this place is kicking my butt

Honestly, I thought – after a solid two years of sabbatical in which I did, no kidding, nothing I didn’t want to do all day every day, with only the wee distraction of a part-time job for the the past few months – that I had the whole kick-back-and-relax thing down cold.

Fool.

What do I know of chilling out? I am a mere amateur.

How long do you think Kev and I watched the surf pounding the shore yesterday? Psshhh, I dunno. An hour, according to the time stamp on the photos. We were sitting on a lava promontory on Secret Beach – North Shore – that was not receiving the brunt of the waves, due to whatever variables: the nature of the rocks and coast just a few dozen yards offshore, perhaps? Next to us, similar promontories were getting hammered.

Ka-BOOM!

The rule of thumb is, don’t turn your back on the ocean, and don’t hang out on wet rocks. Waves have a rhythm worth paying attention to, and if the rocks are wet, that means they’re contemplating sneaking up on you, grabbing you by the ankles, and hauling you off to sea. No, really. Our buddy and host actually warned a family off the shelf pictured above – they were from out of town, and didn’t know the dangers.

This guy was playing his guitar on the beach to his lady friend, and I could not help, as I walked by him, singing “I gave my love a cherry…without a stone”. I am a bad girl.

In other news – here’s a shot from the other day’s foray up Waimea Canyon – look, it’s Mars! Mars has water!

 

As for today, we went to a different beach just a stone’s throw from where we’re staying – each beach its own marvel, completely different from the last one.

This one featured a magic c'mon-on-in zone – a zone of dunes shaded by some type of ancient-looking…conifer?

The needles are segmented. What’s even crazier is I’ve seen this species of tree pruned every bit as aggressively as plane trees in France, shaped into boxy-looking hedges. Wacky.

 

Anyway. I digress. Kevin lolled around in a swimming lagoon for a while…

 

…while I lusted over stupendous chunks of rock and coral.

 

Here we have a grove of upside-down trees (can’t remember the name just yet), complete with giant rope swing.

 

And massive loads of whatever seed pods these are.

Happiness prevails. Tomorrow I’m entitled to extra doses of goofing off, since I started this morning with a 7.5 mile run. I plan on wreaking major havoc at a nearby botanical garden.