Good Morning, Maui

Our first morning waking up on Maui was our earliest morning of the entire trip -- we were up before 2:45am. The reason for this insane wake-up call? Apparently, sunrises are becoming "our thing." Two years ago, we'd been able to be inside Stonehenge for the 2012 summer solstice. It's not that we were looking to top that experience (I'm not sure you could), but we'd heard about another cool sunrise opportunity.

Mount Haleakala is the tallest point on Maui. (In fact, the massive shield volcano is actually about three-quarters of the island's land mass.) A number of bike shops on the island arrange tours that let you bicycle down the mountain, traveling from 10,000 feet above sea level basically to the shore line in a matter of hours. We'd picked one tour that put you atop the mountain to watch the sunrise from within Haleakala National Park.

After days in a tropical paradise, the biting wind on top of the mountain was a chilly reminder of what we'd left behind in Denver.

We stood in the cold and shivered for about an hour. But as the light came up minute by minute, it quickly became clear that it was going to be worth it. There was a lot more to the see than the rising sun. For one thing, there was the spectacular view of the crater right there in front of us, low clouds slowly rolling into the valley.

The tour guide who'd driven us up there told us that there were all kinds of hiking trails you could take throughout this amazing landscape -- probably well worth doing, had we not been there for something else.

As the dawn glow increased, a park ranger stepped up to address the crowd with an unusual presentation. She pointed out the full moon setting behind us, in what she unfittingly referred to as "double jeopardy."

And when the sun finally poked above the clouds on the eastern horizon, she launched into a full-throated Hawaiian chant to welcome the new day. Call me a bad person, but I quietly had to stifle a chuckle -- between the odd "double jeopardy" comment and the fact that The Lion King has pretty well ruined for my Hollywood-saturated brain any sort of sunrise chant, my giggle pump had been primed. Still, the urge to laugh quickly subsided as we took in a truly spectacular sunrise.

A few minutes later, we hopped back in the tour van to be driven back to the park entrance, the point from which our downhill ride would begin.