well, poop.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0515_030515_fishdecline.html

cultural bonanza

This weekend is a slack-key/ukulele extravaganza. As if that weren't enough for sleepy little hilo town, it's time for Shakespeare In The Rain. This year's performance is Hamlet! Woo!

Oh, and we have two new restaurants: a sushi bar and a "Mongolian BBQ" joint as well. I must try them.

I've been very un-posty lately and you must forgive me. See, I'm trying to get my poster done for the HCC in a week and a half. It's real pretty right now... if you don't look at the data very closely.... :( I promise I will be more posty when that's done with.

And I'd like to wish a happy late birthday to my sistruh and to my aunt sonja. Should have posted those on Tuesday so they wouldn't be late shout-outs! d'oh!

Vaycrayshunzzzz

Okay, so first I have to tell you about the Dolphin Days Food And Booze Extravaganza. I got to take my princess boat to our room, which was quite nice but apparently "O-cean View" actually means "View of Mountain with Food Tables". But whatever.

We drank so much wine and ate so much food in so short a time that my head is still spinning. We thought the food was served until 10, but found out upon our arrival (at 6:30) that it actually got taken away at 8! And booze at 9! Holy Schmolies, we better hurry up, we thought! and so we did. We had carapaccio and chocolate mousse and roast beast and.. i don't even remember what we ate, except that most of it was damn tasty. After the food ran out, we got our drink on and tasted a lot of really nice red wines, none of whose names I remember.

Then, after we were feelin' all right despite the Smoove Jazz on-stage, Mr. Whatshisbucket gets up for his final number and does.... GHOSTBUSTERS! I took a video, which i shall not post, but you should have heard me and grant laughing our asses off at the first "I ain't afraid of no ghost"! I was crying. There were fireworks and then the bar for an afterparty, where I bet Grant that my shot of Patron would be at least 2x what it costs in Nawlins, and sho nuf, it cost 3x as much. buzzkill. but it went down easy as always. I made fun of white people dancing, and then danced. Slow-danced, no less, to a band covering Al Green. Ah, the things alcohol will make you do....

Sunday was a blur. We slept in, then checked out, then went to the beach and slept some more. (Grant illustrates the sleepy vibe, below.) Then we went home. On the way home we saw a byootiful rainbow.

Four short days later, we were rising at 4 am to hit the road for Waipi'o Valley, where our backpacking adventure was to begin. We started with a hearty breakfast (should have timed our feeding frenzy, I'm sure we broke records) and headed up the Hamakua Coast, taking in a beautiful sunrise on the way. The first thing we did was ford a river (they call it a "stream") and I got vertigo because the water is really rushing into the ocean there, and I was full of aaaallll that breakfast, but I didn't fall over first thing. Whew!

Our next task was to ascend our first ridge on the Muliwai trail in the hot sun. Dusty and crumbly and steep and hot, but oh my, what a view of waipi'o! I was scared it was going to be up and down hot escarpments like that the whole way and was about to ask Grant if we could just go back and camp in Waipi'o, when we rounded the crest and... boom! cool breeze, ironwoods and pines.... a much different hiking situation, much more to my liking. We went up and down I don't know how many valleys and hills, and then, finally, we saw our destination: Waimanu Valley. (Queue choral music) The sign at our final landmark told us it was only 0.9 more miles!! (We'd been hiking six hours at that point, and I for one was pretty pooped.) So we got all excited and started our descent.

Well. What a steep freekin descent it was, and it started raining and got slippery, and we walked and walked and the beach still looked just as far away as it did from the top. That was a real morale-buster. Grant had to pep-talk me through the last one and a half hours. He's a very patient man.

FINALLY we got to the bottom and all we had to do then, after 8 miles and 8 hours, was cross another river with slippery rocks all up in it, and then walk on more rocks to the veeeeery last campsite on the furthest end of the beach. I guess we set up camp then. I don't really remember, because I was so tired! Somehow the tent got set up and we went to get water from a nearby stream. [Waimanu hikers: Campsites 6, 8, and 9 are the best ones. Campsite 1 is AWFUL, you have to sleep on rocks!! I am so glad we got assigned #9, even if it was a bit of a walk. Also, there is a Mango Minefield on the way to the water source on the west side of the valley, and (in season, of course) you have to cover your head to not get mango-bombed. but oh, the mango-ey goodness!]

[In the cliff shot here, Grant is the little speck in the water about 1/4 from the right. He's boogie-boarding on one of two boogie boards that fortuitously (and ominously) washed up on the beach for us. ]

We loaded up on water and mangoes and made ourselves a little Dr. Bronners Peppermint Ho-Bath, and washed up. There was one other camper there, but he left in the morning, leaving us this whole valley and beach to our lonesomes. it was awesome.

some other campers showed up at night, as did a pighunter and his lady friend and their six dogs, who proceeded to hunt down a pig at 4 a.m. our second (and last) night there. Yeah, we woke up to the sound of a huge pig being dragged thru our campsite!



[these shells contain opihi, considered a delicacy by the hawaiians. I ate one that Grant pried off the rock and cut out of its shell with his Rambo knife. I guess it was pretty much still alive when I ate it. It didn't go down very easy and I think I still have its little soul lodged in my throat.]

We broke camp pretty early and headed back, unpleasantly surprised that, despite all the food we ate, our packs were still Really Freaking Heavy. Oh well. The hike back was not as grueling as the way in, and the day was beautiful, turning overcast as we reached Waipi'o again and giving us a lucky break on the dry (but not broiling like it could have been) descent. It felt good crossing the river and seeing that the truck was still there. But of course it was --we left Kung Fu Panda to guard it! Nobody dared touch it. We stopped at Tex Drive In for dinner and then headed back to home for a long soak in the tub and a good night's sleep.