Conclusion

Well now I find myself on my couch in Corbeil at 2am unable to sleep and I have no idea why. Probably because it feels like 8pm and I slept in til noon today. The whole family slept til noon. Krista got the baby up around 7 brought her in to bed with us and we stayed there til the phone rang. I don't care how late I stay up tonight, I just have to get up in the morning.

We've been home for 36 hours after a 24 hour journey home. We were back yesterday around 3pm and went for dinner with Judy, Bob, Liz, Terry, Amanda, Sean, Roxy, and in no particular order, well, other than girl, boy, girl.

It was great to see everyone is well, happy and still like to eat. The new beach front dining location is awesome and having our brother and sister here from worldly travels and as new neighbours is even better. Our house was in good shape and well manicured and the cats were happy to get outside.

There was an ultimate game at 6, but it would be mean to just leave and play, but I can't wait to see friends and hopefully the new baby tomorrow at ultimate. I made it out to soccer and I had really missed the North Bay soccer community. We may not be the best in the world, pretty close, but not quite, but we are a community. There is a soccer culture that I wish could work together better, but it does work nonetheless. It was a close game with my goalie Tyler Cowden making a huge stop on a penalty shot with ten seconds left in the game. I knew he would make the save, I've seen him do it many times. There were some young kids at the game from Luc's camp and they were saying "Nice Save Goalie!!!" So I asked them if they wanted his autograph and they were so excited. Tyler was emabarrassed, but he reluctantly scribbled his name down and ran away. It was a great save though, and as a goalie, you don't often get to keep points on the board, you just have to deal with all the shots that whiz past you. Anyways, this is nothing about Hawaii, but like I said I can't sleep.

So our journey home began by finishing packing, dealing with our crazy landlord, dropping the jeep off, and getting yelled at for the amount of beach sand in it. I didn't think it was too bad. I had only made a few castles in the back seat to entertain Melody. The lady was lecturing me on charging me $50 and how hard is to get sand out of a jeep and blah, blah, blah and I thought this whole island is a beach what planet are you on, of course there's going to be sand. What she heard was, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I could clean it." Anyways, I didn't get charged and I hopped on the shuttle back to the airport where I had left Krista, Melody, all our stuff, with some weird dude, who I gave my credit card to. That was really strange, but he was a porter working off tips, helping people like us with too much stuff and kids and the dad running to return the vehicle. This guy got us checked in and was able to slide our luggage in at a reduced rate, so he ended up being a huge help.

When we went through screening, we took the standard shoes off, belt and bling, but that wasn't good enough. Our carry on bag had all kinds of crap in it and the security guard pulled it all apart. The laptop bag was thoroughly searched and there were twenty cables left tangled on the floor. The best part was going through Melody's 2 day lunch bag of ten jars of baby food, water, and 3 bowls of cereal. She tested everything with litmus type paper, sprinkling cereal onto acid for other tests, wiped down baby jars with napkins and burned the paper to see the colour of the flame. But the best part was that she told Krista that she would have to be frisked because the baby food couldn't be opened. That seems to make perfect sense to me. Krista was looking hot in her tight yoga pants is what I was thinking. She couldn't have hidden anything even if she wanted to. I was wearing overstuffed cargo shorts and they didn't pat me down. I was kind of depressed about that.

So we pulled our stuff together and now were short on time. The kind of good part of travelling with the baby is that you get loaded in the plane first, but the bad part is you're on the plane the longest. We met a great little guy who was flying by himself. He had visited his dad in Kauai and was going back to his mom's in Honolulu. The plane in Hawaii is like the bus. It's only a 21 miunte flight. You climb and then you descend. There is no cruising.

We landed in Honolulu and were happy our luggage was meeting us in Toronto and that we did not have to be screened again. We scarffed the worst Burger King we could and walked around the over priced shooping stores, grabbed our boarding passes and then camped out at number 17 gate. You can't leave stuff unattended or they'll confiscate and destroy it, so we took turns manning the stuff and walking the baby around. I found a relatively empty gate and played tag and stuff with the baby. She kept asking for a boost onto this board walk thing and had fun running up and down it. There was one other family there and this ten year old dude started showing off his break dancing moves for us. Melody just plopped down and loved watching him. The young guy liked showing off so it was a match made in the airport. I did this for about two hours trying to tucker her out for the nine hour flight ahead of us.

