My Corner of the World: January 2007

I need to remember when I am feeling blue, I should get my little butt outside and spend some time. It inevitably cheers me up.

After some mulling and moping this afternoon about matters that are rather silly to mull and mope about, I decided a long power walk was in order. So I geared up and began my trek down Ali'i Drive, my usual route. Not only is the exercise calming to me, but I also love walking down Ali'i for the ego boost: this is a town of honkers and whistlers. It happens every time, and even though it's silly, it lifts my spirits. To be honked at. By complete strangers. I know, I know...weak. But, it is what it is.

Today's walk brought another, unexpected moment involving a goat, of all things.

I have seen my fair share of wild goats here, but never in town, never on Ali'i. At first, from far away, I thought it was a large dog. I kept my eye on it, because big, seemingly stray dogs can be unpredictable and all. As I got closer, I realized it was not a dog at all, but a goat. A big, brown goat, just hanging out on the corner of Ali'i and Royal Poinciana. A big, brown goat directly in my route. I slowed down considerably, just like the cars on the road were doing as they passed. When I was perhaps 10 feet away, I had pretty much halted any movement, with the intention of crossing the road and continuing on. That's when the goat noticed me. I apparently had violated this goat's personal space, because he turned directly to face me, lowered his head and charged. He CHARGED. I yelped, loudly, and contorted my body so that his head did NOT make direct contact with my ass. He didn't stop and ran right into somebody's yard; I burst out laughing.

I was just charged by a goat. I'm gonna guess that not many people can say that, but of course, that's just a guess.

Tried to camp last night. And when I say "tried," I really mean we gave it our all. But sometimes, you just have to know when to call it a day.

I worked yesterday morning, until about 11:30. By the time I was done, my friends Mariah and Ron were already at the campsite, getting things organized. I joined up with them around 1:45, and started setting up my own stuff. My tent was about 1/2 way up when it started to drizzle. No matter, the rain here is warm. I continued to ponder the tent logistics: it's been over 18 months since I've set that tent up, and I could tell something wasn't right, but I couldn't quite place my finger on what. A number of times, the tent fell over and I'd roll my eyes and re-stake. Meanwhile, the rain is getting heavier and heavier and I'm getting wetter and wetter. Next thing I know, it was outright downpouring. To hell with proper set-up, I just start jabbing stakes into the ground and trying my best to secure the rainfly.

Whew! Tent is up. I transfer all my other stuff from their tent (which they had so graciously put it once it was clear the rain meant business) to my tent, and since we were soaking wet anyhow Mariah and I decided to go snorkeling. We get the fins, the masks, the snorkels...and once we get in the water, we realize that due to the rain, we can't see diddley squat. We take the fins, the masks and the snorkels off and just swim instead. It's the first time I had ever swam in the ocean during a downpour, and the juxtaposition of warm salt water surrounding my body and brisk raindrops pelting my face was a neat experience.

Eventually the rain stops--I begin to feel a slight chill, and change out of my swimsuit, which is a whole thing all in and of itself. We were camping on a black sand beach, and one thing I learned yesterday was that wet black sand remarkably resembles MUD. Things were wet and messy. By the grace of god, I had the foresight to toss my rain outfit in the car when I was leaving the house, and when I took my suit off, I put my rain pants and rain jacket on.

The rain comes back (again) and we all sort of stand around the campsite, drinking our beers and watching the other people on the beach swim and boogeyboard and such. The rain goes away (again) and we decide that we might as well try to start a fire. You know, with all the firewood that has just been soaked through.

After THREE HOURS I KID YOU NOT, we manage to get a nice little fire burning. Three hours is a rather substantial amount of time to baby a fire, but you can't camp without a fire! We even had marshmallows! So, persevere we did.

We were playing a game of Rummy (another thing I learned yesterday--fun game!) when a camper from a few sites over walked up to our campsite and asked if we had heard: Japan had suffered an 8.4 earthquake and a tsumani was coming to Hawaii.

WHAT?!

We track down a radio station, and it turns out we were just under a Tsunami Watch, which is very, very different than "a tsunami is coming to Hawaii." By the time we get the straight story though, people are freaking out left and right, breaking down camp and taking off. We are trying to assess the situation and decide to get organized and clean up a bit just in case we DO have to evacuate to higher ground (keep in mind we were camping on the actual beach, but it was pitch black out at that point so while we could HEAR the waves crashing furiously, we couldn't SEE anything...it was just an eery scene all the way around.)

While we are getting organized, we further decide to just pack up our cars with everything we don't really *need* right now, just in case, you know, we have to evacuate. While we are packing up our cars, we then decide screw it, we may as well just pack it all up and hang out at our (now raging) campfire until it either dies or, yes, we have to evacuate.

So let's review: I put my tent up in the pouring rain, I am now taking it down in the dark, and I never actually spent any time inside the tent. We spend three hours coercing the fire to grace us with its presence, and now that we have it, we're leaving. Can you say BACK ASSWARDS?

We eat our hotdogs and s'mores and laugh about the turn of events. (Well, except Ron; he was pretty upset, he's moving back to the Mainland next week and this was his last camping trip in Hawaii.) As we're pulling out of the parking lot, the Tsunami Watch is cancelled. Of course it is.

Better luck next time, I suppose. And now, pictures!

Taken from the front of my tent. I've never camped on the beach before, and I totally dug it.

Our campsite, taken from the water's edge: that's Ron with the white towel over his head, and Mariah, and over there on the right is my cute little grey tent.

Just a really beautiful setting.

Hawaiin kiddos, the little one no older than six, totally rocking the waves on their boogeyboards. I don't think they even noticed the rain.

I'm holding a coffee cup (filled with wine, of course,) not clutching my hands together at my heart in an effort to demonstrate my love for the rainy camping day. I *do* love rain, and I *do* love camping, but for some strange reason, rain + camping does NOT = love. Funny how that happens.