Roughin It

Wahoo! I finally made it out to Hana to go camping. It was quite a quick trip, but so worth it. About eight of us made the trip out Saturday for Nicole's (my roomie) birthday. My friend Jason and I headed out Saturday morning, set up camp at Kipahulu campgrounds, actually a bit further than Hana. Some of you have been out to Hana to visit the 7 sacred pools - the same place where the hike up into the bamboo forest is. Kipahulu campgrounds is in that same turnout.

That first night was pretty relaxed - it was an early morning, so I crashed pretty quickly, but not before we enjoyed a few drinks and some delicious hot dogs from the grill. The diet was on hold for the weekend. Especially after Jace broke out the roasted garlic flavored Easy Cheese. Sometimes you just gotta let go.

Side note - that side of the island, it rains a lot, and without warning. So you have to have the rain cover for your tent, and you also have to be pretty easy going, because it can get miserable if you dwell on the fact that you're getting soaked every couple hours or so. The breaks in the clouds are worth it though. Seriously.

My favorite overheard comment of the weekend was right after I climbed into my tent. I was just settling in for a marginally comfortable night's sleep under the stars, when I heard from the neighboring rowdy crowd of 20-something surfer wannabes....."Duuuude, are you on acid tooooo?". It was awesome.

Our Sunday morning is sure to be one of my favorite memories of my time spent here. I was the only up for sunset, and it was phenomenal (see pictures!!).

There are some die-hard coffee drinkers in the group, and we were planning an excursion to a little oasis in Kaupo that made smoothies and coffee - but they made them with a blender powered by a bicycle. I was so excited to check it out, so all eight of us piled into Nicole's pickup, and headed down the road Maui locals-style. Unfortunately, but also typical Maui, the coffee shack doesn't open until 11am. Uh - huh.

Anyhoo....we ended up just continuing on down the road until we couldn't go any further just for the fun of it. Some of you may remember when you could drive all the way around the island (and we did one year! fun!), but since the earthquake and some storms a while back, the road has been closed indefinitely. But the beaches down there are quite majestic, with the rain-forest jungle on one side, and black sand inlets on the other. We stopped several times. On the way back, we stopped off at the Palapala Ho'omau Church, which is an open worship building with lots of books and history about Hana on display. It's a really neat atmosphere - and there is a small unassuming graveyard where none other than Charles Lindbergh is buried. I didn't have my camera because I though we were just shooting out for the coffee, but you can actually see some pics here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh (scroll down to the Later Years/Death section, and you'll see a picture of his grave). And a picture of the cute little church: http://somanyplaces.blogspot.com/2006/01/palapala-hoomau-congregational-church.html

The rest of the day was spent driving around a bit more, and then enjoying sun and swimming at the seven sacred pools. I actually did some cliff jumping! Nothing too daredevil-ish, but enough to get my heart pumping. Jake and Nicole actually jumped off the highest spot - probably a solid 40 feet up. Yikes!

Shortly thereafter, I had to get packed up and head back on the road because I had to work on Monday, but it was a great mini-vacation. I feel lucky that I have found a solid group of friends to spend time with here - with eight people camping, you never know how things can go, but there wasn't one moment of drama. Everyone was just happy to laugh and be together, enjoying the blessings of this beautiful place. It was so nice.

Unfortunately Bradley couldn't make it, but I look forward to the next time we can go, and maybe I'll get to do some spearfishing Hana-side. Wahoo!

Pictures: Above is one of many amazing pictures I took of sunrise on Sunday morning.

On the right is Nicole eating a lilikoi fruit.

Below is Jace with the Easy Cheese - he's making Dorito sandwiches with it. Mmmm.

Continuing down the line: The grill decked out with chicken, hawaiian hot dogs, and opihi (found in nooks and crannies on rockier shores - it's illegal to harvest any smaller than a quarter).

Me n Jace.

Nicole in her birthday getup.

Nicole's tent - I decorated in the morning while they were sleeping. It promptly got rained on, and the streamers got soggy. Lame.

Nicole and Sara doing shots out of the lilikoi rinds. Nice.

I posted the whole lot of pictures (there are more good ones!) on my Facebook profile. Check it out!