Vacation pictures! With zero spiders!

Feel free to ignore this post if you don't like looking at pictures of warm places when it's so cold out. We went to Maui! I've never eaten so much banana bread in my life!

We got up at 3am the first morning we were there to see the sunrise atop Haleakala. You can drive a paved road all the way to the top, which is way easier than seeing the sunrise from Mauna Kea on the big island of Hawaii. When we went up Mauna Kea in 2010 we had to rent a 4WD and drive miles of terrifying unpaved roads with steep dropoffs and no guardrails.

Haleakala October 2012

Because it's so easy to get to the top there were tons of people there. When the sun broke through some people exclaimed as though they weren't sure it was going to happen.

It reminded me of this commercial, which caused me to run around our whole vacation yelling, "Oh, it's so spiritual!"

It was nice but it wasn't as spectacular as Mauna Kea, which looked like this. We were pretty much alone when we visited Mauna Kea, too. Way better.

Mauna Kea October 2010

Good thing there were plenty of other pretty things to gawk over.

Haleakala silversword (Argyoxiphium sandwicense subsp. macrocephalum)

We visited the 'Iao Valley and the 'Iao Needle (the giant phallic rock) that was the site of an incredibly gruesome battle between King Kamehameha and the chief of Maui. 

There were taro plants everywhere.

We visited the Korean Garden, which was a mishmash of tributes to the various emigrants that landed on the Hawaiian islands. 

There were spaces for the Chinese . . .

New Englanders . . .

Portuguese . . .

Japanese . . .

We went to Lahaina and saw the single banyon tree that covers a huge park. It was gorgeous.

We attended the Old Lahaina Lu'au, where the food and dancing were spectacular.

We drove The Road to Hana. If we're being honest, I hate things like this, where you drive and stop every half mile to take photos of something scenic. I don't end up enjoying myself at all. But we stopped at the Kahanu Botanical Garden (pictures to follow in a separate post), which was peaceful and nearly empty.

We swam at the black sand beach at Wai'anapanapa.

We saw the red sand beach but I was wearing flip flops and couldn't get down to it. The iron in the lava is rusting, giving it this unreal color.

We went powered hang gliding in Hana. This was my birthday present to Greg and I still can't believe I did this. If any of you know me in real life or follow me on Twitter, I get absolutely shitfaced before getting on flights, using a combo of Xanax and vodka. I've gotten waaaaay better at flying over the years but I never look forward to it. I took half a Xanax for this little excursion. It took about 15 minutes up in the air to unclench and then I felt like I could stay up there forever.

The pilot is named Armin and he's wonderful. He showed me Oprah's property and Pat Benatar's house.

This is Greg flying over the road to Hana.

It's a stunning way to see the island and I can't recommend it enough. The funnest part is when he cuts the engine and you just glide. Then he starts diving and swooping and you can't stop screaming and laughing. We stayed overnight in Hana (which I highly recommend) and had dinner at one of two restaurants in town. We sat outside while rain poured down on the corrugated roof and locals performed at the open mic. Hana is wonderful, especially when all the tourbuses depart.

The next morning we got up and visited the Seven Sacred Pools at 'Ohe'o Gulch.

We hiked the Pipiwai Trail, into the bamboo forest, which is one of the coolest hikes I've ever done.

It gets surprisingly dark on the trail at points, the bamboo is so thick. It can get noisy with the shh-shh-shh of the leaves and the clack-clack-clack of the thick culms smacking against each other. It's AWESOME.

The trail ends at the 400 foot Waimoku Falls. We have so many waterfalls in Oregon that I'm rarely blown away by them, but this was very pretty. 

Here's how it looked from the air.

Then our rental car started bucking and dying on our way out of town. We had planned to take the south road home from Hana, which is unpaved for five miles and mostly single-laned with blind turns. There are few towns along it. After restarting the car several times, only to have it die again, the car magically started (thank goodness, as there are no rental car agencies in Hana) and Greg said he still wanted to take the south road. 

This was not my finest hour.

We bickered back and forth, with me pointing out that if the car died on the road, we'd lose power steering and power brakes, possibly while making a sharp turn, possibly plunging us into the ocean. If the car died we'd be in the middle of nowhere. Did I mention we had no cell service either? He still wanted to do it.

So I spent a few hours quietly seething. And worrying. He asked if I wanted to stop anywhere and I basically told him, I will leave you forever if you even think about stopping this car. We don't know that it will start again.

I hate Fords, guys. This shit happens to everyone I know with a Ford. 

But the south road is beautiful and totally different than the north road, with its waterfalls and lush greenness. My friends Amy and Sloan wrote about it here. I can't recommend falling down the rabbit hole that is their travel blog enough. They are fantastic storytellers and they've been amazing places.

The road wasn't as scary as I feared it would be and it was totally doable without a 4WD car.

Despite all the worrying, I thought this drive was prettier than the north road to Hana.

