Thursday, March 5, 2009

Hawaii - Day four

Friday, October 31


This morning we drove around the west side of Maui to the old whaling town of Lahaina. In the town square there is a banyan tree, planted in 1875. Today it covers a whole city block. It looks like a forest, but on closer examination you can see that each separate trunk comes down from a branch of the original tree, and that everything is connected. It is larger in area than any other tree in North America.


We wandered through the shops along the waterfront for most of the day, stopped for lunch at "Cheeseburger In Paradise" and ate on the second floor, open on all sides to the tropical breezes, and had a leisurely meal overlooking the harbor. It took some time to eat, since the cheeseburgers, complete with a slice of cooked pineapple, are the largest I’ve ever seen. It was more than enough for lunch and dinner combined.


About halfway back from Lahaina we stopped at a beautiful beach and sat watching surfers and distant boats as the sun set in the ocean near the island of Lana'i. As the sunset colors faded from yellow toward orange and red, a lovely thin crescent moon appeared right next to bright Venus halfway up the evening sky.

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