HAWAII, HIGH WING, HELICOPTER & HĀNAI!

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:07]So sweet.

[00:00:27]I recently took a family trip to Maui where we spent nine days in Kopali on the west side of the island. We enjoyed the company of my parents, my sister, and her family who all live in Austin.

[00:00:40]>> Now, this video is a little different than normal because I wanted to focus on spending the time with my family and not so much of it talking to a selfie stick camera. Maui has been a special place for my family for as long as I can remember. We have spent what is probably the better part of a year of our lives here over the years. Cassie and I got engaged here. We got married here. This was also our final trip together before Laney was born. It's been nearly 3 years since the Lahina fires and I debated whether or not to speak on the subject or film any of the rebuilding efforts.

[00:01:09]But honestly, Lahina is rebuilding slowly and I decided to share a small glimpse of what that looks like today while being as respectful as possible to those who are still grieving what they lost. To me, it's a powerful reminder that no matter how difficult the circumstances are, you just can't give up. The people of Lahina certainly haven't.

[00:04:14]Heat. Heat.

[00:05:23]Yeah.

[00:05:35]What's up everybody? This week reporting in from Maui, Hawaii. And currently I'm on a boat.

[00:05:43]>> I'm on a boat. I'm on a boat.

[00:05:45]>> Luckily, I'm getting off the boat cuz we are heading to Maui Raceway Park. We're going to the drag races. The boat is already parked. It's going to be easy to get out of here.

[00:06:01]I can take your shopping.

[00:06:02]>> Honey, you're the best.

[00:06:03]>> Well, you did this.

[00:06:04]>> Nice cold. Whatever the moment, you'll have to mix it right.

[00:06:09]>> I'm going to look for maybe a salad.

[00:06:11]MAYBE.

[00:06:26]OKAY.

[00:06:49]HEY, can we shout out? Hey everybody, shout out to all.

[00:06:54]>> Yeah, right. I love it.

[00:06:58]>> Guys, >> dude, absolutely >> love it.

[00:07:13]All right. What did it happen? You know what happened when we hit that line?

[00:07:17]When I went up to the line, >> oh no.

[00:07:32]>> Stand next to it.

[00:07:36]>> Stand next to him.

[00:07:39]Turn your feet forward.

[00:07:46]And I put this switch down and I got a clutch. I have to do nothing at 75 sheep.

[00:07:55]85.

[00:07:56]>> You ready to take a rip?

[00:07:58]>> All dirty.

[00:08:03]>> OKAY.

[00:08:04]HAVE ONE OF YOU.

[00:08:05]>> OKAY.

[00:08:12]>> 2015.

[00:08:14]>> OH, there you go.

[00:08:26]Heat.

[00:08:45]Heat.

[00:09:03]HEAT.

[00:09:10]HEAT.

[00:09:15]HEAT.

[00:09:27]HEAT.

[00:09:41]Look at all the kids. Why is the hair on you? Um, Sorry, honey.

[00:11:34]>> So, there's this pretty wild, I guess, phenomenon that happens here in Hawaii twice a year.

[00:11:42]where the sun at this exact time, it's called Lahina noon, is directly 90° overhead and casts no shadow.

[00:12:17]for the insta. You know what happened to be? You're going to be the thumbnail on the video.

[00:12:22]>> Straight up.

[00:12:28]I don't know.

[00:12:34]Everybody sing.

[00:12:37]One, two, >> nailed it again. Let's go.

[00:13:15]Hey. Hey.

[00:13:23]It's easy. It's dark.

[00:14:03]Okay. Okay.

[00:14:22]Heat.

[00:14:51]Heat. Heat.

[00:15:26]No, I wasn't ready.

[00:15:35]Bro, that was not that.

[00:15:50]Good morning from Maui, Hawaii. This morning I'm going to fly a Cessna 172. I have never flown a Cessna. I've never flown any high-wing airplane before.

