Category: Uncategorized

Today Zaque asked out of the blue:

All of a sudden several of my servers went dark. I couldn’t access them, nor could I get to the firewall that connects to them. At first I thought it might be a hiccup in the internet connectivity to the datacenter, but after a few minutes I figured my firewall might have run into problems of some kind. I wrote to the colocation provider running the datacenter and asked if they could take a look, and this was their response:

Umm… what? My “power strip” is a six-foot-tall device bolted to the side of the cabinet, with a high-amp plug (not your standard wall outlet). It takes real effort to unplug that guy.

Luckily my servers all came back online fine, but wow.

When I’m captain of an ultimate team, I use a ‘D Board’ to track defensive plays. It’s a lot of fun, and now even more so because one of my teammates used his 3D printer to create a little trophy for the best defensive player of the night.

Our team name is “Discing with the Saurs” (the league’s theme is “dinosaur game shows”) so he made a simple letter “D” and added some scales and our team name. Pretty awesome.

Now I need to step up my defense, so I can take this bad boy home.

Following in the footsteps of her big brother, today Kyra left for her mission. She’ll start in Utah at the Missionary Training Center, and in two weeks she’ll head over to Bakersfield, California where she’ll serve for a year and a half.

She had a morning flight and the airport was surprisingly un-crowded, so we breezed through everything and were even allowed to accompany her to the gate! (You have to ask nicely.)

The long goodbye hug for mom:

(Actually, it wasn’t nearly as long as I’d expected, and there weren’t any tears.)

And away she goes!

We’ll see her again around April 2019. Godspeed, Sister Schroeder.

(( like ))

Yesterday, Kyra was set apart as a missionary. It was awesome to have Grandma and Grandpa come out to wish her farewell.

She has a little bit of packing to finish, but other than that she’s ready to go. We’re counting down to Wednesday…

About a month ago Laralee and I were shopping and saw an amazing shirt that was worth every penny of the $4.95 price. We bought it for Zaque, and he’s worn it about once a week, including for school picture day. Tonight we were having tacos, and it was hilariously appropriate:

It says “Tacocat spelled backwards is… Tacocat”. And of course there’s a cat embedded in a taco. Saweet.

Zaque is now officially a driver.

That is all.

Our beachfront hotel in Hana was amazing. It was sort of like a villa with around a dozen rooms, so it was cozy but really nice. Here’s the view from our balcony at sunrise:

The day started out grey and rainy, which isn’t surprising given the amount of rainfall this part of Maui receives. It was a warm rain, and varied between a light drizzle and a downpour. Conditions changed every few minutes, it seemed.

We headed along the road, this time touring the southeast curve of Maui. Like the Road to Hana along the north and northeast coastlines, this “highway” is barely more than a single-lane road with crazy sharp curves and blind corners, including long stretches that aren’t even paved. It’s certainly an adventure driving here!

We stopped at a beautiful waterfall alongside the road, somewhere near Mo’omo’onui Gulch (not a beautiful name).

After a few more quick stops, we found ourselves at Haleakala National Park, where the steady morning rain continued. Laralee and Megan decided to don their ponchos, and they looked quite fetching:

Kurt and I decided to hike in the rain, and within a few minutes the rain stopped, so we had the last laugh. We took a two-mile out-and-back trail to the Falls of Makahiku. The trail was fairly easy, and included a long stretch through a bamboo forest. I found that I just love hiking through bamboo: it’s so tall and dense and green, and in the breeze, the tops of the trees a hundred feet above sway gently while the wood knocks against other trees. The sound is haunting.

Although the rain had stopped, the air was so incredibly humid that everything was just dripping wet. That included my skin. I suspect there’s a point where there’s so much water in the air that sweat isn’t very effective, because the water on your skin simply doesn’t evaporate. I was covered with a sheen of water that was a mixture of sweat and rain. It was a weird sensation– sort of a feeling like you’d never be dry again.

At the end of the two-mile trail, we were rewarded with the most amazing waterfall we’d seen to date. Makahiku is an astounding 400 feet high, pouring over a sheer cliff face that’s teeming with vegetation. I feel like I keep using the word “breathtaking”, but this was… breathtaking. A simple camera can’t really capture the majesty of this scene.

We headed back and went to Ohe’o Gulch, which isn’t a very glamorous name. Apparently many moons ago (before this was a national park), a guy wanted to drum up some business for the area, so he named it the Seven Sacred Pools. In truth, there aren’t seven pools, and there’s nothing sacred about them at all– it’s just a clever marketing ploy. And it worked. The Seven Sacred Pools became legendary, and people traveled along the crazy Maui highways to see them. Unfortunately they were closed due to a rockslide earlier in the year, so we couldn’t swim in the pools, but we could still scramble around the surrounding rocks for some photos.