The flight went better than the other nine hour flight and we were squished in the two seats with the three of us. She didn't really sit still, we were basically jungle gyms, but as long as she didn't scream and cry we were happy. She didn't cry once. Really. AT the end of the flight, we were literally congratulated by people on the amazing feat they witnessed. We didn't get any sleep, until about an hour left when they started serving everybody a bunch of crap that they hadn't bothered to serve the other 8 hours, and woke us up.

We landed in Chicago and walked the two miles from one gate to the other. It was quite surreal to have just missed night. We didn't sleep and it was only dark for a couple hours. We chased away from the setting sun and basically caught up to it before a night could take hold. There was a moment on the plane where it was pitch black with a full moon on one side and the deepest shade of red I've ever seen in the sky, on the other side.

So we were hanging loose in Chicago for the three hour layover. Krista went to get a bite. She came back a minute later with a huge smile and said "You have to walk by the bar over there. Look to your right. It's Rupert!" Any survivor junkies know who Rupert is. He's the only guy to have won a million bucks on survivor just for being the people's favourite. He has a crazy shaggy beard and is totally off the wall. From the show I knew he wokred with troubled kids.

So, I go walk by, fully intending to talk to him, but he was on his cell. I turned back, not sure what to do. Do I bug him? DO I ask for a photo? DO I pull all my crap out to get my camera? Then I said to hell with it. So, Krista went to get her food. She came back and said he was still sitting there, so I thought I would go again. I walked by and he was back on his cell.

Then I said to that's it. I stuck my hand in my packsack, trying to find this little secret compartment where I had stashed my secret spy pen, found it, turned it on, clipped it to my shirt and went on my mission. I walked up to the empty bar, except for Rupert, and said "Oh hey, Rupert, wow, nice to see you." I was trying to act surprised. He said, "Nice to see you." The bartender handed me a menu and I said, uuuuhhhhhhhhhh, pretending to really be looking at it and said "Actually, I'll just have a coffee."

Rupert's buddy showed up and they chatted a bit about pastries. Then I asked Rupert if he still works with kids. He ranted for the nest ten minutes, in a good way, about what he does. I just kept nodding, saying the odd "uh huh" and "oh really", and just trying not to smile too much. He basically works with 18-22 who will go to jail and puts them to work fixing, cleaning, and maintaining parks. He helps kids get their freedom back. He's from Indianoplis, but was in Chicago trying to spread his program across the land.

I've since watched my spy video and it's really quite a good look at the bottom of my chin. Obviously I had the wrong angle on it, but I did catch the conversation on tape and I got video of him taking a picture with some kids.

Then we got a 1.5 hour flight to Toronto and the baby did fine again, until we landed. She was out of it, the stewardess was a beeatch and we were tired.

We had booked our shuttle pick up about four months earlier and we had no easy access to a phone our entire month away so I did not call to confirm. The same guy who dropped us off was supposed to pick us up. He had given me a card, told me to go to pre-arranged service, they call him and he shows up. Well, he wasn't there, he wasn't in the system, we weren't in the system and we were stuck. I walked nine miles around the airport to find a payphone, stuck my credit card in there and called a cell answering machine. I couldn't leave a return number. Then I called the company and got another machine. Now I'm ready to break something, and not because he's not there, but because I knew I should have found a way to reconfirm. So, I'm sitting there plotting a hotel, or rental car and how I will take this shuttle company down. I left the number on the pay phone on another machine. Then, I called his cell again and he answered and was just around the corner. We slept the entire drive home. We didn't have a key to get in house and the secret key was missing so, I had to tap into my criminal mind and search for a way in. There's always a way, but some ways are smoother than others. We popped a screen, slid in, threw our crap on the floor, had cold showers because we turned the hot water tanks off and went to see family. As my profile status said: 10,000kms, 3 planes, 2 shuttles, and one cup of coffee with Rupert=home sweet home.

