(Just a reminder that you can enlarge photos by clicking on them and comments at the bottom are always appreciated) It was another gorgeous day Sunday, so we decided to drive over to the other side of the island near Wailuku to visit the Ioa Valley Monument. It's a very beautiful, lush valley surrounded by tall mountains in the rainforest part of Maui, which is the opposite side of the island from Lahaina. Inside the valley is the rock formation known as the Iao Needle. The native Hawaiians thought it was the phallic symbol of the God of the Sea, Kanaloa. This was the site of the Battle of Kepaniwai waged between the invading King Kamehameha forces from Oahu and the Maui forces of King Kehekili. The battle was so horrible that they said the dead ... read more

I probably haven't mentioned it, but the weather so far has not been typical of Maui, even in February. A couple days were marred by passing showers and the temperatures were below normal. The average temperature here at this time is about 65 F at night and 76-80 F in the day. There has recently been a system that has kept rotating around the islands bringing exceptional rain. They even got snow last Sunday on Haleakala volcano down to 6,200 ft. above sea level, the lowest recorded elevation to receive snow on Maui. Thursday was the only really bad day so far. It rained a lot and there was some flash flooding going on. The temperature only got up to 65 F that day, Valentine's Day. We were going to drive to the Iao Valley on ... read more

Everything went just fine on our flight here, but once we got here, things took a slight turn for the worse. No big deal, just minor annoyances. Enough to make you wonder if this was not going to be a real good vacation. After checking in to our resort, we headed to the supermarket to buy some provisions. We then headed to Java Jazz for dinner. Dan, Marilyn and Jan went inside and when I was getting out of the Nissan Armada ( a very nice SUV) The guy in a pickup truck next to me says "Did she have to hit my car so hard with that door?" I thought, what is he talking about? Jan got out on his side. I've never seen her bang a door into a vehicle. And I never heard ... read more

I'm sure everyone is tired of the cold by now since it has really clobbered all of the Midwest. But, again it was -25 last night in Land O' Lakes. Have to pass on what the owner of Bauer's Dam, Donna, said yesterday; "Polar Vortex my butt. This is what we used to call winter." This is very true of the weather way up here. Sub zero temperatures are kind of the norm over the years here. It was going to be a little warmer today with a high of -5 forecast. We saddled up and headed down the trail around 10:30 with the temperature still -18. At least there was very little wind. We were dressed for it with thermal underwear, warm pants, 3 layers on top, super warm boots, very good snowmobile bib pants ... read more

Well, everyone knows the middle of the country is in a deep freeze and it's even colder here in the north woods of Wisconsin. It got down to -14 degrees last night about 8:00 PM when we went to dinner at Brew's Pub in Land O' Lakes. The forecast high for the day was right around zero, so we thought we would ride in Wisconsin instead of Michigan because the trails are in the woods and twisty, which keeps you warmer. The pit stops are closer together in Wisconsin also. We were going to ride with both Pat and Dawn Keefe and met them at a trail intersection about 7 miles southwest of town. The Frosty Club in Land O' Lakes groomed the trails again last night and they were nice and smooth. All of the ... read more