It is not the destination it is the journey. The Road to Hana is 36 miles long. It is a beautiful drive, but most of it is 20 miles per hour and people are encouraged to get out and enjoy the various sites. In essence, lock your family in the car until someone complains enough to stop.
We started the journey early in the morning - 8:00am. We reached the beginning of the journey at 8:30 am. The kids did not understand that we were traveling to Hana for the trip and not to necessarily spend time in Hana. There are many stops in the first 20 miles that I wanted to stop at that were ether restricted or difficult to get to. I was getting frustrated because I just wanted to stop and enjoy. People picked up on my frustration and were very quiet. A decision was made to go to an area around mile 23. We got out and found a swimming hole that was fed by a waterfall. The water was extremely cold. However, it was an awesome experience and in the end, I am glad that we found the location to swim in a waterfall. The boys and I jumped in and out of the waterfall. It was a great experience while MJ took pictures from the side. In her defense, it was extremely cold water - not her thing.
The second stop that was chosen was the black sands beach. It is exactly as it sounds. The beach is covered with black sand and rocks. While it is truly not different from many other beaches, it is a cool experience to be on a black sand beach. Jake and I immediately started climbing rocks. Luke loved to just ride the waves in the ocean. It was a great sight and I was so happy to be surrounded by my family to experience something so visually different. At the same location there were caves. We walked to the cave and we saw a small pond feeding into the cave which looked really cool. I was ready to jump in and swim around in it. However, there was a topless family. Dad, mom and baby daughter all topless, so we just kind of were in awe and decided to move on instead of hanging out with them.
We reached Hana, used the bathroom and turned around to do the 36 miles back. We stopped at the halfway point for a snack. It is a crazy drive with many one way bridges and rides high along the coast. It was quite a sight and after 8.5 hours in the car, we all survived. Quite a great day.