Pedley's Ponderings

I'm not an overly adventurous guy. I enjoy experiencing new things once in a while, but I generally stick to what I know.

With that in mind, you can imagine how out of my element I was earlier this month driving the Hana Highway on Maui Island. Kaity and I decided to take the route during our honeymoon in Hawaii, and though it was beautiful, I bit off way more than I could chew.

I had never heard of the thing until Kaity brought it up after we landed. Here's a brief description from the blog Hawaii Guide if you're unfamiliar:

"There are few words that can describe the beauty of this drive with its cliffs cloaked in green and lush valleys bursting with waterfalls. Curves hug the coast and gaze over an ocean that stretches uninterrupted all the way to the Alaskan coastline. Couple that with black, red and white sand beaches, a multitude of trails and beautiful gardens, and you've discovered the highway to heaven itself."

That write-up doesn't exaggerate. The landscape along the Hana Highway is breathtaking, with each turn revealing masterpiece after masterpiece. It's sure to leave you in awe if you ever drive it – that is, if you're in the passenger seat.

I've never endured a more terrifying and anxiety-ridden drive in my life. The road is indeed narrow, simply because its carved out of cliffs with 200-feet drop-offs straight into the ocean. I hate heights and I felt like I was going to drive straight off the edge on every curve during the way back. Kaity could have reached out and touched the guardrail the whole way down because the road is so tight.

I internally screamed every time I approached a curve and saw nothing but ocean behind it. Suffice it to say, it felt like every organ inside of me was in my throat the entire drive. It was way more stress than I signed up for on my honeymoon – I was promised Mai Tai's and beaches!

The road eventually takes you to the tiny town of Hana. I was mentally frazzled upon arrival, and though we could have traveled farther and seen more magnificent sights, we were both spent. We walked on a beach for a while and promptly climbed back into our rented Hyundai for the journey back to our hotel.

The worst thing about the road isn't the heights, hairpin turns or one-way bridges – it's the drivers. The Hana Highway is packed with idiot tourists like me that have barely a general idea of what they're doing. Locals depend on the road to get them where they need to be on a daily basis, so I could forgive them for riding my butt when they caught up to my vehicle. I honestly should have had a slow-moving vehicle sign attached to it. I probably pulled off to the side a dozen times during the drive, but that didn't stop somebody from somehow double-passing me and another car on the way to Hana. It's a small miracle I only got flipped off once.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief and uttered a few curse words when we pulled into our parking spot at the hotel. Though I generally hated the stressful drive, Kaity pointed that now we can say we traveled one of the most dangerous, beautiful highways in America. That's good enough for me; however, I wish I would have bought a bumper sticker to prove it.

We decided that we're going to save $20 a week from here on out and return to Maui for our 10-year anniversary with a "free" trip. I won't be driving the Hana Highway again, but I would be interested in taking a mini bus tour of the road. I speak from experience when I say it's absolutely no fun being the driver. You can't truly appreciate the sights when you're so afraid of driving off a cliff that your eyes never leave the pavement.

Nick Pedley is the news editor of The Hartley Sentinel-The Everly/Royal News.