It’s beautiful, and I can see how it would be a cool experience to lounge in them.

As we continued along the southern highway, the landscape abruptly changed. In the lee of the mountain, there isn’t much moisture, so southern Maui is actually a desolate brown land. All of the moisture– more than 400 inches a year– falls near Hana, and when the clouds blow over the mountains they have no rain left to give. Everywhere you look, the land is peppered with black lava boulders. The difference from the lush green jungle just a few miles away is astounding.

The highway bends north in the middle of the island, and a long climb brought us to the other side of Haleakala. Here, you can go to the top of the mountain and look down into a “crater” that isn’t actually a traditional volcanic crater, but rather the result of erosion of the mountain, which was once much higher than it is now. The mountain is sort of enclosed in a perpetual cloud, and although the road goes above one cloud layer, up at the top it was pouring rain. We couldn’t see any of the incredible views over the vast crater and the faraway beaches.

We drove back down and had some dinner before heading to the airport for our long flight back home. We were all tired after so many packed days, but this was truly the most amazing place I’ve ever been.

Aloha, Hawai’i, until we meet again.

Today we went to Hana, which meant we had an opportunity to take the Road to Hana a second time. We’d intentionally covered only about half of it yesterday, leaving us time to enjoy the second half today. Once again, it was breathtaking and amazing.

Our first stop was Honomanu Beach, which is one of three “black sand” beaches along the northeast corner of Maui. These beaches are relatively rare, and also short-lived (meaning only a few hundred years) because the black lava rock that’s ground down by the force of water eventually disperses into the ocean. It’s really cool to see so many smoothed pieces of pumice, and walk in sand that’s jet-black.

From there we stopped at Ke’anae a second time– we didn’t spend enough time there yesterday, and there’s a famous little shop that offers legendary banana bread. Sadly, they’d sold their last loaf of bread just before we arrived. But the surf was still pounding the rocks, and I managed to capture some fascinating shots of splashing water frozen in flight.

Along the shoreline, there are little jet-black crabs that scuttle along the rocks. The waves pound on them, but somehow they manage to hold onto the rocks. It’s pretty cool. One of the crabs is visible just left of the top edge of this rock:

Nearby is a century-old church that survived a tsunami in the mid-Twentieth Century. It’s beautiful in this island setting, surrounded by waving palms and the incredible shades of green that pervade this area of the island.

We continued our journey along the road, stopping at a few notable waterfalls. Here’s a triple set that I really liked:

Right around that time, the mist that we’d been enjoying turned into a full rain storm. This is the part of Maui that averages more than an inch of rain every day, and apparently today was just another average day. (Humorous side note: later in Hana, I saw the seven-day weather forecast; every day said “showers likely”.) Everything is basically damp all the time, which means things like bridges are covered in moss, and guardrails are rusty.

Pua’a Ka’a Falls are gorgeous, even in the rain.

Near the falls was this rooster. He just sort of stood around, walking slowly. It’s funny to see the wild chickens and roosters that seem to pervade the island. (They were on O’ahu as well.)

Our next stop was the tiny village of Nahiku, which is apparently known as the “most beautiful place in the world to live”. It’s basically about a dozen homes– most looking pretty worn-down– but indeed, it’s a stunning place. The road to get to the village is, like the Road to Hana itself, a series of crazy switchbacks along one-lane roads. It’s funny to see a bunch of mailboxes at the end of the road.

There’s also a school bus stop, with a note that instructs visitors not to park there because it’s the only place a bus can turn around to head back up the road.

A familiar site in Maui is the abandoned car. I’m guessing that it’s prohibitively expensive to take a junked car and ship it somewhere for disposal, and it’s also expensive to get a tow truck up in the mountain roads to haul the car away. So people apparently just drive them off to the side of the road and walk away. It probably doesn’t take long for the jungle to completely overgrow the vehicle.

As we walked through Nahiku toward the ocean, we found what can only be described as the most amazing swimming hole in the world. It’s a little pool of deep, crystal-clear water that’s fed by a small waterfall. One can jump from a twenty-foot cliff into the water (I would have done it in a heartbeat if I hadn’t been fully clothed). We hung around there for a while, and Laralee commented that it was the best place we’d visited thus far. Here’s a shot that really doesn’t do it justice:

(Notice the rope swing at the top right of the picture, which is handy for leaping out into the middle of the pool.)

As the sun was setting, we arrived in Hana on the eastern shore of Maui. We hiked around a couple of beaches and celebrated another day in paradise.