teamEggers

The boat where I met my soul mate…

…and… I can’t remember her name for the life of me.  More on that later.

A few years back I took my mom on this sailing trip when she came out for a visit.  I packed the stemless wine glasses, a bottle of pinot gris, a baguette, fruit & cheese, and we set out for an hour and a half sailing around Elliot Bay.  For the milage of momma-happiness I got out of that trip, it was literally the best $25 I’ve ever spent. I tried (in vain) to get back there this summer, but failing that I knew that I wanted to recreate the experience for her when we were in hawaii.

Now the tricky part is finding a boozy sailing cruise that’s not on a giant yacht with lackluster catered food and overpriced cocktails. Challenge accepted.

In particular, I was looking for a boat that was close to the water and had a little bit of an edge. Somewhere you wouldn’t be safe wearing high heels. (This trip had a recurring theme of “doing things michelle wouldn’t ordinarily do”)

One of my least favorite things growing up, that now fascinates me endlessly, is my mom’s ability to make friends anywhere. And everywhere. She will literally talk to anyone. (She recently called me while is was in Vegas, and the guy next to me picked up my phone and answered it. My mom had a really pleasant 20 minute conversation with my friend Travis, who was talking in a combination of accents and referring to himself as “sergio”. They talked about sports and that sailing trip and I can’t be positive, but I think travis might have referred to Brett Favre as “donkey balls”.) I digress.

She’s talking to the girl (and her husband) that I would later name my soulmate. I effin loved this canadian girl. She was neurotic in exactly the same ways I am.

Did you notice our sweet sunburn lines? Oh to be pasty white.

…and just a few more for the sake of using a few more pictures…

Oh, Mai Tai. I love you.

Let’s see. What’s next? How bout some mai tais. And skies that are the colors of mai tais.

I made this commitment for the week to drink as many mai tais as humanly possible. Luckily, I also carried around a little sack of advil and a water bottle with me most places, so we were in pretty good shape.

There was a place near our condo in Kihei that had a really neat little deck and mega mai tais in crazy tiki mugs. Crazy.

On the downside, it was so ghetto looking on the outside that I almost didn’t go in. Luckily, jon’s way less judgy than I am because their patio was great. In general, jon’s a better person than I am.

More sky.

Doesn’t this look like burning fiery pits of death? Nope! it’s more sky.

The end of the “road to hana”. etc.

You might be wondering why I left the last post so… awkwardly. Or you know, if we’ve met before, you probably didn’t even notice that I was being more awkward than usual. First, read this sign, which was at the beginning of the trail to red beach.

In addition to being fairly awkward, I’m also not very sure-footed. Remember the mountain goats of months past? I’m pretty much not that. Anyways, I was certain that I was going to die on the way to the red beach. Jon was all spry and gung-ho, my mom chickened out and went back to the car, and I just got frustrated at my lack of dexterity and trudged on.

Doesn’t it look like you might die on this?

Totally worth it.

I’m a super big fan of ice cream, so on the way home we stopped at this little roadside coconut ice-cream shop

If Molly Moon moved to Hawaii and fell in love with a coconut, they’d make little baby mollies in these flavors:

The ice cream being delicious was not the point of this particular story. I had forgotten to tell you the point of this story. Earlier in the day, jon found some coconuts. But dude, coconuts are hard as fuck to open. And this tough coconut chick and her machete helped us!

… worth it.

This sunset didn’t happen on the road to hana, but it’s pretty so I wanted to show you. And it matches my coconuts. Heh.

Aloha!

Road to Hana, el dos. (That means 2.)

ONE more waterfall for you, friends. And we had to hike to get there. And it was teeny tiny in the distance and until we saw it, I was fairly convinced that it didn’t exist and we were walking up the slow climb to our hawaiian death. And at first, I was convinced that Fodors wanted me to climb down that cliff into the lake that’s below. That would have be the worst, but I had been having such a good time that day that I probably would have done it if the book clearly said that I should. Because the book knows. And you have to trust in Fodors. Or something.