Well, now, it's 3am, so I'm going to keep rolling.

Before the conclusion, I think I left off somewhere after catching the monster and trying to eat at an Indian food restaurant the next day and wanting to toss my tacos. That seems to be a good spot to pick back up.

The next day we tried the Indian restaurant again and it was really good. I would really like to learn how to make a hot ass curry dish. Curry is the best, but we don't even have a jar here. The problem we were having and it was becoming a real problem was Melody's little face. She teethed the whole time away and whenever I've heard people talk about teething, I think of teeth. But what I've found as the problem, is snot. Little Melody has been diagnosed with CF, so I'm not sure if this is a bigger problem for her than other kids, but I guess their sinus drains while their teething. So her nose began running and we would wipe it. AFter wiping it so much her upper lip turned red. Then her lip began to bleed. Then the sore got covered in more snot and we would wipe some more and make it worse. We also stuck a suction tube up her nose and try and pull the snot out from the source and we have a ventilator with medicine that steams open her lungs and we have antibiotics to prevent lung infection. At the end of the day, you're looking at this beautiful girl who is a tuff little trooper who didn't complain at all unless we tried to help her.

So we're sitting in the Indian restaurant and this nose thing is running away from us and we're feeling horrible. We had researched it the night before and we diagnosed it as impetigo and you basically get it clean, disinfect and keep it clean. We used tea tree oil and polysporin and got it totally cleared up within about four days, but it started improving by the next day. Also, in the back of our minds was a virus called leptospirosis found in the Hawaiian streams, which is a flesh eating disease. We hadn't had her in the water, but you tend to worry as a parent:) We kept it low key the rest of the day.

We went to our favourite baby beach the next day to meet our friends Craig and Parv. They are really Liz and Terry's good friends, but I have met them many times. I talked mostly with Craig and he's working on a novel and we had fun chatting about character analysis and other things that I don't get to talk to other people about. We went snorkelling and I lost my mask and had to use the other snorkelling set to find the one I had lost. After I found it, I felt like I should just go hunting for treasure if I can find stuff so easily. We mowed down at the all you can eat pizza hut buffet just before my longest run. I felt like Pizza The Hut from Space Balls. That was one of the worst ideas I've had in along time, running with three medium pizzas, 4 salads, nine cokes, 3 plates of lasagna and nineteen dessert pizza slices, sloshing around my gut. I thought tossing tacos was bad, this was awful. The run I did was on Kahuna street. I call that run "The Big Kahuna".

The reason I had to do the run was because I wasn't going to be able to get wet, or soak, or sweat for the rest of the trip. I wasn't going to be able to get wet because, duh duh duh, I was getting my first tattoo. Well, we were both getting them. Krista already had one. She has these angel wings on her entire back with a...just kidding about that. She now has two little tattoos from two vacations, but she can write about that.

I had always wanted to wait til I was fifty to get one,just to keep some cool things to do in my back pocket, but Hawaii is the land of tattoos. I researched every artist on the island and found the right guy. I saw his work, I read everything I could find about him and he was the guy. His work was the most detailed of anyone else. It was a challenge to come up with the design but I knew he could piece it together. I had drawn all the parts and he helped to add the details.

When Duma died years ago, I drew my first picture. I didn't intend to do a drawing, it just came out of me. I really like what I had done and didn't know that was in me. Since that day, I have continued to let art come out of me. I never intend to do anything in particular, but if I am inspried to put a mark on a page, I conintue to put other marks and eventually I stop and have some sort of expression to look at. Usually, I just make mistakes, then I'll repeat the mistake, so it makes the first mistake look intentional.

That first drawing was a Yin Yang with Duma's name hidden in it. I started with that drawing and added Krista, Melody, and Roxy. When I drew Roxy in, it took the shape of a sword. I added a pen tip at the sword, threw a soccer ball and music note in the Yin Yang cirlce, blinged up the sword and added a little snowboarding and cycling dude riding off it. There's a lot going on, but that's me. The sword is over my shoulder surgery scars.

