repus

one of the things that sucks the most about living in paradise is that most people are very transient, so even though new people are moving here constantly, my friends are leaving just as frequently. it's really hard to lose things once you have had them, as opposed to never having them to begin with, because then you really know what your missing. my buddy, nieder, is moving back to the mainland on tuesday, so we had to throw him a little going away party that should never be forgotten. here's how the checklist must have looked...:

1. round trip ferry tickets to lana'i 4.1-4.3
2. alcohol
3. mushrooms
4. stankus dankus
5. camping gear
6. food and water
7. clothes for a few days
8. snorkel gear

so, my best friend out here, murph, wakes me up around noon on wednesday saying that we gotta hurry up and get ready if we are gonna leave in a few hours. we went to the harbor to get our tickets and a good amount of our group was about to leave on that ferry. we told them we'd meet them later, as we had to gather up some party favors.

we go back to my house and i pack what i think i need. we go to murph's and he does the same. i realize i left some important stuff at my house, as i was hungover and not thinking completely focused, but we were quickly running out of time. we go back by my house and grab a few of those things; yes i still forgot more, which i'll get to later.

then we go to the store to get some food and alcohol. i pay for the food, and murph's gonna pay for the 3 bottles of lemon vodka, until the clerk realizes that his license is expired. so i ask if i can buy it and the guy refuses, saying that we, or someone else around, might be working for the liquor commission on a sting operation. he finally says i can buy 1 of the bottles, and this sucks for a few reasons...:

1. we needed the 3 bottles we took to the clerk, and there were only 4 on the shelf to begin with,
2. we had our hearts set on that particular vodka and
3. we were running massively late.

so i buy the 1 bottle and we run out. i hand murph the bottle outside and run back in to grab that last bottle off the shelf. i go to the clerk next to my previous one and explain that i need 1 of the 2 bottles he had at his counter cause there wasn't anymore on the shelf. this guy looks at me confused, so i explain to him what happened and that we are about to miss our boat. he gets me the other bottle, and we finally have 3 in our possession...!

when we get to the harbor, the ferry is just about to leave, and we are not ready, so we miss this one, damnit. so we decide to drink for the next couple of hours while we waited. the 3 bottles of lemon vodka were for 3 gallons of sweet tea, and you can't even taste the alcohol, which is why we wanted those exact bottles. so we drank tea and i played my guitar for all of the idiots getting off other boats, walking by us.

then we get on our ferry, a little tipsy. it's about a 45 minute trip to this neighboring island. When we get there, everyone is already set up and cooking, drinking, etc. We quickly get our tents set up before the sun went down, and i then realize that i have no blanket, sheet, sleeping bag, or even a towel for that matter. at least i was smart enough to bring some sweat pants and a hoodie, as it was now dark and getting much cooler. i put those on and continued partying with the crew.

before i know it, i'm eating a chocolate mushroom bar and seeing shit. we went to the beach that we were camping beside with drinks, bowls and music. nieder had a boom box blasting beats as others were dancing. we saw shooting stars. nieder even started throwing his head lamp up in the air in a spinning motion over and over again; it looked really cool at the time, you just had to be there...

during all of this, i must have played my acoustic guitar for about 3 hours, until a park ranger shines a light in my face asking what we were doing. i thought it was one of our friends being stupid until he shined the light in murph's face, while he was in the middle of packing a fresh bowl...! he asked murph if he thought he was supposed to be doing that, and that we needed to go to our campsite because we were being too loud and it was too late. oops...

so we go back to our site and cook a little food and drink more. nieder keeps turning up the boom box loud, and murph or i keep turning it back down, as we don't want to see that ranger again. after eating, most of the others were starting to pass out, so murph and i smoked another bowl. it was about 3:30am when we called it a night.

i was awake by 8:00 and we started again. it was a full day of drinking on the beach with music blasting, horseshoes, bocci ball, acoustic guitars and swimming. there were many pods of spinner dolphins swimming in the bay, and if i had to guess how many there were out there, i'd say 150-200 from all the pods combined! it was really amazing.

then i had to take a short nap, as i was lacking proper sleep. maybe an hour into my nap, a water sprinkler turns on right next to my tent. it wakes me up making really loud noises as it hits the side of my tent, and then the water starts coming in through the top. i unzipped my tent and jumped out with my guitar in my hands faster than shit, and i was fully awake by that time. i moved my tent over and started drinking again, immediately...

everyone with us is either drunk or tripping, and we're all stoned, heh, singing songs, dancing in the sand, playing games and hiking places. at different times, we'd all take turns grilling some food for us to eat. some people took the shrooms again that day and night, but i had my fill the night before. i just drank all day and night until i went to sleep around 2:00am, feeling sober somehow...

some of our friends had to be on the 8:00am ferry, so i was up by 7:30am wishing them a farewell. i am tired as hell and just want to take a shower and get into my own real bed. i took my tent down and started cleaning up our area, as it was trashed. everyone else did the same, and people left at 10:30am, 2:00pm and us at 4:30pm.

with just a few of us left, another park ranger comes up to us angry about the noise and actions of some of the people in our group. we explained that the people he was upset with were already gone, and that we were cleaning up after them. he said they could always take our camping permit away from us, or not even approve it at all for the next time. so we apologized again and told him that we would inform our friends of that info.

as we were leaving, other people were showing up that we knew, but for a different party. we told them about our time and about the rangers messing with us, as a warning to them. we were all tired and a lil cranky, and the ferry ride back seemed to take forever, but we made it, finally...

i have been back almost a week now, and i am still tired, heh. nieder is now gone, which sucks, but we all have memories of this crazy camping trip to lana'i. i'll try to find some good pics, if anyone has any good ones, and post them up here, since my camera died.

good/crazy times,
aloha.

p.s. i have left out a LOT of this story, as it is way too long as is, so this is just the tip of the iceberg. i can elaborate on something if you want me to, i just didn't feel like writing a book right now, heh...