Maui Day 6 - Road to Hana (well, Halfway)

Our sixth day in Maui was our Road to Hana day. Hana, meaning "Heaven", is a small, uncommercialized town at the end of a very windy road lined with waterfalls, beaches, and gorgeous plant-life. The Road to Hana is the true experience as opposed to the actual town of Hana. (We did the trip on our last visit to Maui and I think we all considered it to be one of our favorite memories.) After our last 2 days of waking up VERY early, we decided to leave mid-morning for Hana. We all needed the extra rest! Waking up, we saw it was a beautiful day for a road trip - sunshine and clear skies. Yea! Our first stop along Hana Highway was at The Garden of Eden, a beautiful botanical garden and arboretum along the cliffs of the ocean. It has amazing, gorgeous tropical plants and flowers and many wonderful places to take pictures! It also offers several pavillions with picnic tables and the best view you could ever imagine while eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! Even better than lunch, though, was the fact that Max took his first real steps while we were there! We were hanging out, waiting for a rain storm to pass, and Max started to get antsy, ready to get down and move around. We put him down and decided to encourage him to walk - he has been SO close for a while now. After figuring out what we were wanting him to do, he decided to take some steps!! He was TOO cute! Needless to say, we were very excited and started clapping and cheering. Another family walked by and stopped to watch and cheer him on with us. What fun! After leaving The Garden of Eden, we stopped at a few overlooks to see the awesome views, but it wasn't long before Max became unamused by the thought of staying strapped in his carseat for much longer. We turned around at the Halfway to Hana point to start the journey back. Max fell sound asleep, so we did stop at one more beach, with a shoreline of beautiful black volcanic rocks, before heading back to civilization. We only made it halfway to Hana, but had a great time! When we were almost to the small town of Paia, we passed Ho'okipa Beach Park where there were some pretty big waves and a lot of wind surfers, kite surfers and regular surfers doing their thing. Max was happier at this point and we were all ready to get out of the car for a while, so we pulled over to watch. The waves were the biggest we had seen and the kite-surfers and wind surfers were moving SO quickly across the surf. I think we were all envisioning ourselves out there (at least I was!) and wondering what it must feel like to fly across the waves like that. We walked down to a spot closer to the water where huge waves were breaking on the rocks. As you can see from some of the pictures, it was SO windy. Luckily, Max thinks its funny when the wind blows on his face, or else we would have had a problem! The waves were mesmerizing and we took a few moments to enjoy them. There is something about the ocean's energy and vastness that re-emphasizes to me just how big our God is. The same God who created this amazing, seemingly endless, expanse of water also created me, and Jeff, and Max, and Mom and Dad, and Ash, and Ricky, and the people standing next to us and the people out there surfing. He created everyone and everything to bring Him glory, and I have to tell you, right then and there, that ocean brought Him glory. And so did the beautiful rainbow he treated us with right before we drove away. Isn't God great? We had another fun day together and, after making it back to our condo, we spent what was left of it at the pool and enjoying one more Hawaiian susnset (Mom's favorite thing!). Paradise, for sure.