Haiku

Illegal
Hikes like Haiku Stairs
Rock my world

We've only been traveling for 3 weeks and already our trip has reached such extreme levels of epic-ness that Danielle has decided to make a stamp of the word "epic" so we can stamp all of our most epic experiences in our various journals. That way when we come home at the end of the year and return to our normal, mundane existences we'll never be able to forget the extremity of our bizarre new lifestyle.

The most epic of all our epic days was Tuesday Feb 1 to Thursday Feb 3. It counts as one day because we really didn't sleep much in between. It started out kind of normal. We spent most of Tuesday on the beach and in the BYUH library, catching up on facebook, pampering our beloved blog and futilely trying to plan our stubbornly unplannable romp through Asia (unless you are my mother, in which case EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL). We left Laie around 9 p.m. planning to camp for the night at Bellows so we could get up early and beat the crowds to Hanauma Bay. Unfortunately our permit had expired before it was even issued. Thanks Satellite City Hall. The military guard at Bellows pointed to the discrepancy and turned us away.

It was getting late, and it seemed pointless to drive all the way back to the northshore to sleep and drive all the way back in the morning, so we decided to sleep in the car again. We spent an hour circling the area trying to find a hiding place for our car that was unobtrusive enough to prevent cops from noticing but close enough to the cops to prevent other sorts of people who hide from cops late at night from noticing. Being homeless involves a very delicate balance.

We found an ideal spot across from the beach park next to a high fence on a residential street. Once again Danielle stretched out in the back while I reclined the front passenger seat, and we slept about as well as you can expect to sleep in an economy car in a strange neighborhood waiting for cops to come knocking at the window.

The next morning we got up with the sun and realized we were next to one of the most beautiful beaches we'd ever seen, so we walked around for a bit before putting on our swimsuits and driving towards Hanauma Bay, where we spent a perfect Hawaiian day.

A scenic overlook on the way to Hanauma Bay

I want to put a house on this island

We rented snorkels and followed around schools of brightly colored fishes and perpetually indifferent-looking sea turtles for an hour or so, then laid out on the soft sand. When we had been there long enough to acquire funny looking tanlines (especially Danielle, who got tiger stripes on her derriere from her flashy bikini), we drove to Honolulu and got curry at our new favorite Thai restaurant.

We were feeling so refreshed from our relaxing day at the beach (and annoyed at the idea of spending another night in the car) that we decided to stay up all night and hike the Stairway to Heaven. We found a Walmart and morphed our sweet travel shirts into clubbing attire (what can I say? Danielle's a genius), used beach grime to style our hair, and spent the evening in Waikiki dancing with some very fun Chilean boys at Senor Frog's. As someone who doesn't go clubbing very often and doesn't have anything to compare Waikiki's nightlife to, I don't think I can adequately express how much fun we had that night so you'll just have to take my word for it when I say it was awesome.

We left our new friends around 3:30 a.m. and drove to Kaneohe, where we loaded up on caffeine, called my incredibly tolerant friend Ryan at 4:45 a.m. for directions, stumbled through a bamboo forest, hopped a fence laced with barbed wire and manure (we found a lot of amateur booby traps along the way), and began our ascent.

All I can say about the hike was that it was EPIC. See for yourself.

Pre-dawn

Slowly getting lighter

Almost to the top

Getting close...

Boom! The sun's up

I got a lot of shots of Danielle's back...

We reached the first landing just as the sky started lightening, and got to the very top in time for a brilliant sunrise. Then we ran down the stairs as fast as our shaking, sugar and caffeine crashing, sleep-deprived legs would carry us to avoid the awkwardness of blatantly walking back to our cars in front of the security guard who arrives at varying times every morning.

Our last stop was the STD clinic. Somehow Danielle had managed to avoid her routine Hepatitis B shots in high school, and the oversight hadn't been caught before we left Colorado. Luckily my mom had found a clinic in Honolulu that offered free Hepatitis B shots to "at risk" groups, and with the huge bags under our eyes, matted hair, and heavy day-old makeup we certainly looked the part. We stared at the small TV in the waiting room like zombies as it played a high school drama promoting the use of condoms on repeat for an hour and a half, got the shot, and somehow managed to drive back to the northshore before crashing on the beach. Not a bad way to spend 72 hours.

(Actually Written by Jessi)