Long Trip Home...

We weren't exactly headed home, but back to normal island life at least.  The "long" part, though - that's accurate.  After waking up before our alarm (You read that right; Drew set an alarm on his phone when we were in the middle of nowhere.) on Tuesday morning we packed up the tent quick, snacked on some trail mix and took one last look at our semi-private beach.  The sun was barely up, but we knew we wanted to get a move on before it started baking us on the sunny sections of the trail.

We barreled up the steep incline out of camp and passed the wooden Kalalau sign.  We covered ourselves in dry red dust (unintentionally) and thanked our lucky stars for three days of continual sun and absolutely no rain.  We hiked, stopped, hiked, stopped, and hiked some more.  And then we came to a mile marker.  Out of nowhere.  I just happened to see it carved into a rock.  It said "9".  I briefly wondered why I hadn't seen it, or any others like it, on the way out to the beach.  I then quickly concluded that my brain had subconsciously shielded me from the painfully slow progress we'd been making that day.  I'm entirely sure that on the way to the beach I'd thought we were at least a mile ahead of where we actually were at every point.  A rude awakening it would have been to see those mile markers then.  On the way home, though, they seemed okay.  I watched for them with renewed energy and ticked off "8", "7" and "6" through the cliffs, the red clay and the valley.

At some point along the way we stopped to allow a few people to pass and to re-apply sunscreen.  While stopped, with a clear view of the ocean below, we heard a thump.  More like a "smack"!  With our eyes on the water we finally spotted him - a whale!  I'd seen a whale jump when I'd been at the beach the day before, but Drew hadn't seen him.  Now, finally, Drew was having his whale moment.  The whale jumped again and cleared the water, landing with a loud "smack" and sending up plumes of water.  We stayed seated, wondering if the show might continue.  And it did.  We were treated not only to the jump, but a round of at least 15 (truth) tail smacks.  You could hear it all the way up the cliff wall, and since we were on a valley wall with rock fins reaching out to the water on either side of  us, the sound actually echoed its way to us. Smack....smack.....smack!  We could even make out his tail.  It was really an incredible moment and we hated to leave just in case he kept going.  Eventually we peeled our eyes away and started walking.  Since I'd nearly walked off the cliff 48 hours earlier, I left the "walk and watch" duties to Drew.

After hiking a little ways and leap frogging a few other hiking couples, we found our eyes opened wide again (Anne Lane, here you go!).  I happened to be hiking in front of Drew.  I was walking aroud a corner, headed slightly uphill, when from around the other side appeared a female hiker.  Naked.  With a backpack.  Beautiful naked woman with a backpack blasting Jack Johnson.  I smiled, nodded and said "Good morning!" (what else do you say?) and then whipped my head around behind me so as not to miss Drew's reaction.  I knew it would be priceless.  He hadn't seen her yet.  I grinned and waited for it.  And then it came - red cheeked and wide-eyed for maybe half an instant.  He recovered quickly and said something, probably "Good morning" like me - because again, what else is there?  Once she had passed us Drew looked at me and simply said, "Was she wearing any shoes?  'Cause if so I should have said nice shoes."  Lord.  Really?  Shoes?   Needless to say neither of us had looked, there.

And though we were tired, the miles continued to roll by without major incident.  We hit the downhill into Hanakapaia Valley and Beach around 1pm and enjoyed a little break by the cairns.  We watched the wild cats, listened to conversations, and answered questions about why were were so sweaty and why our packs were so big.  After 15 minutes or so we decided to head on, across the stream and into what seemed like an infinite uphill.

We'd pretty much finished taking pictures at this point - I was tired, sweaty, and just wanted to be back at the trailhead.  We went uphill steeply along with all those people who had spent the day at Hanakapaia Beach.  We all trudged in unison - kids, elderly couples, parents and crying babies.  We stopped in these two miles more than we'd stopped the whole rest of the way.  We talked to strangers, ran out of water, tried not to get mad at each other every time we came around the corner to another fin of rock ("It has to be the next one, I mean, honsetly.").  At some point the roller coaster ended and it was all downhill.  So steeply downhill and rocky that it hurt.  But then we saw the trailhead sign.  I reached up on my tip toes to kiss Drew, and we made our way across the parking lot to the pay phone to call the cab with the quarters the first driver had given us 48 hours before (no cell service).  Dirty, accomplished, and exhausted - we waited for our ride.  Already, I was falling back in love with it...