Mopeds, Diving and more
Mopeds and MaKena Cove–Rusty
A few days before we left, Tara had a really strange backache. Then a few little rash spots on her stomach. By this morning, the rash was all over her stomach and back and was huge and red and awful. Poor Tara had Shingles on our trip to Hawaii! So I called up ‘Dr Rez’. I had seen an ad for modo urgent care and online it looks like it was Urgent care for the stars. A laid back doctor who caters to resorts and convenience. I called his urgent care a few minutes before it opened, and it went straight to Dr. Rez’s cell phone. We chatted about it, texted him a picture, and got Tara some steroids, an IV, and some anti-viral meds! Poor thing! Shingles are really painful and can do some really weird stuff! I’m glad we were able to get them treated. We dropped her at the office and went and had breakfast while they ran her IV filled with vitamins, her steroid, and a painkiller.
We had planned to do road to Hana, but there was no way we’d have time after urgent care. So then we had to call an audible for the day. Instead, we drove up to the Ioa Valley and Ioa Needle. It was beautiful. But the hike was short, and we really wanted to go further, but were dead-ended. Blake kept saying the needle looked like a ‘shmenis’. And sure enough, on the placquard it says ‘the IOA needle is the phallic symbol of Maui’ or something like that. It was rainy but it was fun hiking through the jungle next to the river.
Drove down and hit up the ‘Maui Scooter Shack’ for some mopeds. Tara and I had done this when we were in college and were excited for the kids to try it as well. I was excited but also a little nervous because a couple of them had never driven motorcycles before so it can be a little sketchy. But the scooter guy Carl was great. He explained everything really well and even gave them a tiny scooter lesson in the parking lot. In the end we all had on our cool helmets and we hit the road. Carl told me to stay in back so tara was trying to navigate without a phone and that was really hard.
We missed a couple turns and ended up deciding to eat at the Island Market grocery store at the shops in Wailea. I’m glad we did because it was really good sushi and fruit. Tara and Josh also had really yummy hot food. I think we’d all eat here again in a heartbeat.
Then we cruised on down to the ‘secret cove,’ and this was one of the most fun things we did. Just exploring around and exploring all the tide pools. We were on the cliffs looking down, and then a turtle just swam out from under the cliff. So then we were looking for more, and then there was a mom and a baby turtle. I walked out to the edge of the black rocks to look down at them in the water, and then a big wave washed the baby up onto the rock right next to me! The baby quickly scrambled back into the water. The kids joked that the ocean ‘turtle shelled me’ like a Mario game. We loved exploring this secret cove (you enter through this tiny passageway between two fences). There were also a ton of tidepools, and Halle was in heaven looking at all the sea urchins, fish, gobies, and crabs. We saw some of the crabs jumping from rock to rock–we had never seen them jump before! On the way back we took a wrong turn and ended up on the ‘highway’ (main 4 lane road, but it’s still only 35 mph), and that got my heart beating, but we were able to safely turn off and get back on the beach road and get the scooters back right at 5PM when the shop closed.
Up the road to some decent shave ice, at Ululanis, but I was kind of stressed out from all the scooter driving. Blake enjoyed his the most–he said he went for full diabetes. It was a root beer float shave ice. Vanilla ice cream, root beer and vanilla flavoring, and a snowcap. Yummy. Then home and this night was my favorite night. We ordered pizza. WE got home and I walked and got the pizza while they got in the hot tub. Then we all just sat at the outdoor table by the hot tub, ate pizza, and talked about relationships. It was just a wonderful night. Everyone shared their ‘top 3 learnings’ from the year. Lovely. Made the entire trip right there. Josh’s lessons learned at school were:
Everything is a tradeoff, and that’s ok.
You can totally be yourself and have someone love you. It doesn’t have to be such hard wrk when it’s the right person.
Blake said: Love God, love others and keep learning about yourself.
Halle said about long-term relationships: Say you are sorry. Don’t make things bigger in your head than they actually are. Don’t get too complacent. Plan fun ways to be together.
I’m in awe of these kids and how smart and savvy they are. It’s fun to be in this young adult stage where they are learning so much about real life.
Dive/Snorkle Molokini Crater–Josh
It’s Josh, the pressure is on now that I know I have an audience, I hope I deliver 😁.We woke up super early to go dive and snorkel, and we were all perfect angels about the early hour. We got to the dock and checked in, then watched them launch the boats as the sun began to rise. On the boat I eavesdropped as a dive master talked to two people doing their certification dives to give myself a little refresher. At the spot we got our gear on, and once I went under the water I finally took to heart that I have been spoiled with my first dive destinations because anything’s an ice bath when your first two dive spots were Cozumel and The Great Barrier Reef.
Underwater was classic awesome scuba diving; there were all kinds of fish, and I saw a shark in the distance. Mom saw an ocpopus! Back on the surface, they gave us snacks, and our journey over to spot 2 quickly became a mini whale watching tour. We saw a few different whales coming to the surface and some good tail looks. The second dive was a bit more eventful; we saw more fish and swam through an underwater arch. Mom and I saw a turtle, and we watched him for a while, but no one else saw him, and he left just in time to make us look crazy when the guide circled back to get us. On the boat ride home, 2 of the guides asked if I liked it and if I was good, and as I looked around at the rest of the people on the boat shivering in the wind on the cloudy day, I thought how scuba diving is such a funny sport. Everyone there has gone through all kinds of classes and training and paid good money to be there, everyone loved the dives but on the way back we all looked like a bunch of refugees.
On the way home we got MASSIVE cinnamon rolls and we ate them in our room. We then quickly all discovered the places where our flippers had given us blisters when we got into the scorching hot tub. Lunch was at the ritzy Monkeypod, where the only thing that stood out about the tacos was that the fresh fish didn’t seem to be seasoned at all. We were unimpressed with the fish tacos we had eaten up until that point, so we decided we were going to hunt down some good old fashioned deep fried ones soon. We all did get non-alcoholic Mai-Ties with passion fruit cold foam. That’s the only thing that saved this meal.
R&R was next on the agenda that day and I had thought I just wanted to scroll on my phonewhile a movie was on in the background but Halle turned on The Bad Guys and it was GOOD. It was clever, well written, and had me more engaged than any movie I have seen for a long time. Next was going to the black sand beach for more resting while dad snorkeled and tested out the new dive camera housing he got for Christmas. Blake chose to go to the gym instead but mom didn’t realize until we were halfway there and yelled, “You guys left Blake!!!!” And Halle responded, “You just noticed!” After the family reunited, mom and dad went to go get dinner sides (we were needing some greens!) and ice cream while Halle and I cleaned the kitchen. Dinner was leftover pizza, salad, Hawaiian sun, and Lapert’s ice cream. Despite being sold out of all the chocolate flavors, much to mom’s chagrin, all the Lappert’s flavors were so so good, and my skepticism about the long wait vanished; it was worth it. We ended the night with just a little bit of sibling Mario Kart after fighting for ages to get the TV working. This was definitely our most high-octane and biggest rest day of the whole trip, always a sign of a good day on vacation.
