Exploring the island paradise of Lana'i

Lana'i is a tiny Hawaiian island near Maui. It has one small idyllic town located in the center of the island. Paved roads radiate out in only three directions. Despite its small size, it's a wonderful place. People are friendly and welcoming. There are no chain retailers, gas stations, or restaurants anywhere on the island. The exception to this rule is the two Four Seasons resorts.

We took a friends trip over a three day weekend. At first it seemed that three days may have been too many for such a small place. Most people explore it as a day trip from Maui, if at all. In the end though, none of us was ready to leave. We rented an Airbnb, one of the few on the island, and a 4x4 Jeep via text message from a guy named Bart (sounds legit, right???). I was a little apprehensive that the Jeep would actually be at the airport, but there it was, sitting right out front.

Our first stop was the Lanai Cat Sanctuary. Hawaii has a major feral cat problem. This facility rounds up the strays on lanai, spays/neuters, and provides the cats with a safe, comfortable life. There were 593 cats in residence when we visited. Most were super friendly, which is uncommon for feral cats. The constant stream of visitors petting them and playing with them helps a lot. The goal is adoption, but the rate is low. Instead, most of the animals are kept fed and free roaming in a giant pen with cat beds, hideouts, baskets, and any number of places for cats to curl up. They're given shots and cured of diseases. Mike's goal was to pet them all. I bet he made it close to half. They loved him!

Next we followed a rich red dirt road to a 4x4 road leading to the ruins of Kaunolu Village site. Here was a historical loop detailing a typical Hawaiian village. There was also a big cliff (60') at the top said to test the might of warriors and the morals of criminals. If one survived the jump, he was declared innocent of the crime. It was nice and windy up there. Mike's shirt was protecting my shoulders and blew off the edge but stuck to the rock part way down. He climbed down to get it. YIKES!!

We checked into the Airbnb where the neighbor suggested a visit to the cultural center up the road. We walked and realized it looked pretty dark. I opened the door and looked around, setting off the alarm. The door was locked, but hadn't shut properly. I promptly shut it and we waited for the police to show up. Instead, one of the curators let us have 30 minutes since it was closed for the weekend. He was a wealth of knowledge. We really enjoyed looking around and learning about the island.

That evening, we went to Sweetheart Rock to watch the sunset. It was lovely and is a nesting ground for some sort of awkward ground bird. I say awkward because we almost stepped on several in the dark on the way back. The first seemed damaged waddling very low to the ground. Turns out, that's just how they are. hmmmm... We took a few minutes to explore the gorgeous Four Seasons resort and made guesses at the room rates for a night. None of us was even close. I looked up a random weekend in January and the cheapest I could find was $2550 for two nights. YIKES! The best part about that whole thing was realizing how amazing the stars are from Lana'i. I stopped on the side of the road away from all the lights and we spent some time searching for usually obvious constellations. It's AMAZING when there are just so many stars that the few brightest don't seem so obvious.

Day two was a trip out to Shipwreck Beach on the northeast edge of the island. There are about two miles of dusty dirt road leading to the beach with the best view of the wreck. We parked and walked another mile or so in toward the ship. It's a cool old hulking mass that was run aground in 1954. From the beach, both Maui and Molokai looked close enough to paddle to. Also near the beach is a big rock with a ton of petroglyphs. Some are clearly very old. Others look to be a bit more recent... Or maybe really recent.

Once we got back to town the rain started to come down. It absolutely poured! This meant no Munro Trail or most of the loop we'd planned for the day. We'd already been warned the 4x4 roads were too muddy for most of it to be passable. Instead, we showered, ate and went to the newly renovated theater to see the latest Thor movie, because he's super pretty (this might have only been my reasoning:)) We followed the movie with dinner at Lanai City Bar and Grille which was clearly the fanciest place away from the resorts. They had live music. It was clean and fun with good food.

When we walked back home, there was lightning all around. I LOVE lightning storms, but I haven't lived anywhere that has them since I left Utah. It's just not very common on O'ahu or Western Washington. We piled in the car and drove out of town looking for the huge herds of deer that roam the area at night. We found them! They were very shy of our headlights and their glowing red eyes were a bit eerie as they scattered. We stopped the car at a clearing and watched the lightning storm in silence.

The last day was the Garden of the Gods. This is what I'd been most looking forward to. It's this bizarre lunar/Martian landscape in a huge wildlife preserve. There are big round, red rocks everywhere. The dirt is a swirl of colors from a pale mint green to purple to the abundant rust red. Long grasses swirled in the breeze on hillsides on one side of the road. It's a beautiful place and it was all ours. We saw one other Jeep. The road was pretty smooth, but had one section that was really muddy from the night before. It felt a little like surfing to drive in it.

Frisbee in the park, playing on the jungle gym and swings, and some moose tracks ice cream rounded out the day. Gas for the Jeep was $4.68 per gallon at the solitary gas station. We returned the car and amused the TSA folks in the one room terminal by playing Heads Up, where a word lights up a phone screen placed on the "it" person's forehead and everyone else has to hint or act it out. My favorite round was dance moves. Utterly hilarious! A 30 minute jumper flight had us home in no time. What an amazing trip! Rachel, Brad, Camille, Thomas, and Mike, THANK YOU for the adventure!!!