The House of the Sun

Saturday June 20th, 1970 we got married. Forty years later, its Sunday, June 20th, 2010 and we are up at 2:30AM to get on the road by 3 AM to meet the sunrise at the top of Haleakala, the House of the Sun. We stopped by the front desk to get a "Haleakala Survival Kit", basically a cooler with pastries, fruit, juice and most importantly a thermos of coffee.

We headed out on the 90 minute drive to the summit, eventually falling in with about three cars on the winding mountain road. We figured we were ahead of the crowd. WRONG! When we reached the summit we found one of the last three parking spaces available in the summit lot (which holds about 30 cars). But we found a space and walked (slowly at 10,023 feet) up to the summit to watch the sun come up on our 40th anniversary.

This makes it a third time, we celebrated our 25th, 30th and now our 40th on top of Haleakala. I guess its habit forming, plus its a beautiful, unique setting. It was about 41 degrees at sunrise but there was not much wind so it didn't feel as cold as it had on previous trips.

Regardless, we are getting more practical as we get older and after the sun went up we had no problem enjoying our coffee and breakfast in the comfort of the car. When we were younger we braved the elements as we ate. Maybe we're smarter now.

As we drove down we stopped for some of the expansive views of the crater and of central Maui, even saw a cruise ship pulling into Kahului. Unfortunately by the time we stopped to photograph it he was bow on and was harder to see. We had a great view of Mauna Kea on the big island, 80 miles away. In the photograph of the cinder cone above, Mauna Kea appears as a low dark triangle just above the clouds. The drive down makes it look like you are descending into the clouds.

We stopped at the Hosmer Grove nature trail. The first part was full of trees from the rest of the world, Eucalyptus from Australia, cedars from Japan and North America and parts of Asia.

We did a little birdwatching with a local photographer on the Nature Trail. We mentioned the Victorino for Council political signs we had seen. He told us that was Shane Victorino's Dad. Shane Victorino, "the Flyin' Hawaiian" plays center field for the Phillies.

After we got down we headed to Keokea, where we had breakfast (again) which was excellent. One of the interesting things about upcountry Hawaii is a rather relaxed building code system. Grandmas is a restaurant, but the restrooms are located a "short ways down the street"; more like a quarter mile, at a county park. Quaint.

After we got back to the Marriott Waimea, at about noon, it already seemed like we had been up a long time. That evening we had our anniversary dinner at Mama's Fish House, a gift from Doug and Martha for our 40th. It is right on the beach with a sunset view. Everything about this restaurant is as good as it could be. This is the best restaurant on Maui, and could well be the best restaurant in Hawaii. Even the flower arrangements around the dining rooms were amazing.

Start to finish it was a great 40th anniversary celebration. Here's to 40 more just like it.