Hearts in Hawai'i
Our Trip to Maui (2014)--Day 10
5/14/2014
It was time to hike in Haleakala Crater!
Well, not quite. The reasons why will become evident.
How did my day start? By waking up at 3 a.m. and not being able to fall back asleep! Four hours of sleep would be a serious problem on a work day--but here? It was just an inconvenience. I could catch up with a long afternoon nap, but there is the matter of this impending hike.
Hike Maui, with Kate driving, picked us up at 8:45 in front of the hotel. She was the intermediary and would only be taking us to the Park & Ride in Kahului where Tony would be taking a group of five of us on this tour. Kate was then scheduled to continue on with her group on their tour up in the Twin Falls area on the road to Hana.
The weather today was sunny in Lahaina, overcast in Ma`alaea and Kahului. It rained on and off as we ascended the Haleakala Highway. It didn't look promising as we looked up the mountain, but we were buoyed by Tony's prediction that we would be climbing above the clouds eventually. We didn't. It cleared out briefly at around the 7,000 foot elevation level, but fog was jammed in near the summit, where we would be hiking. Foggy, breezy and sprinkling rain. With our windbreakers on, it didn't seem that bad--if felt like about 45-50 degrees, which would be just another April day in Duluth. Weather wise, we would be fine. Others were shivering a bit. But the primary problem was the fog, bringing with it such limited visibility that, while we would be able to hike, we would not be able to see hardly anything--certainly not that beautiful multi-colored crater!
Tony polled us, and nobody wanted to continue, so back down the mountain we went. But first, we got to see the Silversword plant, found on Haleakala above roughly 7,000 feet. These amazing plants can live up to in excess of 50 years!
Silversword plant
Silversword plant
View going back down the mountain
Credit to Hike Maui for refunding half of our trip cost, despite the fact that they can't control the weather. It showed a commitment to customer service many companies would not emulate. It also guaranteed that we would consider them in the future!
Still, I was bummed that we didn't get to hike, but I also recall that on Monday we had made the decision to cancel the hike and then realized we couldn't because they had not a 24-hour cancellation policy, but a 48-hour policy. By then, it was too late to cancel.
Back at the hotel, we rested for a couple hours, get dressed and headed over to Lulu's Lahaina Surf Club & Grill, located in the Lahaina Cannery Mall. This restaurant had been a last minute substitution when we decided not to eat at Lahaina Coolers.
It was a bad decision.
The atmosphere was adequate--no views but it was pleasant inside and not too loud--mainly because there were few people in there. But this time, Top Maui Restaurant's rating was right. Trip Advisor ratings, again, were wrong. It was rated 47th of 226 restaurants in the Lahaina area?? No way.
Service was adequate, the food was mediocre. Patty got the Chinese Chicken Salad while I started with a half-order of the Seaser Pleaser. Neither salad was pleasing. The Chicken Katsu Curry was somewhat of an improvement, the rice was....well, rice, and the Mac salad was boring. There was little taste to it.
As it turned out, it was the only first-time-visited restaurant we ate at during this trip which didn't measure up.
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