And then we got there, and after nearly getting stuck in a knee-deep puddle of life-sucking mud, I decided to jump in. Because at the very least, I had to wash my leg off. And I gotta say… this was the fucking coldest thing I’ve ever felt in my freakin life. COLDEST thing. In my entire. life. It was so cold, I’m totally confused how I got jon to come in and join me. Because he’s usually smarter than I am. We couldn’t stop laughing, it was so cold.

Onward, eh? We had packed a picnic for lunch and decided to find a spot to have a quick bite to eat. Luckily, there’s no shortage of beautiful on the road to hana.

The day before we had stopped at the local farmers market and picked up things to make a pineapple and papaya salsa. That evening, we put it on top of fish that we grilled, but also packed some to much on with tortilla chips during the day. It was so good. Fruit tastes better there, which I’m sure just speaks to the localvore movement: if your food doesn’t need to travel very far, it’s going to taste better.

Enough of these giant black rocks, we’re really hoping for some tiny little black rocks that we can swim on top of. Like these! Because you know, black “sand” – not super soft. More like… crunchy little little black mini rocks.

Look at this freakin cool sand?

Look at how totally happy my mom is!

And she’s swimming in the ocean for the first time ever!

And that was our big black adventure. What other kind of adventures can we have? How about a treacherous red one?

Yeah. But more on that later, because getting there was a little tricky. And you know, I need some time to like… work up to the story. But really, I just want to go to bed. Because it’s 8:30 and it’s kind of past my bed time.

The Road to Hana, part 1.

jon: “good, well. that’s a good start. let’s just um… keep going.”

Let’s start with the Road to Hana, even though it wasn’t the first nor the most important part of the trip, I think we all really enjoyed it.

Along the northern coast of Maui is a twisty curvy highways to a small town called Hana. This trip really embodies the idea of “enjoy the journey, not the destination”.

A big part of the reason we rented a convertible was for this trip.

Really cool to smell the guava in the air, look up and see the rainforest canopy, and have an unencumbered view of the world around. It was one of the most unique driving experiences I’ve ever had. (Thank god, btw, that I wasn’t driving. Jon’s a way better driver than I am.)

There are these official “Road to Hana” CDs that you can buy for $20, start at the beginning of the highway, and then listen along as you pace along the coast. The concept is really cool, but we took a more DIY approach and I read out loud from the Fodor’s guide as we progressed.

The guide had us stop at different mile markers and bends in the road, hike into hidden pathways, and peek at things that wouldn’t have been obvious without inside knowledge. Some of them were fairly mainstream and well populated, and at others we were the only group around.

Even the well-worn paths had tricky moments, reminding you that pioneer square isn’t the only place you really need to keep an eye on your foothold. teamEggers, meet my mom, who was an incredibly good sport while I prodded her into doing all kinds of things that were outside of her comfort zone:

One of the cool things about rain forests is that it makes things grow a lot. Jurassic Park style. Look how big this plant is!!!

A highlight of the trip for me was swimming under waterfalls. I jumped in after 3 different hikes. Wearing your swimsuit all day might be uncomfortable, but moments like that made it totally worth it. Who cares if the other people around think you’re a wacko for stripping down and climbing into a slimy puddle? Worth it.

Our next stop has us pull along the side of the road where we’re greeted by this really welcoming gate:

We quickly found a way to climb around and were treated with this awesome pool of slimy rocks. No. The rocks were literally furry they were so full of pond scum. But I’ll have you know, that didn’t detour me! I got right in there, swam my cold tuckous over to that waterfall, and enjoyed myself.

One of the main reasons we were in hawaii was because my mom had always wanted to go to a black sand beach. It’s one of those travel-channel things that most people don’t actually get to experience, and so we were really eager to find them. They’re around here somewhere…

We thought we spotted something off in the distance, and there’s only one way to go from here, so we kept driving in search of a place for a picnic.