Dallas Cometh

JENNIFER LEWIS!!

As you can see, I had a visitor. Even though I am just now writing about it, 3 months later, (yikes) I am still kind of excited.

This kicked off the month of Good Dallas Friends Coming to Visit. Yay.

Jen came at the beginning of August after she finished her bar exam for a much-needed rest. Even better, she was able to stay for 2 whole weeks! It was great. If you would like to about her trip in her own words, the Hawaii Saga starts here.

Hers is actually in chronological order. I forgot what we did when, and now I am too lazy to re-upload in the right order, because that takes FOREVER. It will eventually drive me crazy, and I will probably go rearrange it later, but right now.....meh.

Anyway -

What do you think we did on her first day here!?

That's right - the beach! Hello, Mr. Sun. I think this might be the only day I was included in that didn't have some sort of disaster involved. Just wait.

We just went to the beach by our house - here it is. Secluded and quiet - Jen just needed some detox time.


Well, I couldn't take off 2 weeks of work, so the first week Jennifer was off to explore on her own. Luckily, she had a friend who was going to come out and be with her during that time. Sadly, there were airplane issues, so she was late coming out. Not wanting Jen to be alone, I put her in my sister's entertaining hands. Where I assumed she would be safe. Right.

So what do they do!? For the three people out there who actually read my travel blog, they took her on that hike I said only insane people do! That illegal hike. Yeah. That one.

It is a hike with just under 4,000 stairs to climb that go straight up the spine of the mountain. Here are some pictures - it looked awesome. I'm so glad she had a chance to do this - she's probably one of the VERY few tourists who have ever completed it.

I mean come on - you're hiking into the clouds! And you started from the ground - I'll be a home on the couch.

Ok, remember how I said 'illegal'? Please note the fence below.

That's right - Jen has only been here 2 days and we are already having her break the law.

They headed out to the hike around 5 am to get on the trail before the security guard showed up, because once you're on it, what are they gonna do? Make you come down? So they were super-sneaky, and under the cover of darkness, began their ascent. They had a great time - the views looked amazing, and the weather was being agreeable.

Coming down was much better, I imagine, than going up, but now they were going to have to deal with the security guard, who had been watching them make their way down for the last hour. Usually, this is not a big deal. They kind of look the other way, and tell you not to do it again. Of course, that is not how it went this time.

Jen got to experience first hand the racism against us whiteys! After letting a local couple (who were ahead of them) go no problem, he stopped the haoles and threw a fit. Sadly, too much time has passed, so I am forgetting big chunks of the story. I only remember the funny parts.

Basically, somehow Courtney, Paul, and Jennifer ended up escaping the guard and sneaking through ditches and canals, through mosquitoes, mud, and tall brush trying to make their way back to the car and avoid the guard, who had called the police and was now searching for them on his motorcycle. True, Paul himself was a cop, so nothing really would have happened, but still. They finally made it back to the car, and after a short chase, made a getaway. As I was hearing this story, looking at their poor, mosquito-bite covered bodies, I kind of couldn't help but laugh and be horrified at the same time as I imagine my poor friend reduced to sneaking away from the cops on her vacation. Also, what all our mutual friends would say when they found out I landed Jen in jail. Relaxed yet?!

After that, her friend showed up, and they did islandy things, like:

Polynesian Cultural Center

Surfing on Waikiki

Going to Pearl Harbor, getting lost in the jungle, etc.

Then I was off work and it was North Shore day! Oh dear, I was around, so things were about to go downhill.

I love the North Shore - it just feels so different to me than the metropolitan areas. More like Hawaii should be.

Of course, there was the obligatory stop at the pineapple plantation on the way there.

I love these trees - they are, amazingly, called Rainbow Trees. Pretty.

Pink Pineapples?!



Yay North Shore!

And then.... disaster:

Um, WHERE IS THE LOST SET!?!?

I had been here several times, and Jen was so excited to see it, but no. Thwarted! The whole set had mysteriously vanished. The beach camp, the unfinished church - everything was gone. It was crushing, crushing I tell you. The highlight of the day was MIA. Also, what is going on with that show that they no longer need a beach camp!?

Sad, but scrambling to find a secondary prize for Jen to see, we started walking the long beach, looking for turtles. There are always tons of turtles sunning on the beach.

BUT NO. Here, they are, taunting us, underwater:

Those really dark, boulder-looking things are the turtles. Jen tried to be excited, probably for my benefit, bc I was feeling pretty bad at this point. Those dumb things never did come to shore, and we waited there forever.

