As you all know, I’m on Maui right now, in Hawaii.

Although I am, in many respects, treating it as a travel destination for the remainder of my stay (just  22 more days), it does happen to have been my home for much of my life. My mother lives in Kula, on the slopes of “Haleakala” a dorment volcano which hasn’t erupted since the seventeenth century.

For mother’s day, we decided to  spend the day together, and venture farther up the volcano to the summit.

For those who haven’t been to Maui before, and haven’t made the climb up to the 10,000 foot-high summit of Haleakala, you’re in for a surprise. While the island tends to hover around 75-85 degrees fahrenheit (depending on the day/your elevation), when we reached the summit, the thermometer read 50 degrees. This is the one place to get relief from the heat on the island.

Being somewhat of a polar bear myself, I decided to continue on with wearing my Icebreaker t-shirt and zipped the legs of my pants. The cold, noticeably crisper air was a wonderful feeling after the tropical, pounding heat for the months past.

As we walked up the short hill to the “summit of the summit” (the highest structure on the island: a glass-windowed structure for people to enter and look down at everything around them. There were informational cards/plaques hugging the walls, allowing you to read descriptions of what you were seeing.

We skipped the inside of the “viewing hut” and walked the outer-circumference instead. Inside, we could hear the murmor of tourists, and the rehearsed-yet friendly voice of the park ranger chatting about the specifications of the volcano.

We strolled back down to the car, and, after a short drive, found ourselves at the “summit visitor’s center”. We had seen another such visitor’s center on the long drive up, and had opted against looking at photos and videos of what we could see in front of our eyes.

Inside the visitor’s center was a scaled model of the volcano. The cool thing about examining this model, was that the real thing was only feet away, and once could look between the two and get a firm idea of the angles/lava-flows of the crater. My mother got in a sudo-fight with the park ranger about their items for sale.

My mother (who’s name is Julie) claimed that they should sell Haleakala-branded chocolate bars. The park ranger specified that the reason they didn’t sell food and beverage was because they didn’t want invasive species to have a reason to climb higher up the volcano. My mother was unconvinced. After a number of “what about…” “what if you just…” she had gotten no-where (having heard the canned response a number of times) and gave up.

Our final activity while on the mountain (our heads were beginning to hurt slightly from dehydration and the fast elevation climb, we were almost ready to go) was a climb up a mini-hike to a hill so high, you could feel the biting wind start to beat around you. Once you reach the top of this hill, there’s nothing else to block the wind, you’re flying.

We sat and talked (and eavesdropped on the conversation a park-ranger was having with some tourists (doing our best to glean all the information we could without directly relating to a ranger) and eventually climbed back down.

As we left, I turned on the radio and “Jump” by the Pointer-sisters began. I have always loved this song for its ability to get the heart-rate going…I’m going to go listen to it right now actually. Be right back.

…okay I’m back. I love that song. Anyways, after we got a little farther down the mountain, we stopped at a campsite/trail called “Hosmer’s Grove”. We got out and took a look at the sign:

Hosmer’s Grove
No permit needed
3 days stay maximum

That wouldn’t be a problem. We just wanted a hike.

We hiked for a short while through pine trees and different variations of native as well as non-native trees. We eventually got to a cliffside with an illustrated sign detailing the different kinds of birds we could see. We saw them all, but only on the sign. The real-life version was nowhere to be seen. If we would have hung out all day, I’m sure we might have seen one.

We journeyed back to the car and drove down the hill, back to the heat, the people, and the ocean.

Not a bad mother’s day at all.