On top of the world
I'll confess that Tuesday morning's activity was the one on this trip that made me the most apprehensive. I'll snorkel with fish without a second thought. I'll climb into a helicopter and fly over an active volcano without batting an eye.
But the family had to talk me into going ziplining. It wasn't that I was scared, so much as I don't like rollercoasters and the idea of strapping myself into a harness hooked to a wire and careening down a mountain seemed to make rollercoasters look sedate.
Nonetheless, I manned up, put on the gear and then proceeded to love every moment of it. This was AWESOME!
We did five ziplines in total, with each one getting progressively more challenging. When it was over, I wanted to do it again and find a more advanced course.
Char and the kids had a blast, too. We had some great instruction from our two handlers, Kent and a girl named Kamara or Kamana or something like that (on the off chance she's reading this, sorry, but I'm terrible with names! But you were fantastic!)
That's her next to Michelle. She was particularly good with Michelle in that she was the youngest and smallest of our zipline tour group of 13 and K went out of her way to make sure everything was going well for Michelle. (Which it was. Michelle had ZERO problems doing this.)
So, yeah. What I was most nervous about turned out to be my favorite thing we've done so far. I've got tons of video from this excursion but won't be able to post it until we get home.
To get to the zipline tour, we had to go up about 4,000 feet up Haleakala mountain. Char pointed out that there's a national park at the top of the mountain, so when we were done at the zipline, we drove up another 6,000 feet through narrow, winding mountain roads to the top of Haleakala.
The very top.
Where it was so windy that the girls thought they were going to blow off the side. I've never felt wind that strong before.
But the view! We were literally looking down on the clouds!
In fact, we were so high up with such a clear view that we could see the Big Island!
By the time we were done on the mountain top, I was starting to run out of superlatives. Plus, looking down on the whole island of Maui made me think this is what God must feel like looking down on the world. It was very cool.
Tomorrow: Nothing nearly as exciting as this, as it's an "off" day. So we'll sleep late, head to he beach and stick close to home.
But the family had to talk me into going ziplining. It wasn't that I was scared, so much as I don't like rollercoasters and the idea of strapping myself into a harness hooked to a wire and careening down a mountain seemed to make rollercoasters look sedate.
Nonetheless, I manned up, put on the gear and then proceeded to love every moment of it. This was AWESOME!
We did five ziplines in total, with each one getting progressively more challenging. When it was over, I wanted to do it again and find a more advanced course.
Char and the kids had a blast, too. We had some great instruction from our two handlers, Kent and a girl named Kamara or Kamana or something like that (on the off chance she's reading this, sorry, but I'm terrible with names! But you were fantastic!)
That's her next to Michelle. She was particularly good with Michelle in that she was the youngest and smallest of our zipline tour group of 13 and K went out of her way to make sure everything was going well for Michelle. (Which it was. Michelle had ZERO problems doing this.)
So, yeah. What I was most nervous about turned out to be my favorite thing we've done so far. I've got tons of video from this excursion but won't be able to post it until we get home.
To get to the zipline tour, we had to go up about 4,000 feet up Haleakala mountain. Char pointed out that there's a national park at the top of the mountain, so when we were done at the zipline, we drove up another 6,000 feet through narrow, winding mountain roads to the top of Haleakala.
The very top.
Where it was so windy that the girls thought they were going to blow off the side. I've never felt wind that strong before.
But the view! We were literally looking down on the clouds!
In fact, we were so high up with such a clear view that we could see the Big Island!
By the time we were done on the mountain top, I was starting to run out of superlatives. Plus, looking down on the whole island of Maui made me think this is what God must feel like looking down on the world. It was very cool.
Tomorrow: Nothing nearly as exciting as this, as it's an "off" day. So we'll sleep late, head to he beach and stick close to home.
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