It Began at 9:00 AM

We left on Wednesday morning with literally no plans as to what we were going to do or where we were going to sleep once we landed in Honolulu. Our three-hour layover in San Francisco went like this:

• It is boring to sit in the airport for any amount of time so we left and jumped on the BART for a quick ride into the city where we had a lunch and then turned around to go back to the airport.


• After boarding the plane, the pilot announced over the loudspeaker that everyone was going to have to deboard so that he could perform some maintenance before taking off. Naturally, this does not support feelings of safety or wellbeing. Within two minutes of leaving our very-last-row seats on the plane we were able to board again.
  
• The highlight of this experience is when a woman began running through the connecting terminal-hallway towards the plane and upon skipping down the declined area, tripped over her husband, fell, and headed downhill a few feet before coming to a stop. She looked like a Yankee coming into third base, unnecessary slide and all. It sounds worse than it actually but rest assured that she jumped up quickly and was laughing as hard as we were. I have high hopes that that particular scene will end up on Youtube at some point, it was just that good.
  

We arrived in Oahu at 5:30 in the evening. Luckily, Tamara and Hannah are finishing up school at BYU Hawaii and were cool enough to grab us from the airport and transport us the hour or so drive to the North Shore where we planned on spending the most time. And even though they don’t read this, there must be a major shout-out to both of these girls; they are some of the best people I’ve met and were so much fun to hang out with, even when it required them, uh, falling ill and not being able to make it into school/internship/work for a few days. Truly this is a testament to the awesomeness that is hanging out at the beach on a Monday afternoon.

When we arrived in Laie that first night we decided to stay at the Laie Inn where the motto is surely “Screw the condition of the rooms – you’re in Hawaii.” After I checked the walls to make sure there was no visible blood or hidden camera peepholes, I went to sleep for a few hours until the 4 hour time difference caught up with me at 4:30 am. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad – I’ve definitely had worse experiences in hostels and once in an Econo-Lodge in South Dakota.

The next morning was great - Corey and I crossed paths as he was coming back from a walk to the beach and I was heading out and when we met back at the room, it was discovered that the door wouldn’t open to either of our magnetic key-cards. After a few trips to the front desk, it was determined that the (hung over) maintenance guy was going to need to take a look at the door and try to get it open. It had, of course, a bigger problem than he was able to fix so after prying the screen off of one of the windows, our newfound pal Dave from South Carolina was able to break into the room and unlock the door from the inside out. It feels good to know just how easy it is to break into those rooms.

Shortly after, we checked out and said goodbye to Laie Inn in hopes that we would find someone a little more hospitable. A highlight of cold-calling rental signs was when I talked to a guy who was renting an apartment of his house long term, not just as a vacation rental. I think that he must have been pretty hard up for some extra cash this month because after learning that we were only looking for something for a few days, he told me that he would be willing to prorate the monthly rental amount and would probably be able to “find an air mattress or something” for us to sleep on in the unfurnished house. I have reasonable fears that his final offer to seal the deal would have been for us to sleep on his couch for $20 a night as well as a shared bathroom with himself as a temporary roommate. Luckily for us, after taking a drive along the Kam highway calling signs we found a decent studio that had a beautiful beach access and the right price. It was tiny, rocked a kitchenette, that looked like this:



But it looked like this outside:

The small reef on the beach really was pretty and I loved waking up every morning and heading down just to watch the water for a while. This proved to be a good place to stay and I’m happy that we ended up there for the rest of the week.

After having settled on a place to dump our stuff, we headed to the first beach of the week, Waimea. We ended coming back to this same beach at least once a day because it is such a great beach and has good waves. I won’t be putting up any pictures from these first days because I can’t guarantee that all of you are wearing sunglasses and I would hate for my glaring whiteness to cause any permanent damage to your vision. Rest easy though; the white only lasted a few hours before it turned to a nice glowing sunburn. It is just so good to be pale and freckled, you don’t even know.

A highlight of the first day at the beach was happened while I was trying to get back into the swing of the waves; anyone in my family can attest to the fact that I am hands-down the best wave boarder, it’s a skill of little use that I generally take a lot of pride in. Unfortunately, I was caught off guard by a massive double-break wave that not only knocked me over, but also pulled me back and did it twice in a row. I have never had the breath knocked out of me before and it was a weird experience to have it happen under water for the first time. While I was working on being able to breathe all I could think about were the warnings that the lifeguards had been announcing that morning about dangerous surf and the high volume of back and spinal injuries that had occurred on this particular beach. Luckily, everything seemed all right by the next morning and I didn’t have to continually wiggle my fingers and toes to make sure I could feel them.

I know that even if I had successfully paralyzed myself I would have received no sympathy from the fishermen that randomly relocated themselves along the beach – Corey was quick to point out that as haole’s we would be smart not to make the old men mad and so we did our best to stay out their way, going as far as to leave the beach when I walked right into a line. Oops.

It was a good day ended by having dinner with Tamara and Hannah and followed by the consumption of the biggest shaved ice I have ever seen – it took all four of us to even come close to finishing it. Since we were still unused to the time difference and the girls both had school and work the next day, we all went home pretty early and I appreciated sleeping on a decent bed that allowed for my neck to miraculously heal itself after my attempt to bend myself in half earlier in the day.