Lost on the North Shore

As we finally collapsed and went to bed at 730 pm last night, we were up before the birds this morning. Literally. I was awake in bed waiting to hear the rooster crow and the tropical birds to start making sound. I gave up waiting and went outside to the kitchen to boil water for my coffee. Sure enough… up walked the two chickens, Speckles and Blackie, to say good morning. An hour later found us back at the same place for breakfast (at least we tried two new things) and the same coffee shop as yesterday morning.  Brian caught up on Little League business while I read the local paper. We headed back to our tent and were ready for our hiking adventure by 830. 

Following the directions that Scott gave us  we headed the opposite direction from yesterday and “drove until the road stopped”.  Right before the road came to an end we spotted some YMCA cabins that looked exactly like the Dharma Initiative cabins from Lost. We commented on it and, because we were huge LOST fans back in the day, decided we’d stop on our way back to get a picture. Anyway, we got to the end of the road, got out and started walking along the coastline. It was beautiful in every direction. We scrambled through tide pools and across lava rock and miles of coral. There was mud and sand and rocks of all types… but no people. It was so quiet on the hike. In fact, until we reached the bird and seal sanctuary about 4.5 miles in we had only seen two other couples.  Along the way we spotted a few whales, a few seals, and lots of birds, crabs, and fish. 

On our way back into town we stopped to take pictures of the “dharma-like” camp and realized upon walking closer to the cabins that there was a picture of the Dharma logo outside one of the cabins. As we left the YMCA camp we saw a sign that said, “Welcome Lost Fans”.  Turns out that was where that portion of the show was filmed. I looked up other sites that were featured in the show and, funny enough, it turns out that we took pictures of a huge banyan tree the day before on our trip to the fruit beach that was also in Lost. Tomorrow we are heading up to a waterfall which, it turns out, was the waterfall where two of the characters kissed in season 5. So, our trip to Oahu has turned out to also be a hunt for Lost locations. Yes, we are total dorks.

We had lunch at another food truck and when we tried to go into the local bakery there was a filming crew there. Turns out that WAS LeAnn Rimes we saw sipping coffee on the outside deck.  We headed back to our tent just in time for a big rain storm. Not much beats being inside a water-safe tent for a luxurious afternoon nap with the sound of rain and local birds to lull you to sleep! Apparently Boise got a couple inches of snow last night so we won’t complain about some warm rain.

Tomorrow we are hoping to catch some of the surf competition. Maybe we’ll actually try somewhere new for breakfast… although we are both kind of liking our “morning routine” so we’ll see! Tonight we are heading back to town for dinner and dessert and hoping to find some book lights so we can more easily read in our tent at night. They have electricity but the lights are really dim and it’s very hard to see past 6:00.

So far we love it here. This alternative to resort vacations is definitely a viable one moving forward.