So we headed off to something I was sure to please - snocones! Or as they call it here, Shave Ice. Never Shaved Ice. I am perplexed as to why this is. The first time I saw it, I laughed at the store's obvious grammatical error. But as time went by, I realized that is how EVERYBODY here says it. What is going on with these people!? But I digress.

Anyway, sugar cures all ills, and these snocones are especially grinds. (Hawaiian for 'really good'). Yum. We love us some Matsumotos.

Undaunted, we decided it was time to actually get into the water. So we headed over for some snorkeling up at Shark's Cove. It was fun, although by the time I got out of the water, I was freezing. Here, fishy fishy!

It was getting towards evening, so Jen and I went to Sunset Beach to hang out for a while and wait for the spectacular sunset that the beach was named after. Of course, what we got was this:

Sunset? More like Crapset. It was terrible.

On the upside, there was a seal beached right nearby! Which was awesome, because that is kind of rare. I say the cosmos were throwing me a bone after the day we just had.

Lump 'O Seal

After this we just went home and called it a night. The Olympics were on, after all!

Sunday

Ah Dunes. Today was the day I tried to drown Jennifer!

So, I become this weird obsessive-compulsive person when people come out to visit, and I make these insane schedules to try to squeeze everything I think they should do in. Of course, boogie-boarding is one of those things on the Must Experience checklist. So Jen was boogie boarding whether she wanted to or not. All my friends are too nice, so I am never sure if I am unknowingly forcing them into something. So I say 'we don't have to' which just reinforces their trying to be nice personality, which bolsters my insecurities, and altogether it is just a vicious circle.

Which is how we ended up here.

You really can't tell, but the waves are HUGE. We usually go out in 2 ft waves or so - by comparison, the Texas Coast is almost always at 0. Not today; today they were 5 - 7 feet. When you are out there in it, it is freaking big. There were surfers out there with us! At least no one got decapitated, which was a very real possibility.

It was a lot of fun, but the waves were not merciful. If you didn't know how to stand or hold your board, they were going to drag you out to sea. Jennifer did a pretty good job surviving, and I hope she had a little fun. Eventually we ditched the board and just did body surfing, which feels either like you're a human water missile, or like you're in a washing machine. It's exhilarating.

David was with us this day, and I was really looking forward to hitting up Pinky's, which is a local place with great specials. After a long day of boarding, it is delicious.

So imagine my dismay (and not so much surprise) when we go to Pinky's and it was closed! I mean, come on! Bah.

I hate to admit this, but we ended up eating at Costco! Costco! We were more starving than anything, but looking back I can't believe we took someone to eat Costco pizza on vacation. Lame. Good thing Jen is the best sport ever!

At some point, David and I got the crazy idea that it would be a good idea to go night snorkeling with Jen. 'What a fun and unique experience!' we thought. Just put some flashlights in ziplock bags and we're set! The coves next to our house would be perfect, since they are so protected.

Yeah.

Turns out, being in the water at night is freaky.

The coves actually close at sundown, so we went all 007 sneaking into the water. I know I, personally, felt this way as I slipped into my wetsuit under the cover of darkness. No one else had one, so they were probably too focused on feeling cold to reciprocate my thougts on the situation.

So we got in an bumbled around for a while. One of the flashlights wasn't working so well (of course it was Jen's) so she and I teamed up to look around. It's all kind of fuzzy now, but I remember screaming a lot.

Ok, so not so 007.

Still, it was freaky. The ocean's disfigured creatures come out at night, and it's always a suprise, cuz you don't realize they are there until they are all up in your face. So, there was much squealing. Jen eventually had enough, and got out of the water. I went back out to get David, but I could NOT find him to save my life. What the heck!? I was getting mildly panicked, and then a GIANT EEL swam right underneath me, and screw David, I was out of there.

Which worked out well, because it turned out David was already on shore. It was a very unique, albeit mildly stressful, experience. We don't really have any pictures from the excursion, mainly because they would look something like this:

Outside of this activity, once Jen came to visit, I realized that I had no idea what to do with guests once the outdoors get too dark to play in. I spent a lot of time trying to come up with ideas, and thinking to myself, "What do I normally DO at night!?" Thank goodness the Olympics were there to save me. We spent a lot of time watching Michael Phelps destroy everyone.

More to come - the real ridiculousness didn't kick in until the last few days.......