools at these times. It's hard to get the perspective with these two photos (immediately above) but we were standing about two feet from the edge of a 100-foot cliff looking down at the rocks and water. The bridge above the uppermost waterfall is Route 31, the narrow road around the southern part of Maui. And speaking of the road...an eight-mile stretch was single-lane and either unpaved (dirt) or severely patched (really bumpy). The lush tropical rainforest turned into this dry, scrubby grazing land in a matter of a couple miles!

Larry is overlooking a huge volcanic valley which goes to the Pacific Ocean to the right. You can see the bridge we drove over to pass this "hole" in the landscape.

Finally, we rounded the southwest bend of the island and were able to look out over the resort areas of South Maui. Oh look, there's our hotel! That's Ma'alaea Bay with West Maui Mountains in the distance.

What a diverse and beautiful island!