The Decompression of a Boomer

“Aloha …WHAT?” – “Are you kidding? I thought you were done with these endless Kauai blogs!”

Well, actually, not. As you might recall, I left off with Steph searching for her sandals as we were leaving Larsen Beach.

Which, that’s a problem with a nude beach. You wear clothes getting there, shed them on the beach – and preferably not in a trail, because you have to gather them all up again when you leave the beach. (And hopefully, you also put them back on to avoid getting arrested.)

In any case, another 24 hours passed between the time we left Larsen Beach to when we pulled into our driveway in Idaho Falls. (Does this frighten you?) My main focus on our last leg of this trip was to ’embrace the journey’ if you will. How to carry the ‘Aloha’ home to Idaho?

‘Aloha’ is the most Hawaiian word. It can mean ‘Hello’ or ‘Goodbye’. It also means ‘love’ and ‘affection’. The literal meaning of ‘Aloha’ is the ‘presence of breath.’

‘Aloha’ is sending and receiving positive energy, living in harmony –

for example, the harmony you see in nature.

‘Aloha’ was the working philosophy of Native Hawaiians and was presented as a gift to the people of Hawaii.

“Aloha means to hear what is not said, see what cannot be seen, and to know the unknowable.” Easy-peasy.

Well, all I know now is, the sun is setting on Kauai…

“Steph – take one last photo of us!”

Awwwwww. Too late for photos now. It’s time to head to the airport anyway…

Aloha Kauai! For real this time.

Fourteen hours later we are nearing the descent into Salt Lake City where David’s truck is parked.

The landscape seems surreal.

We land safely and have just climbed into David’s truck – Now we have to make the 3-hour drive home to Idaho Falls.

Eric’s riding shot-gun.

Out of no-where that fur-lined, Mad Bomber hat or whatever that thing is called, appears on his head. He travels prepared.

“BRRRRRR!!!” Is all I care to contribute to the conversation from the back seat, wincing from the sting of the frozen lining of my down jacket against my arms …

The whole Salt Lake Valley is blanketed in a thick smog. I had taken a few photos of the smog, but inadvertently deleted them, maybe a Freudian thing, especially in the spirit of carrying the ‘Aloha’ home to Idaho. The smog around Salt Lake and further north into Ogden was thick, ugly and toxic. A stark contrast to Paradise.

We were glad to drive out of the smog into Idaho.

We’re starving now, and I think it’s Malad where we decide to pull off the freeway into Burger King for a quick gut-bomb to hold us over. I capture a photo of this sign as we exit the parking lot:

Yep, we’re in Idaho, all right. Not your most ‘progressive’ state.

There sure is a dearth of snow for this time of year.

We’re not complaining. It’s just an observation. Not going to let fear or worry worm their way into our minds about potential drought or anything, either. In the spirit of ‘Aloha’ – we’re all about sending and receiving positive energy.

Within 40 miles of home we notice an abundance of frost.

‘Whore-frost.’ David explains. At least that’s what I heard from where I was in the back seat.

“WHORE-Frost? Are you serious?” (in the spirit of Aloha, you know, being conscious of the ‘presence of breath’ and all, I’m seeing the presence of whore’s breath all over the trees.)

“Yes. Whore-frost. You know, (now he spells it) “H-O-A-R-frost”

“You mean there are two spellings in the English Language of the word, “whore?” (That’s the English language for you. Unnecessarily complicated and redundant.) Looking at the landscape “whore-frost” makes complete sense to me. Why is it necessary to invent a different word for this frost, a word that sounds just like ‘whore’ but is spelled differently? Wow! Bravo!! – Look at me using the spirit of Aloha within me – hearing what is not said, seeing what cannot be seen, and knowing the unknowable. (that it’s really whorefrost.)

But, okay, in the spirit of Aloha, and maybe, too, in the spirit of American patriotism

I’ll go with ‘hoarfrost.’ (We are blowing past Blackfoot now)

I capture a video next, I guess because I knew all those trees sailing toward us at 82 mph were not going to fit in a photo:

The hoarfrost leads us all the way into Idaho Falls.

It was nice to be home. Eric is so prepared he had even left his boxed wine in David’s truck so it was chilled and ready to imbibe as soon as he got home with it.

The next week turned colder than a witch’s tit. And we were pounded by snow. We must have shoveled at least six times.

Good thing we were in such good physical shape with all those hikes we took in Kauai.

How to keep the spirit of Aloha alive? Well, I’ve just been telling myself that this:

is just the Idaho version of this:

I’m incorporating that positive energy thing, and … how does that go again? “Hearing what is not said, seeing what cannot be seen and knowing the unknowable.” Yeah. Something akin to that.

Is it spring yet?

Tags: hoarfrost, Idaho, Kauai, The meaning of 'Aloha'

This entry was posted on March 8, 2014 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Idaho, Kauai, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.