We swapped out our rental car in Kihei and hopped in the ocean for a swim and I felt so much better. Swimming in the ocean is the best palate cleanser ever.

We went snorkeling at Molokini Crater, which has visibility of 150 feet or more. It was great, we even saw an octopus! I always refer to this fish as "the Blazers fish" because it looks like the Portland Trailblazers logo:

Right?

We drove around the NW top of the island, which was waaaaayyy dicier than either road to Hana. Unpaved one-lane roads, blind corners, very steep dropoffs and tricky maneuvers when you meet another car going the other direction. But it was so pretty! And there's a great art gallery on the road, as well as the best banana bread I've ever had.

Loree, is this Agave attentuata? It was everywhere and I loved it so much I failed to get a non-crappy photo!

We also laid on the beach and read two books apiece and swam and swam and swam. If you are what you eat, I was 40% pineapple, 20% dark rum, 10% ocean water, and 30% grilled meat during our stay.

Thank you Maui, for treating us so much better than Oahu.

Some quick updates

Greg and I just returned from 9 days in Maui. Have you guys ever heard of Maui? It's freaking fantastic. I highly recommend visiting before the rest of the world discovers it.

I kid. October/November is a great time to visit--we had loads of sunshine and didn't feel like we were elbow-to-elbow with tourists the whole time. While we were away Meryl and Chris were interviewed by the NY Times about their renovation roadtrip. Holy shit, the NY Times!

They also wrote about their visit to my house on their blog, on Tinkernation, and on Bob Vila. I decided not to brush my hair on the big day, so I'd look extra schlumpy in photos.

The summary of all their posts is that they feel terrible that they were unable to rewire my entire house, despite the fact that they discovered and fixed a major fire hazard, possibly saving my life and the biggest investment I've ever made. We have one extra thing for the electrician we were already planning to hire to do. And they feel terrible about that. I'm guessing they must have been raised Catholic? That is some serious guilt over an awesome visit.

The good news is that I'm tan and I'm reinvigorated to work on my house. I finally, after three and a half years, weatherstripped my kitchen window. In the winter your hair blows in the breeze, the gaps are so wide. It took all of 15 minutes, but it took Chris and Meryl driving all over the US for me to get off my ass and do it. So thank you for that, Picardy Projectors. Projecters?

I'll post pictures soon of our visit to the Kahanu Botanical Gardens, AKA the land of angry falling coconuts.

I'm still on the fence

I'm still not sure about my rusty wheelbarrow planter but the agave pups I put in there are so much happier. They got water every day this summer but the drainage is very sharp, so they've gone from skinny desiccated things to being fat and happy.

I'm hoping that the sedums fill in next spring before the weeds can.

I'm pretty excited for next summer to see what survives. I purchased a trellis to go behind this area, next to the stock tank full of bamboo. I'd like to plant Kennedia nigricans, so I have black blooms twining behind the yellow bamboo.

Photo source: Annie's Annuals

And then maybe I'll actually plant the surrounding bare ground with some grasses or something so it doesn't look so staged.

My poor tree

I'm practicing tough love with the Cryptomeria  in the backyard. After a year with stakes and wires, we're burning its bra. It's going to have to learn to stand on its own.

Rise up!

Initially it flopped forward, now it seems to want to go back. If it can't support itself by next winter I'll relocate it and plant the tree I really wanted: a Korean fir. They are prettier but they grow so slowly.

Finishing touches

I've been trying to focus on finishing touches in the house, like rugs and curtains and lighting. Over on Little Green Notebook there was a post on eSale Rugs. I ended up falling down the rabbit hole, driving Greg crazy by incessantly asking him, "Do you like this one? What about this one? How about these?"

I thought this Draper Stripe rug by Dwell Studio would be perfect (fairly inexpensive and cute) but Greg hated it. eSale Rugs seemed like it was more his style.

They had a bunch of rugs at 50% off ("Two more days!" they said a month ago--it sounds like everything is always 50% off) and we found one that we could both agree on. It arrived and we discovered that it was about an inch wider than they claimed, but other than that we liked it okay.

We don't love it (it's too wide) but you can't really beat $80 for a thick wool rug. And now our hallway doesn't echo when I yell, "What do you think of this rug? What about this one?" Anybody have a great source for rugs? I can't convince Greg to buy that beautiful Schoolhouse Electric one yet.

The saddest new planting bed ever

I whined and complained that I wanted rain so the ground would soften. After about five days of heavy rain we got a sun break and I headed out to plant the future meadowscape:

Despite the rain, the ground was still hard as a rock in places. Despite my sincerest desire to not hurt the dogwood, I ran into a lot of roots and might have just said, "Eff it, let's hope it lives." I really hope it lives.

Keeping with the tradition of doing everything wrong, I also planted everything too closely together. I followed Carolyn Kolb's recommendations for planting grasses . . . sort of. She recommends cutting off the bottom 1/2" from nursery starts (my bread knife worked perfectly), roughing up the roots a bit, then giving the grasses a smidge of granular fertilizer and some compost to get them going.

