vacation

Hawaiian Vacation: Mount Haleakala and Iao Valley

Continuing on the report of my trip to Maui, let’s talk about Mount Haleakala. Remember the big volcano I talked about yesterday? That’s Mount Haleakala. It’s also a National Park (so it costs $30 to visit). Now, when I hear “volcano,” I picture lava shooting into the air, with the occasional earthquake for good measure. This one doesn’t have that. In fact, it doesn’t even have a crater. If Frodo was supposed to chuck the ring into Mount Haleakala, he’d have just wandered around for a few days looking for a place to chuck it. (Are you taking notes, Sauron?

Hawaiian Vacation: The Road to Hana

I’d heard about the road to Hana plenty of times before I actually drove it. “It’s magical.” “It’s the best part of Maui.” “You’ll love it.” It was odd, since it’s rare to hear so much about a road to a place and so little about the place itself. Now that I’ve actually done the complete loop around the island, I’ve got a better idea about what they’re talking about. First off, what is it. Maui basically consists of two mountains: a big one (with a volcano at the top) and a smaller one (that I assume also had a

Back from Hawaii

I’m back! Hawaii was a complete and utter blast, and I’ll be taking the next few blog posts to catch you all up on what we did while we were there. Nothing like a vacation to give me plenty of blog fodder. First off, one of the big decisions when you go to Hawaii seems to be “which island should I go to?” I’ve been once before (when I was 19), and went to Oahu and Kauai, but I don’t remember a whole ton of that trip. (I remember Pearl Harbor and the Polynesian Cultural Center, both of which I

Blogcation

I’m going to be stepping away from the blog for the Thanksgiving break, starting tomorrow. I’ll be traveling, and things will be pretty spotty in terms of down time over the next while. (Well, sort of. I mean, I’ll have tons of down time on the plane on Saturday, but I’m not really in a headspace to blog when I’m on a plane.) Where am I going? Off to Hawaii, actually. (Tough life, I know.) I’ve been once before, back when I was 18. I went to Oahu and Kauai back then. This time it’s going to be Maui, so

A Tropical Stormy Getaway

Denisa and I generally go away with the family for the long Indigenous Peoples Day weekend. We rent a house somewhere a couple of hours away and just try to reset for a few days. The start of the semester can often be really stressful, so it’s nice to take those three days and catch our collective breath. This weekend was no different, or at least that was the plan. To mix things up a bit, we decided to get a place on the ocean over near Acadia. (Not the popular side of Acadia, as we didn’t want all the