[00:16:05]Unfortunately, I'm going to be doing this on a solo mission. Cassie had to stay back cuz she wasn't feeling very well. You know, I suppose being crammed into the germ tubes of the sky with 400 other people on the 8 hour flight over, you're bound to breathe something up.

[00:16:25]So, anyhow, I do have a local CFI uh that's going to go with me. That way, I can have some help uh with controls.

[00:16:34]One, I don't know how to fly it. Okay.

[00:16:36]I've read through the PO, pretty familiar with takeoff, landing speeds, uh stall speeds, but I've never flown a Cessna. Anyhow, I'm going to need uh a little bit of help with the controls so that I can run the camera flying around the beautiful island of Maui here. I actually was set up to go with another uh aircraft rental. They texted me last night and said the aircraft is down for maintenance. They don't know when it's going to be back up. Flight cancelled.

[00:17:11]Boo. So, I found one other place. Shaka skies Shaka and said 9:00 am let's do it back to Shaka everybody in Hawaii does this all the locals do this that's hey what's up passing by hey thank you it's like the universal sign of like yeah bro a little history on where that came from it was 1910 guy's name was Hamana Khalili like this 7 foot tall Hawaiian dude working at the sugarcane factory. That was like the number one thing in agriculture that they were doing on these islands at the time was sugarcane.

[00:17:55]And Hamana worked in the factory. And the equipment that Hana was running has giant rollers that you shove the sugar cane through. It crushes it, presses it, and it squeezes out all of the juices.

[00:18:10]Well, Mr. Khalili's hand got caught in the machinery and all three of these fingers were taken.

[00:18:21]After that, his bosses said, "Hey, bro.

[00:18:25]Yeah, you're done running the machinery.

[00:18:28]Um, but what you can do is we need you to work outside on the train tracks. So, after the train gets loaded here, and they're hauling everything away, you're going to tell them that the coast is clear, the rail is clear, and that they can peace out. He's like, "Well, how am I supposed to tell them? Do I yell at him, wave at him?" They're like, "Yeah, you can yell. You can wave." Um, but they're going to be looking for you. And this is what Hamana did. He just waved at the train to tell them that the coast is clear. Well, on this same train were some local people that would hop on to catch a ride from one place to another.

[00:19:08]Um whether it was legally, illegally, I don't know. Uh but as they're driving away on the train, they see Hamana doing this, right?

[00:19:20]They don't realize that his fingers are missing and that's just him like waving.

[00:19:25]So all of the local people, local kids started started waving like this like, "Hey, see you. Hi and bye."

[00:19:37]Over the course of however many years, people from California and Australia, they come over, they see people doing this, they're like, "Dang, that's cool."

[00:19:47]So they take it back to their own homelands. Um, they were mainly surfer people. the surfer people from I'm in a tunnel.

[00:20:00]Anyhow, they're like, "Oh, look what we learned over here." And you know, when when you're surfing or doing something that's a little bit, you know, high adrenaline, you're pumped up. They would kind of give us the little the little pinky dingle that ended up being the wave. It has adopted to And that is the story of the shaka. And I did not make that up. There are some stories like that that I have made up.

[00:20:51]So, we got we got things. We got want one of these.

[00:20:57]>> Um, yeah, I'll take one of these.

[00:20:59]Absolutely.

[00:21:00]>> And let's go with the uh strawberry guava.

[00:21:02]>> All right.

[00:21:03]>> Grab one.

[00:21:04]>> Heck yeah.

[00:21:04]>> And then we got the uh water there. Diet Coke, whatever.

[00:21:08]>> Excellent.

[00:21:09]>> Have a seat.

[00:21:10]>> Cool.

[00:21:15]Heat. Heat.

[00:21:35]Heat. Heat.

[00:22:07]You get it. We'll contact ground.

[00:22:09]>> Pressure oil temperature are both in the green.

