the harpy: I live!

Three days up an unpaved road, in a cabin on a mountain with a jilted ex and no cell reception - WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Nothing went wrong. It was beautiful. Although I didn't actually need to bring a chaperone, because the man brought his wizard beard, and it had a repelling force field around it.

ADVENTURE

Our flight left before the sun was up. We stopped for 7-11 coffee at 4:30am on the way to the airport, and almost drove over a drunk guy passed out in one of the parking stalls. Forgot to take a vacation picture.

dramatic reenactment

I'd grabbed the spare booster seat and chucked it in the trunk of the car, not realizing that a family of giant cockroaches had moved into the lining. One of the roaches panicked while I was shoving the booster through the airport x-ray machine and scrabbled up onto Gavin's bag. The TSA agents started screaming and made Gavin leave the security line to take the roach outside. While they were staring after him and acting as if they'd never seen a cockroach in Hawaii before, I stood at the end of the conveyor belt, surreptitiously swatting all the roaches out of the booster seat and into their security area. When Gavin got back, we ran for it.

Inter-island flying is the best. You zoom up into the sky, the hostess rushes to throw foil-covered cups of guava juice and coffee at everyone, then she runs back down the aisle to collect the empties and snatch barely-sipped cups of coffee from passengers, and the plane zooms back down again. Zenny clapped, impressed.

Just before having a cup of juice chucked at me

After being overcharged at the car rental joint, the lady at the Budget desk apologized by upgrading me to a car that was completely unsuited to landslide-prone sea cliffs and off-road travel.
"Okay, but the thing is, I actually just don't want to pay the money," I explained to her.
"But," she said with forceful cheer, "With this fee right here, if the car is stolen or damaged, you just walk away, you're totally covered!"
"... So I can hit every bridge on the Hana Highway and park it where people like to break tourist's windows and set the cars on fire?"
"Yes, but... wait, where are you going?"
"SOLD."

The ridiculous little sports car was the best thing ever. I loved it so much, even though I didn't know how to lower the seats and drove all the way to Hana perched at the wheel like a velociraptor.

Also, I told people it was a Mazda the whole time and it turns out it was a Nissan.
I am good at cars.

Our cabin was waaaay up the mountainside, along an unpaved road, across a steep hill of wet grass, and up two strips of concrete with wheel-sucking mud on all sides. I couldn't believe it when the little car made it up to the house, and we fell out of the car in quivering lumps of adrenaline. Not even an hour later, there was a terrible roar and a long squeal and then a crunch. We trotted outside to meet the neighbor from the yurt up the hill, who had gone off the concrete strips, gotten his van bogged in the mud, managed to floor it and get back up onto the strips, and then hydroplaned down the grass, sliding 180 degrees and crashing backwards into a bunch of rocks. "Nah, man, it's cool, I just have a bunch of lemongrass wrapped around my axle," he said, unfazed. I looked at my weenie car and wondered how we would leave the mountain alive.

During the days, friends descended on us, and we played cards and talked and ate sausages into the night. After the kids were asleep, the guy-friend and I sat on the porch, talking and watching the skies for shooting stars. On the second night, the half-moon rose out of the ocean flat-side-up, forming an enormous glowing orange rectangle that scared the crap out of us. We have been nuked! Aliens! Ghost ship! ... Moon. Embarrassing.

The shower was outside, with no privacy beyond acres of uninhabited mountainside and massive flower bushes. I waited until everyone was asleep and picked my way down the stone path in the dark like a mountain goat to bathe under the stars. I woke up early every morning to make coffee with the French press and watch the sun rise. It was pretty great.

Also, my archenemy tried to ambush me. And FAILED. HA. We went down the mountain to hit the beach and hang out at our friend's place, and she figured out where we were, showing up without warning just minutes after I had wandered off and headed back up to the cabin. I WIN AGAIN. Accidentally.

While Zenny enjoyed endless rounds of Go Fish, the teenagers formed a mob. They played Spoons, shared secrets, ran through the trees, picked avocados, dunked each other in the ocean, went to a dance at the rec center, and ate everything they could find. Gavin was happy, battered, and sunburned by the time we said our goodbyes and drove back along the coast to the airport. We bought big boxes of Krispy Kreme and joined all the other families traveling back to Oahu with massive bags full of donuts. People from Oahu are weird about Krispy Kreme, because we don't have any. TSA has to examine food items now, as part of enhanced security measures, and they scrutinized the avocado I had dropped into my backpack, but the endless bags of Krispy Kremes defeated them, and they just pushed them through without a glance. That is quality security for you.

It was a really good trip. This time when I said we should do it again, I wasn't lying through my teeth.

PHOTO DUMP