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…

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.

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!

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.

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.

Jon thinks I type like a retard because I hold my pinkies out like I’m having tea.

And I’m supposed to tell you about Hawaii now, but I gotta say – I just don’t have it in me anymore. Not hawaii, that is, but the ability to blog in a coherent, non rambling way. Maybe I should start drinking more. That used to be a recurring theme in my blogging days, so maybe that’s the missing link!

So. Let’s do this. I’m just going to play photo-roullette and pick pictures at random and then tell you about them. How’s that for incoherent and the opposite of cohesive?

You know, steve jobs, you’re really making me into a terrible speller. And lazy. I blame all my laziness on you.

Here are some chickens!

After the denali trip, we headed back to anchorage to buy some authentic eskimo gear…

Wait. that’s not true! But I did come home with some pink fox-fur ear muffs that match my hot pink hair really well, and jon has a fancy pair of native-made otter mittens. I… dont have a picture of that for some reason.

Fortunately I do have lots of pictures from our trip to Whittier, where we floated along the Prince William Sound and got up close and personal with some glaciers.

But before we get to that, we have to get to that. So we boarded a train…

You can throw your camera in the woods and it will come back to you full of incredible pictures. Alaska is breath taking. The ride to the glaciers was no different – just lovely lovely everywhere you look.

Once we got to Whittier, I had a quick snack on some halibut…

…and we boarded our little cruise ship around the sound.

It was one of those “dinner cruises”, which Ann & Rick had previously done in another location and didn’t have super high reviews of.

We were all really pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food! Prime rib, salmon, and a wild-rice dish.

Gosh, this place was just magical. Even before we saw a glacier.

The glaciers were pretty spectacular themselves.

They told us that only 5% of people in the world have the chance to see one in person. We have a good life.

Yep. They fished that stuff out of the water and made me a margarita with it.

And I’m not going to lie. It was magical.

I’ll leave you with a picture of the extended anchorage-version of teamEggers:

We hop in this teeny tiny plane, don some headsets, and take off for the glaciers of denali national park. When I say “teeny tiny”, i mean it.

The “braided river” seems to be fairly common in the area (i posted one a few weeks months ago from denali state park) – something about the way the ice melts irregularly, etc. Actually, I think I’m just making things up now. Look! pretty!

It’s really hard to pick just a few photos to show you from this trip.

I’m only kind of sorry for how prolific they are about to get.

“Only kind of” because… dude, my life is awesome. Let’s be honest.

We landed on this glacier, just south of the Denali peak.

I’m wearing a fleece and a scarf when we start the trip because I was told it was *so cold* up there – midway through the glacier landing, I had stripped down to a tank top. Again, we were blessed with incredible weather.

J and I don’t wear sunglasses, but they know it’s wicked sunny up there, so they give us these sweet glasses to use. rockin.

I love this picture because it looks like the sun is ripping out of the sky.

This one’s my desktop image. It’s a keeper for sure. I might even print it.

Well. Maybe not snowmen.  More like sunburn. But I could have made a snowman while I was getting a sunburn, I tell you what.

Another one of my debbie-downer moments happens when I heard that we were going on an 8 hour bus tour through the park. eight hours. bus tour. Can I just < slash > my wrists now?

Turns out, the bus was spacious, nearly empty and also the only way to get that far into Denali state park.

And we matched that day. Which for some reason I seem to care about.

First critter of the day was a moose, about 10 feet from the bus.

Trivia: what’s a reindeer called when you’re not able to pet its fuzzy little head and feed it seeds out of your hand? It’s a caraboo.

A friend of mine asked about the increase in elevation that we did – really wondering about the change in scenery. We climbed about 1000 feet, and it was really cool to see how the vegetation and animals changed over that span. Because of the frozen tundra below, the trees started to become dwarfed: they grow much slower and smaller because of the diminished water and nutrients available in the rocky soil.

Because Denali is veiled in clouds so often, many visitors will come to the area and leave without glimpsing the mountain even once. We were not only blessed with perfect weather, but also very clear skies. Quite arresting.

Up a little farther and the trees are all but gone.

Dahl sheep…

Bears!

I am endlessly fascinated by jon’s curls. I started calling him “jondy locks” for a little while.

so. many. pictures.
This is a “ground squirrel”. They look / behave a little like prairie dogs or meercats.

And I haven’t even gotten to the snow part of our post today. We’ll have to get to that tomorrow, eh?  It’s all feast or famine here at teamEggers.

Denali is a perfect example of how ridiculous I am. But we’ll get to that.

Not only did I not want to go, but I had somehow convinced myself that spending three days in nature would just be the worst thing I’ve ever done. Clearly, I tell you this to illustrate how ridiculous I am and to show you our super awesome pictures from what ended up being the highlight of the trip. But before we actually get to denali, we have to take the road to denali.

Reindeers. Real. Huh. Who knew.

Now I do! Superawesomevideo!!!!!

Did you know their antlers are fuzzy like velvet in the spring each year when they’re growing?

I generally take too many pictures. Compounding this problem is that we were hanging out with Rick who also generally takes too many pictures (and has a way better camera than I do). I have a lot of reindeer pics to share.

I have to say, I love me some petting zoo.  It’s my 3rd favourite travel activity.

Hm… What else can I pet around these parts? Musk Ox!

Come here you over grown goat. Lemme feed you some grass.

But really. Let’s get on the road already. 4ish hours north of Anchorage, we see denali clearly ahead in the distance.

Well, as “clearly” as one ever sees it, that is.

We perched that weekend at a little B&B just north of Denali state park. Generally, we think B&Bs are unnecessarily creepy (do I want someone to make me breakfast in their kitchen and talk to me about their cats? no. not really.), but this one was pretty awesome. Had a great view…

Hands down, this is my favourite way to enjoy nature. Behind glass, wine in hand.

Stay tuned. I’m two months late, but we’ll actually get to the park pretty soon.