Hotels along Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii.

This was a sunset earlier on during out recent trip to Hawaii.

Janine at Wailua Falls, near Hana, Maui, Hawaii.

This beautiful waterfall is just along the side of the road a few miles past Hana – one of many.

They do pay their price for all this lush beauty.  A wet year in Hana can bring over 200 inches of rain, and a wet month of March can bring almost 60 inches!  And I thought we got a lot of precipitation!  A bit north of Hana it is even wetter.  I know a few times we had our window wipers on high and still couldn’t see because so much rain was coming down.  On the plus side, all the waterfalls in the area were really pumping!

Seven Sacred Pools or O'heo Gulch, Haleakala National Park, near Hana, Maui, Hawaii.

Well our last few days in Hawaii were busy.  Two days down in Hana and a couple of trips up to the Haleakala Crater.  Gotta say the drive to Hana was beautiful!  But, the highlight was a visit to the Seven Sacred Pools just a short distance past the town – just flat gorgeous!  As is the hike above the pools to Waimoku Falls. Both should be at the top of any visitors list of things to see while in Maui.  While there, we were lucky enough to have one of our few sunsets.  If you look close you can see the highway just above the upper falls.

This was Saturday night.  We are now back in Alaska where the forecast is for lows down to zero and winds of 50-60 mph.  Standing in this stream in my shorts and sandals seems like a different life time!

A surfer at Ho'okipa Beach, Maui, Hawaii.

My plan was to post a beautiful sunrise photo from the top of Haleakala this morning.  Well, we got up at 4:00 a.m. and drove to the top only to see thick clouds, heavy rain and wind.  O well.  At least I wasn’t one of those people who got up just as early and paid big bucks, to coast a bike down the mountain in the blowing rain.  They didn’t look happy.  Too make it worse – off to the West, you could tell the beaches were in nice sun.  I wonder how many of them uttered the words “we could be laying on the beach right now!”

So, I decided to post this photo from yesterday afternoon.  The waves were pretty good – lots of surfers and windsurfers – fun to photograph!

This weekend we head to Hana before flying home on Monday.  Might make one more try for sunrise on the mountain before we fly Monday morning.

Sunset from Haleakala Summet, Haleakala National Park, Hawaii.

This place is famous for it’s sunrises, but sunset can be spectacular as well.  Having clouds above and below you at the same time is really cool!

Kahekilli Beach, Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii.

Finally, our first sunrise / sunset!  Clouds are helpful for a sky of color – we have just had too many of them.  Except for this evening in Maui on Saturday night.  We had just enough for a bit of pretty color.

I actually stacked two graduated neutral density filters for a total of 5 stops in order to bring out some detail in the foreground.

Kalihiwai Bridge, Kauai, Hawaii.

As you drive towards the rich green North Shore on Kauai, the scenery just gets greener and richer.  This bridge reminded me on the canopy tours in Costa Rica, only this one was big enough for cars!  This was a classic stretch of road I just had to go back and walk in for a photo.

Nukoli'i Beach, Kauai, Hawaii.

Janine at sunrise on a beach in Kauai.  See, I still know who my number 1 model is!

This is one of the things I loved about Kauai – huge areas of undeveloped beaches and land.  This was in front of the first place we stayed – here, you could literally walk or run for 3 miles before you came across another building, or at times even another person.