That last part could have wound up being a bit tricky. The truth is, I hadn't been on a (non-stationary) bicycle in more than 20 years, since back in early high school when I had a paper route. (I don't even think kids can do that anymore unless they're old enough to drive.) Of course, the example that's always used for something you never forget how to do is, "it's just like riding a bicycle." I was going to put that to test.
We suited up in all the gear from the shop, and we were ready to hit the road.
It turns out that riding a bike really is "like riding a bike," but things were just a little bit uncertain at first. Racing downhill, it didn't take much for me to feel out of control, but fortunately I never wiped out.
It's not like we were really in a hurry anyway. This is one of the reasons we'd chosen this particular bike shop from the dozens on Maui offering a sunrise tour -- this tour was self-guided. During the drive up the mountain, the driver (who, by the way, was shocked to hear I've lived most of my life in Colorado without ever going skiing) pointed out the three turns we'd need to make, and a number of places we might want to stop. But we were free to do whatever we wanted, taking up to eight hours to get the bikes back, if we chose. So we took our time.
Our first stop was at a lavender farm near the top of the mountain. The soothing smell was in the air, most intense of all in the tiny shop where we stopped for a hot drink, a few souvenirs, and a look at one of the gadgets used to distill the flowers' essence.
Right next door to the lavender farm was a place offering a zipline tour through the area. This was not the first time we'd considered ziplining, but the TV show South Park has seriously soured the prospect for us. In a particularly memorable episode from a couple years ago, Trey Parker and Matt Stone used their podium to declare how numbingly lame ziplining is, and painted such a compelling picture that we've been reluctant to try it ever since. That doubt, coupled with the quite high price tag, kept us from trying it on this occasion.
(In the last few weeks, a few people have told me that the quality/fun of ziplining depends greatly on where you do it. So perhaps some day we'll give it a try. But this chance slipped by.)
We hopped back on the bikes and continued downhill until we reached the small town of Makawao. On the drive up, our guide had told us of a number of good places to eat in the town. We didn't quite feel like sitting down somewhere, but we did try the donuts at the T Komoda Store and Bakery. Every bit as delicious as promised. I always thought that those people who waited three hours in line for the opening of a new Krispy Kreme donut store were pretty stupid; that feeling was only underscored by these amazing treats.
As we were standing in the bakery's short line, we suddenly heard the crash of cymbals as a local school's marching band started down the main street through town. We stepped outside to find a small Christmas parade, complete with an usual Santa.
Convertible Santa really tells you everything about Christmas in Hawaii. They seem to love Christmas there. All throughout our vacation, we saw decorations everywhere -- far more I think than back home in Denver. But the visual of it never stopped feeling unusual: blinking lights in 70 degree weather, parking lot stands selling trees you know had been shipped in from thousands of miles away, and Santa in the back of a convertible.
(As a side note: everybody in Hawaii can spot a tourist. Many of them will ask you where you're from. Whenever we'd answer "Denver," the response would inevitably be, "Do you have snow?" At first, I thought this was just locals being as uninformed about Denver as we were about Hawaii before our trip began. Hell, there are plenty of people back here on the mainland that think of Denver as some snow-covered hamlet resting on the edge of a mile-high mountain cliff. But as our vacation carried on, I came to suspect that all these Hawaiian locals were asking "do you have snow?" out of some quiet wish to actually see some in person. As they say, "the grass is always greener...")
After the parade wound down, we spent a while walking up and down the street, checking in shops for souvenirs. An hour or so later, we were back on the bikes to finish the last leg of our ride. We were the last people from our van to return our bikes to the shop in Paia, though the woman at the shop said that in this case, it made us the "winners" -- the people who had stopped to enjoy the most on the ride down.
We kept on taking it slow for the rest of the day. We had lunch in the area, stopped and bought ourselves some authentic Hawaiian shirts from a local shop, and stopped to watch the waves at a nearby beach.
We allowed ourselves a short nap to make up for the day's early start, before dinner at an Italian restaurant called Fabiani's. I mention the meal because I was able to get ravioli in an amazing crema rosa vodka sauce -- the same kind of sauce that used to be served at a formerly loved lunch spot near my work. It was good.
After dinner, we were again early to bed, in anticipation of another fun morning.
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