I didn't picture how much it would hurt. Many people have tats and I didn't think it would be a big deal. He started and immediately I went into shock, thought I would toss tacos again, and pass out. Luckily, I know the signs of shock and lied down before I hit the floor. It was close. I wasn't sure what sent me into shock, if it was just the needle or that I could feel the needle poking into the tendons that were just pulled over and reattached in my shoulder. Then I was wondering if I had given it enough time to heal before sticking ink into it. Then I could feel the tendons being played with as if they were guitar strings.

Jarod assured that this happens to most people, well, the men anyway, as women are much stronger than men at taking pain. He said let the adrenaline run its course and I would be fine. We watied about five minutes, started again, and I went into shock again. We decided we hadn't let the adrenaline run its course. I jumped out of a plane, I hauled in monster, I scrambled up a waterfall and I did not get that rush that I was looking for. Well, I got in the tattoo parlour. I thought I was going to have some strange marks of a barely started tattoo on my shoulder and that was it because I just couldn't take it.

We sat about ten minutes, he went back to work and we got it done. It took about 2.5 hours, but I am really happy with the end product and it was worth the pain. Adrenaline is the best drug and you don't have to take anything for it, it's inside you. I'm also happy that I don't need it as much as I did in my early twenties.

I had a great time chatting with Jarod. He is a very interesting person and I know I didn't even scratch the surface. I had read about some of his favourite authors and had brought him some book gifts and we're going to make a reading exchange program. We call it the International Cool Guys with Tattoos Reading Exchange Program. I.C.G.T.R.E.P for short. It will be like Oprah's book club, but cooler because we have tattoos. I really hope people get humour when I'm trying to slap them in the face with it:)

It's 330 am and the baby just woke up. I was able to feed her, change her, and rock her back to sleep, while Krista got to keep sleeping. That's the best.

So, the last few days we saved some easy touring things to do, out of the sun and surf, which is hard on this island. We drove to another waterfall, visited a traditional Hawaiian village, read books out on the lawn chairs while the baby napped, took photos, explored, drove down dead end roads, found an old Japanese cemetery, tried to win another contest by taking photos of a turtle on vacation, watched the Junior life guard crew, weird Yoga dude, light houses, menehune Fish pond, searched for Johnny Depp at the Marriot, and ate hot n sour soup.

The Jr Life Guards were these crazy fit kids in training. They would make a reality show that would kill the Hills. The Menehunes are these legendary Oompaloompa type figures that were said to origianlly habitate the island. They were thought to only work at night and moved to the mountains when the Marquesans and Tahitians showed up. Eventually they moved to another island. There big fish pond was basically a fish trap. I really wanted to find a Menehune and make a mocumentary film trying to find one. I kept video taping locals asking if they had seen a Menehune, but surprisingly, no one had. They are essentially Hawaiian Leprechauns and since I'm part Irish, I thought I would get along well with the Menehune and maybe they would want to come home with me and work at my ice cream parlour that I want to open. Maybe some other day, I guess.

On our second last day, we wanted to go to the west side again. We watched a parade for the Koloa Sugar Plantation days. Over half the island used to be sugar, but countries like Brazil began producing sugar without human or enviro laws, which dropped their costs. Kauai couldn't compete and the plantations closed up one by one. The parade was fun, but you had to ask yourself, did they plan this or did they just pull it together. It was as good as any parade I've seen here, but not freezing like the cold and wet Santa parades.

The celebration after the parade was good with foods and performers. the best was the drumming band. Last year in Detroit, they didn't have cheerleaders, they have drummers. The drum is a powerful instrument that vibrates your soul. Twelve drummers in unison vibrates the universe. Anyone want to be in my drumming band?

