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| Na Pali Coast, Kauai |
Welcome to the Turner-Duggan Kauai Experience. Here are a few personal observations and anecdotes I collected during my recent trip to Hawaii. We all know silliness has a tendency to follow my husband and me wherever we go.
1. Crowing roosters
You don't really need an alarm clock on Kauai because you are bound to hear a rooster at some point during the early hours (and pretty much all day, for that matter).
Actually, you don't really need an alarm clock with a Dan either. The first morning, he woke me up at six o'clock.
"It's ten o'clock our time," he said, jumping out of bed with an energy he rarely displays at home.
"Then by that logic, we went to bed at two a.m.," I grumbled.
2. The Jeep
We rented a Jeep since we figured a lot of our sightseeing was going to involve driving on rugged roads. I have a sneaking suspicion that Dan enjoyed driving such a manly man vehicle. In any other situation, I would have guilt-tripped him about its carbon footprint and the implied chauvinism of such a monstrosity.
I, on the other hand, could never close the car door completely. It was too heavy. It got to the point that when the door ajar chime sounded, we'd say in unison, "Door!" Dan started opening and closing the car door for me every time I got in and out but not for the sake of chivalry.
The Jeep only played reggae stations. We did eventually find a classic rock station that would come in most of the time. We noticed it shared D.J.s with the Jeep's choice reggae station.
3. Looking young
Looking young is awesome. I am reminded of my grandmother whose claim to fame was that she had always looked at least ten years younger than her age. Even when she was ninety-eight, she bragged that no one could believe she was a day over eighty-eight. I must have inherited those genes. And Dan is the same way. He must have good genes too.
I only mention this bragging right because Dan and I were asked numerous times if we were on our honeymoon. When we answered no—and I usually added, "We celebrate our ten-year anniversary this December"—people would say, "Then you must have been high school sweethearts?"
At this point, I would confess that we were thirty-six because I didn't want them to think Dan and I had been too young when we married.
And the people would say, "Wow! You must have good genes."
I have never been so happy to admit my real age as I was in Hawaii.
4. Tastes, sounds, etc.
In Kauai, I tasted the best pineapples, mangoes, avocados, and bananas ever. In cooking magazines, when they talk about the creaminess of the mango or avocado, you don't really know what they mean until you taste one of those fruits in the tropics. Our bananas on the mainland are the blandest fruits ever known to humankind.
When the palm leaves rustle in the breeze—and there is a constant, gentle breeze—it sounds like rain. A chorus of birds and crickets greeted us anytime we hiked through the island's rainforest areas.
The best part about hiking in Kauai is the lack of large predators on the island. No bears (Stephen Colbert would be happy), snakes, or cougars. This is one of the reasons there are so many feral chickens and roosters running around. Hikers may encounter a stray cat or two on some of the trails. One could feasibly run into scarier animals on the Boise greenbelt.
5. Playing in the ocean
My typically reserved and very serious husband reverted to a happy child around the ocean. At the beach, Dan would play in the waves and snorkel with his goggles. He would return to the shore every few minutes, where I was usually attempting and failing miserably to read, to excitedly tell me about all the fish he saw underwater.
Dan took surfing lessons too. Right before he left, he said, "I hope my instructor isn't like Paul Rudd's character on Forgetting Sarah Marshall."
Afterward, Dan said the instructor asked him, "So the Mrs. didn't want to try surfing, huh?"
Dan told him that "the Mrs.," apparently meaning "Becky," wasn't the strongest swimmer.
"Yeah," the instructor waxed philosophical, "sometimes my job is just about fighting the fear."
6. Sightseeing
When we were driving to the Kilauea Lighthouse, I asked, "Do you know if people can go up to the top?"
"Are you wearing underwear?" Dan asked.
Because he doesn't process his thoughts out loud, I wasn't sure what this response meant. He explained he was worried that there might be holes in the stairs we would have to climb.
"People would be able to see up your dress."
The lighthouse wasn't open to tours, so there were no stairs with holes or otherwise.
On our final day on the island, we went to Kauai Coffee, toured the plantation, and sampled several types of coffee and chocolate-covered espresso beans. We finished the excursion with a latte. I was happily buzzed.
Dan looked at me, his eyes uncharacteristically wide and alert, and asked, "So do you want to try more?"
Back in Portland:
We found out jet lag is much worse when you lose hours. Our first night back in Portland, we decided we were finally hungry enough for dinner around nine, and we tracked down a Whole Foods that was about ready to close for the evening.
Right before bed, I found Dan in the bathroom, flushing our leftovers down the toilet so that he could recycle the containers. And that was the final scene etched in my memory of our Turner-Duggan summer vacation.
For more vacation fun, check out "Hawaii, Part 1: How My Summer Vacation Was Like Lost."
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