[00:22:12]>> Air speed is alive.

[00:22:12]>> Air speed is alive. Looking for 55.

[00:22:16]>> 55.

[00:22:17]already.

[00:22:18]>> Yeah.

[00:22:19]>> Oh man, you really got to pull back on this thing.

[00:22:21]>> Yeah.

[00:22:23]>> The 54 Hotel, start your right turn. Jet traffic.

[00:22:53]Heat. Heat.

[00:23:02]Heat. Heat.

[00:23:54]Heat Heat.

[00:24:18]Heat.

[00:24:47]Heat. Heat.

[00:25:02]Heat. Heat.

[00:25:23]piece right there.

[00:25:24]>> Yep. We're a little high.

[00:25:25]>> Ideally, you want two red, two white, but >> a little high is honestly fine with me.

[00:25:30]I already be hiding low.

[00:25:33]>> All right. You said 55 knots.

[00:25:35]>> Uh 65.

[00:25:36]>> 65.

[00:25:36]>> Yeah. All right.

[00:25:39]for approach so far.

[00:25:42]A little bit of rudder. There you go.

[00:25:49]Air speed looks good.

[00:25:54]And niner whiskey whiskey has 55 hotel on short final inight.

[00:26:01]>> Oh my goodness.

[00:26:04]There you go. Drop her down.

[00:26:07]>> Going to use some aerodynamic braking here. Yeah, want to just absolutely obliterate our brakes.

[00:26:17]>> 18 my tire traffic harbor left base runway 2 station.

[00:26:27]Turn right then echo over the ground. Thanks.

[00:26:31]>> That was a that was a great landing.

[00:26:33]Molly is crazy, bro, with our crosswinds.

[00:26:37]Oh, that was awesome.

[00:26:39]>> I did not feel like it was a great landing.

[00:26:41]>> Really, bro? There's there's some landings.

[00:26:43]>> Uh, you'd be you'd be surprised.

[00:26:46]>> Wow. All right.

[00:26:49]>> There's some there's crosswinds here, bro. Like, it'll my mind even though I'm an instructor and I'm like, >> that's that's pretty scary.

[00:26:58]>> Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you heard the AIS, so it's gusting 26 right now.

[00:27:03]Heck >> yeah. So, >> all right, leaving the airport now. I can say I have flown a highwing. Some people that talked all the crap about my first grass landing and how I was excited to do it. Oh, you just landed on grass.

[00:27:25]Well, I guess you can insert your comments here about, "Oh, you just flew a school trainer plane. Ooh, I liked it.

[00:27:34]I had a good time and I did it in Hawaii. So, bet you haven't done that.

[00:27:38]Anyways, tomorrow we're flying a helicopter.

[00:27:43]Well, it's the day of the helicopter and Mama Bear is feeling a little bit better. However, it was kind of a late night last night because Lenny got bit by something and her hand swole up like a freaking balloon and it had this little like liquid blister on it. So, we were chasing down infant medicine last night and uh I think she's doing okay today.

[00:28:12]Leaving her with the rents. Back at the hotel. We're going to hop on this helicopter here for a little bit.

[00:28:19]>> I'm excited. I'm a little nervous. I don't know. Should I be nervous? Maybe that's the feeling.

[00:28:25]>> I could understand.

[00:28:26]>> Maybe I'm just excited, but I think I'm nervous. That's what it is.

[00:28:30]>> I could understand being nervous for sure. Especially in something that you don't really know anything about. And neither do I. I don't know anything about helicopters.

[00:29:12]Oh, is this where you flew out yesterday, babe? over here.

[00:29:22]>> Yeah, the west m made out of volcanic rock. So very porous. When it rains, the water is able to travel around different areas, come out different spots through the cliffs back here. There's a spot we call back here the wall of tears. Just Heat.

[00:29:54]Heat.

[00:30:08]A lot of people think about Washington state as a pretty wet climate depending where you're at on the coastline there.

