Music Makers: Road to Hana Part 1

Hey hey! How are you on President's Day?

Let me tell you that I am very glad to be back in my home! The sun came out today, and I got to take the first walk I've taken in 3 weeks with Jackson. W and I took it extremely easy last night, doing one load of laundry and halfway unpacking. We caught up on some HBO shows we have missed and had an early bedtime. Now it's a matter of getting back into the groove now that we're not on a small island.

I just want to say, for the record, and to repeat what I've said so many times, I love my home. I really do love this place.

I'm going to talk about the Road to Hana a little bit. We drove it two weeks ago today. The Hana Highway stretches from central Maui to eastern Maui and follows the coast all the way. It's a truly unforgettable road. It's a road that makes you forget your middle name. For a second, you think that you're an angel living in paradise. And because everything is so beautiful, by the end of it, you are not that surprised to see a waterfall the size of the batman building (landmark and characterizing building of downtown Nashville), that would have left you completely breathless, maybe paralyzed by the sheer mesmerizing size and beauty of it, 10 hours beforehand. A short road trip that will live on for years.

My explanation of this day trip will be dizzying and all over the place. But I'm just going to start from and end where I want to with all of it. You'll get the full effect, but I'm going to start in the middle, maybe jump back to the beginning, maybe go back towards the middle, slow down, turn around, park it, make a U-turn, take you over a bridge, and then stop and reverse. These anecdotes and scenes I set up will be short and brief, because yes, I am back in real life where I have things to do and fish tacos to amateurishly cook.

At one point, in the middle of the journey, we pulled over. Actually, we pulled over at many points because there was so much pretty stuff to see it was almost annoying. I was probably getting annoying to my skillful driver who, even though he loves me, was a little irked every time I screamed "Oh my goodness! Pull over! Please pull over here. Did you see that? You have to pull over. I have to take a picture with your phone? Where's your phone? Oh I have it. Hold on, pull over and I'll take a picture."

Often, these excursions involved jumping out the car like a wild banchee (don't know what it is--love the expression),  swinging from trees like a monkey, crawling through forests like a squirrel, hanging off a cliff like an eagle.

This time, I had to tap into my high school track runner version of myself. I sprinted like an olympian across a narrow, one-way bridge,  around a narrow, tight and limited sight curve, down into a valley to take a picture of something that inspired me that I happened to spot briefly as we drove by. My husband thinks I'm a looney tune, but at least I'm making some music...

"We are the music makers"

"And we are the dreamers of dreams." -Willy Wonka

So yeah, you can't see what it says that well. I took it with a cell phone, what do you expect? The point is that panting like big Jackson after his walk today, fearing for my life a tad bit, scared of getting run over by one of the 600 other Hana tourists on the road, I got the picture. The tree they have pinned the colorful sign on is a eucalyptus tree. It's a variety of eucalyptus. Maybe you can see its neon orange, green, purple and blue colors. This tree, I actually learned in Costa Rica, is glow-in-the-dark. It's so cool-looking. You feel like you're in some kind of strange avatar world when you see it. Actually, you feel like you're in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. You know the scene of that candy land, where they all go crazy over all the stuff, the chocolate river and all? Their branches look magical too.

It was just plain neat to see these trees in this little field, separated for my special convenience about 30 yards from each other, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I would have taken a picture of them without the awesome quote signs. But of course, they were there. And it was so neat. I had to risk my life and realize how out of shape I was to take them. Even if you can't read it. You get the gist I'm sure. 

At this point, I'm just thinking, looking at this tree, God has some funky designs up his sleeve. What a colorful life. 

It's true. We are the music makers and the dreamers of dreams. 

Dreamily,

Liza Jane

PS: You may have noticed the ads. Sorry, a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.