Friday, August 1, 2014

The Last Sunset


Time for one last meal before heading to the airport for the flight back to San Diego and then home to NC.   Can you guess where we ate?  Yep, "Fred's".  Tim had to have a picture for Uncle Chris since he always called him Fred when he was growing up.  Good picture of Tim and Paul, don't you think?  








Aloha, Maui!  

Hike up to Waimoku Falls

And so it begins.  THE hike.  I thought the hike Paul and I took in Arches National Park to Delicate Arch was the toughest thing I’ve ever done.  I literally thought I was going to die before I got to this particular arch.  But I survived Utah to hike again—in Maui.  This time, however, I am not in as good shape as I was in Utah.  I also have had a lot of pain in my hip joints and my lower back.  Not to mention the fact that I have considerable more weight on me.  (working on that issue, though) 
Let me just say, without Paul and the Lord, I would NEVER have made it up those two miles and back again.  Many times I had to sit down and rest.  Yes, and I even cried!  This was tough!!      



 The bamboo forest.
 In the bamboo forest Paul made me a walking stick from a downed bamboo shoot.  It helped a lot, but it also messed up my thumb from pressing down on it so hard. 
 


We went on ahead of Tim’s family because I knew it would take me longer to get there than it would them.   The trail was so narrow in some places we could only go single file.  We’d go up, then we’d have to go down and around just to go up again.   (Look closely in the middle of this picture.  Yes, that's me.  Sitting down, again.)


Maryann said later that she kept looking for us along the trail as she came up.  The look on her face when she got to the falls and we were sitting there waiting for them was priceless.  I had to take my shoes off and cool my aching feet and toes in the cold water.  Honestly, my toes felt like they were going to fall off; they hurt that badly.  But this was what was waiting for us at the top.  Was it worth it? I think so.





 Maryann and Ethan. (She RAN up the trail!)  That's ok.  I made it, too.  (just barely) 

 We saw this on the way down.  Yes, I'd say it was a glorious end to a glorious day.