[00:30:13]You get between 60 to 100 inches of rain per year. Uh here on Maui, we can get over 300, some places up to 500 in of rain. Coming up ahead of us here, we have Nallele Point. You guys might have heard of the Nallelay blow hole.

[00:30:24]>> Oh yeah.

[00:30:25]>> Yeah. That's just a hole in the rock.

[00:30:26]the uh volcanic rock there when the waves come up, crash up against the shoreline there. Shoots up kind of a geyser, 30, 40 ft tall. So you guys will see the little road out our left side here. We call this the mini road to Hana. It doesn't take you to Hana, but uh you could drive around the whole northwest side of the island in a couple hours. Some of the single lane road, single lane bridges, kind of a cool drive.

[00:30:57]About a million and a half years ago, the island of Machai was split in half by a very large earthquake. The whole north side of the island split off, eroded away into the ocean ahead of us here, leaving back some of the tallest sea cliffs in the world. These are over 3,500 ft tall. So, for kind of a size comparison, you stack almost two and a half Empire State buildings on top of each other. These cliffs would be a little bit higher. But I think this is kind of Hawaii's bestkept secret unless you come out here on a helicopter ride.

[00:31:22]Not too many people get to see these or even know they exist. So, so the peninsula that you see ahead of us here, that is the Kalawa Papa Peninsula. You guys might have heard of that. It's a world famous leprosy colony. So, from the 1800s all the way up to 1969, believe it or not, they brought about 8,000 people out here who had uh leprosy to isolate them from the rest of the world. Very dark time in Hawaii's history. Majority of these people were Native Hawaiians.

[00:31:46]They bring them out here by boat, drop them off. There's not a dock or anything, so they'd have to swim ashore if they were strong enough. If not, uh they'd perish right there in the water.

[00:31:54]But I couldn't believe all the way up to 1969 after that they turned it into a historical national park.

[00:31:59]>> Oh my gosh.

[00:32:00]>> From my understanding, there's still about four to five people that live out here. They were born, raised, don't know much else about the rest of the world from the isolation. Um, so they're going to live the rest of their days out here.

[00:32:09]They're not forced to be out here, but there's a small airfield where they bring supplies about once a week. The only other way to get there is through a donkey trail through the the cliffs to the south side of the the island.

[00:32:26]make no heat.

[00:33:04]Drop me.

[00:33:18]Drop me.

[00:33:52]Drop me down.

[00:34:12]Down.

[00:34:32]>> Yay.

[00:34:36]>> What is it? Sound it out.

[00:34:41]E is silent.

[00:34:43]>> I don't know what silence means. Can we just tell them?

[00:34:46]>> Tell them.

[00:34:48]>> Race car.

[00:34:49]>> Race car.

[00:34:52]>> Good job, dude. Good job.

[00:35:03]>> 42,39 tickets.

[00:35:09]What is the most amount of tickets that anybody has ever won?

[00:35:13]>> 47,000.

[00:35:14]>> Oh, 47,000. We were so close. What do you want to get?

[00:35:18]>> I'm thinking that and just get like a bunch of these things and hand them out to random.

[00:35:26]>> I like that.

[00:35:28]>> 10,000.

[00:35:31]>> These are 10,000. Oh, yeah. You're definitely going to need way more than two large bags. Uh, we'll carry that.

[00:35:42]>> You want to give me the blue box at 41,900.

[00:35:56]>> You got a kid?

[00:35:57]>> Yeah.

[00:35:59]>> Take this one.

[00:35:59]>> That's what I'm talking about. Heck >> yeah, bro. Right on.

[00:36:04]>> Thank y'all.

[00:36:05]Thank you.

[00:36:09]>> Can I give you that?

[00:36:10]>> Yeah.

[00:36:12]>> Thank you so much. 279. Oh, >> thank you very much.

[00:36:14]>> Thank you.