We continued west after the parade. I had already paid for a tank of gas at the rental place, so I was trying to return it close to empty. Well, we drove to the most remote part of the island just before dark and I was praying the light wouldn't come on. We made it to the most western tip in North America and watched the sun take a bath in the ocean. I learned that the horizon falls away 11 miles from your view. It seems farther than that. I don't know what I was expecting, but the sun sank and we left. There were no special colours, GOoodidn't speak to me and a million bucks didn't fall from he sky, but it was nice. I hate it when you build something up, and reality just can't compete with imagination.

The road to this spot is worse than bumpy and half way back the light went on. It's a small island so I was sure we would be fine, but everything closes early. The stress of potential mistakes sucks. We made it to a gas station, which I knew we would, but I hate that voice that's calling yourself an idiot for putting yourself at uneccessary risk. Shut up voice, we're fine, this is fine, we'll be fine. Dummy. I'm not dumb this is fine. On this goes until the problem is solved. I guess we call that voice conscience or something. We hadn't intended on going that far, but we couldn't find the beach we wanted and we were too far committed down the dirt road before I realized the gas situation. Oh well, we only drove 11 miles with the light on, but 5 miles took a half hour on the rough road. Ahh, it's fine.

The next morning, our last day, I got up at 5 am, and headed for the most easterly tip of the island so I could have the sun cleanse my soul after taking its nightly bath in the ocean. There were hundreds of freshly dug crab holes after the tide had gone out. I watched, photographed and videoed this event like its something that never happens. It's happening somewhere all the time. Since the beginning of time. It's responsible for time. Without the sun rising and setting, there is nothing. So this particular sunrise was special because it is the only one I have ever rolled out of bed for. I sat on the beach and couldn't believe what I was feeling.

I climbed waterfalls, I rode a bike down a 12 mile mountain, caught a monster, rode a horse, went surfing, read 5 books, jumped out of a plane, got a tattoo, 4x4ed up a mountain, snorkelled with crazy fish, photographed my brains out, drank 10 mai tais at a Luau, scored 12 goals in a soccer game, caught a matrix style catch in ultimate, met new friends, got in better shape, saw all kinds of hot beach butts and it still wasn't enough. There was one thing left to do.

I needed to see the Napali coast. The hike is 11 miles of remote clff hugging slippery treacherous terrain. You need to camp to get it done. I just didn't want to be away from the family for a few days. We were planning a family heli tour and that was cancelled a week ago. It didn't feel right with the sick baby and Krista didn't really want to after jumping our of the plane. I thought of running the hike hard, but that was bad for the tat, and you can take a coast cruise, but you get soaked, so I booked the heli tour. Krista and I had already decided that we would each take a turn with the baby and the other could do what they wanted. Krista wanted to soak some more rays.

While she was gone, I looked after the baby. She began to cry, I went to get her and it was a lovely scene. There was shit everywhere. There were perfectly rolled turds in the bed. Superb smears on her face, hands, stomach and calves. Little brown clingers were in her hair. There was shit smeared on the crib itself and on the matress. You know what, that was the best part of the trip. All of that shit, just because I like to say shit. Shit is a great word. In fact I think Melody says shit sometimes. I think she says Whats' That, but it gets reduced to dzat, which sounds like a German version of shit.

Krista came home, everything was cleaned up, the baby bathed and she didn't believe my story. Krista said I was full of shit. It's 430am now and maybe I'm getting tired. Shit the sun is kind of coming up.

So after all the shit, I went to my heli tour and I saw the ugliest shit I've ever seen. Mountains, volcanoes, beaches, waterfalls, cliffs, reef. Those views just couldn't compare to the shit.

We ended the day with a shave ice on the beach, which is like a snow cone, but not granular, it's fluffy. As we were sitting there we said, you know, we never did see a crab on the island and we thought it was weird. Then we looked at where we were sitting and realized there were ten of them around me. I screamed louder than Melody ever has and spilled my sticky shave ice all over my cool guy new white shorts. I love life. I love my family. I love my friends.

I know we were extremely priviledged to have this adventure and the best part was being with Krista and Melody 24/7/30. Aloha. Mahalo. Cheers. Peace.