Haleakala, The Adventure

One of the many things that people do when they arrive (or live) on Maui is to become utterly enthralled with the sun. It sets, they love it. It rises, they love it. It stays over head blasting through the water and showing the iridescent little fishys - they love it. It will burn them and they will blame themselves because their allegiance to it is suddenly so strong. . .

In this vein, we decided to see the sunrise over the dormant volcano Haleakala. Like seeing the Sun on Broadway, it would be.

We rented Jeeps for the occasion. Bought ingredients for gallon sized Tequila Sunrises and Maui Mega-Mimosas. . . we were three cars barreling through the 3am hours with cans of beer and extra batteries for our cameras. Ready. Willing. Loyally disregarding any and all open container laws.

I think it started going downhill when we pulled into the parking lot at the summit, having just wound our way straight up 10,000 feet in rental jeeps. The body tends to react to such changes and such amounts of time in a tiny car - we needed to stretch, to mix drinks, to take pictures, to be a little bit too loud for 4:30 on any morning, much less at the summit of an enormous tourist attraction filled with sun-worshippers on vacation.

Someone didn't like it and they told the park rangers, who also didn't like it. Imagine standing on the top of the world (quite literally for this specific geographic region) the sun rising through the clouds behind you and lighting the coastlines you're familiar with, seeing the whole coastline as if flying above it in an airplane, and then behind you are two police cruisers parking directly behind your rented jeeps shining flashlights through the interior.

"Are you folks driving a jeep?"

"Not at the moment, no."

"Today?"

"Yes, we are driving a jeep."

"I need you to follow me, please, and gather the rest of your party."

Plastic cups of perfectly awful and warm mimosa were spilled on the ground, beer after beer after beer was emptied on the pavement to prove two things: that "we" the park rangers aren't taking your beer AND TWO that "we" the park rangers have to make sure you understand this is against the law.

"Okay."

"You can't have alcohol in the state park, it says that on the sign on the way in."

"Okay."

"It's just not safe, you know?"

"Okay."

"I was young once, I like to have a couple beers now and then, but you have to respect the other guests in the park."

"Okay."

"I'll leave you with the champagne though, you just put it away as fast as you can and don't even think of opening it until you're back home again, understood?"

"Okay."

"All right, have a nice day."

"Okay."

In all, the volcano claimed forty-three cans of bud light and Krissy's innocence as she took and passed her very first breathalizer test. The sunrise, or what we saw of it, was pretty foggy - to be honest - and happened very early in the morning. I'll be fine seeing the sunsets instead as all I have to do is stop talking to the guests at the table and look up. Plus no one yells at me for drinking at work, right?