More Summer Stuff: A visitor and a hike
Some stuff I’ve been up to lately:
Tom came into town about a week ago, traveling to Hawaii with some of his family. He and his sister met up with me the night they got here and we all went to Yardhouse down in Waikiki. I had never been there before, but the beer selection looked pretty good and I thought it might be a nice place to take Tom to. When we would hang out in Baltimore, we would usually try to hit up a place with something good to drink, so I figured we’d better continue the tradition in Honolulu – multi-colored pen and all.
I tried to set aside some time to hang out with him the rest of the week, too. We spent a day at the beach, hanging out with his little cousins Megan and Maura and some friends of the family. In the evening, the parents made some dinner and we played with a local cat that wandered into the condo they rented. Afterward, Tom and I drove off to Real to meet Anna and Sharoni for a couple more beers (sense a theme here?). Finally, on the weekend, we went for a hike up in the mountains. I offered him two choices: The Palolo trail that’s a bit muddy or the Waahila trail that’s a bit steeper for most of the way. He choice the less muddy option.
The hike didn’t have any waterfalls, but it went really well. We pushed back pretty far, hiking through the different climate zones up the ridge, and came to the juntion where it splits off into another trail. Seeing an opportunity, we struck off down Kalo Walu to get some variety on the way down. It was much more rain-foresty down that way, with massive trees and vines hanging all over the place. Someone had scrawled “more trees less assholes” on the trail sign, but we actually ran into a bunch of bros coming up the trail. They all seemed to want to know how much further they had to go, too. I don’t blame them, Kalo Walu is way steeper than Wa’ahila.
Our last night hanging out, we went to a Luau over on the west side – my first one! Anna came along too and we had a great time drinking, eating Hawaiian food, and watching all the different hula dances. My favorite was the dance for Pele, Hawaiian volcano god. It was a fun time, but it was also a work night and the combination of cheap alcohol and meat (I tried a little of the special pork since it might be my only opportunity to do so) made me feel a bit meh. I even had an extra drink ticket that I didn’t end up using. Anna and I ended up heading back to her place afterwards and passing out for a good night’s sleep.
Tom’s off on the big island now, but he might be back this weekend. There might be one more night of hangouts in store!
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Other events:
I went hiking with Jake on Saturday. The plan was to go up to Kawow Crater (terrible spelling on this one) then continue upwards to meet Travis and bring him some water. It was a nice morning for a hike, but I had given blood the day before and couldn’t speed along too much. Jake tried to give me enough time, but he was going pretty fast up the ridge. Eventually, we came down into the crater but he got a bit ahead of me. I wasn’t getting tired from the hike anymore, but I had worn my sandals because my hiking shoes have fallen apart. The trail was so muddy from the recent rains, though, that it was getting impassable for me. My sandals kept getting stuck in the mud and even when they weren’t, the mud was too slick between sandal and foot for me to walk safely. I decided to head back down along the waterfalls and take things a bit easier. Maybe it sounds silly that I went up in sandals, but I wore them for the hike with Tom and they worked just fine.
Anyway, I was inspired to go out and look for hiking shoes afterward. I didn’t want to spend a lot on them, but I needed something sturdy. Ross (the store) came to mind. The selection there wasn’t great, but I found a pretty good pair of Coleman hiking shoes for only $25. They fit pretty good! So I grabbed those and looked around a bit for a brithday present for Anna. I’m still trying to put that together at this point, because my main idea hasn’t work out. I’ve been hoping to come across one of the Japanese giant Guinea Pig / Hampster stuff animals I used to see a lot in Kyoto, but I haven’t been able to find them anywhere. Not even at the Japanese toy store in Palolo!
Ah well, I’ll have to try something else!