Despite the fact that I've been sitting on these grasses for over a month, I had neither compost nor fertilizer on hand. Fish emulsion a few weeks after planting will have to do.

Everything looks so lame right now but I'm hopeful it will look great come spring. And next fall should be spectacular. I have a mix of switch grass (Panicum virgatum 'Shenandoah'), Pennisetum 'White Lancer' (Pennisetum macrourum), and little bluestem grasses (Schizachyrium scoparium 'Blue Heaven'), plus a fountain grass for good measure (Pennisetum alopecuroides 'Redhead'). This is part of the master plan that Scott drew up. Hopefully I won't screw it up too much. I need to smother more lawn so I can fit in the rest of the grasses and plants I have planned.

The inspiration for this planting scheme was a photo by Pam Penick, located here. Large swaths of different colored grasses will be intermixed with some bright drought-tolerant perennials. My goal is to water this once a week or less, once established.

I'm trying to tell myself that this will grow and look okay but I always doubt my spacing. But hey, this looked lame once, too.

The Oaklanders are coming!

As part of their Renovation Road Trip extravaganza, I got a visit from Chris and Meryl of Picardy Project. Meryl and I have known each other for about a year online but had never met in person. That always makes me nervous, so I obsessed over the state of the house in the days leading up to their visit. You'd think that would mean I would attempt to fix or hide my shoddier work but my brain went into stupid mode and said "YOU SHOULD BUY AN ENORMOUS PLANT."

So instead of buying renovation supplies to make their work go faster, I bought a new plant. Because you know Chris and Meryl would walk into the house and immediately judge that my air isn't pure enough. I found a bamboo palm (Chamaedorea seifrizii) at Ikea, which is one of the top plants for removing toxins from your home.

Oh my god, what am I talking about? Sorry, I'm so sleepy today. Anyway, Meryl and Chris showed up and it was immediately like we'd known each other forever. I highly recommend letting them in, should they ever arrive on your doorstep.

I didn't have any major projects for them to help with; instead I had a long "homeowner fatigue" list of things I could probably do myself but I'm tired and a little worried I'll do it wrong, and also there's a new episode of Revenge on the Tivo and those cookies won't eat themselves in bed.

First up: that hideous light fixture over the kitchen sink. This is what it looked like right after I moved in.

I took it down halfway when I painted the kitchen and the wiring looked strange to me. Chris took down the fixture and confirmed that, nope, everything in there was pretty normal. I felt really silly. I'd spent all this time with an ugly light when my wiring was totally normal! He got the fixture, an old piece I bought on craigslist three and a half years ago, rewired and hung up in less than an hour.

I've been wanting to repaint the kitchen, so this should be just the motivation I need.

Next we moved to the living room, where I was pretty sure there was an electrical box in the center of the ceiling, hiding beneath a spot where the plaster looked a little different. Chris climbed up into the attic, confirmed that there was indeed a box there, then carefully excavated the box and revealed the wires.

You know how normally when you hire an electrician or a plumber they'll use a sledgehammer to open a tiny hole in the wall? And then they'll leave dirty fingerprints everywhere, necessitating touch-up painting and a ton of patchwork? Chris and Meryl don't do that. There are tarps and careful placement of hands and no additional patching or painting required.

You remember how my wiring in the kitchen was supposed to be weird but it was just fine? Well, ha ha Chris, I TOLD YOU MY WIRING WAS JACKED. This is where everything got a little frustrating. For Chris, that is. Electrical is his gig, so Meryl handed him tools and assisted with testing while I braided Meryl's hair and tried to convince her to move to Portland. I was useless. The rest of the day was mostly Chris wandering from ladder to outlet to attic to ladder muttering, "This just isn't right."

Greetings from the attic.

It turns out there is an extra wire in the ceiling box. A whole bunch of weird stuff runs to here and we can't tell if the light that used to be here ever had a switch hooked to it. Despite digging around in the insulation in the attic and chasing wires, we just couldn't figure it out.

We decided to leave it for a professional electrician, one who we can pay to swim around in the attic insulation. Chris recommended installing a new switch and running brand new wire to the box. I asked him if he'd cut the switch box hole for me, because I didn't want an electrician to do it. I don't want to patch and paint this room again.

So he made me a perfect one. Then he and Meryl spent the rest of the afternoon in a shame spiral, convinced that they had failed because they hadn't magically fixed the fact that my entire house is wired imperfectly. There was a rush to fix anything else I could throw at them.

Shaky bathroom vanity? It's properly anchored to the wall now.

Strike plate that would fall out of the door jamb because the screws were stripped and the holes were way too big?

The holes were filled with toothpicks (a This Old House trick), then four-inch screws were driven in. The strike plate doesn't fall out anymore and it will make it much more difficult for someone to kick in the door.

All the sticky parts were lubricated and weatherstripping was put up. It was like Christmas but without your drunk aunt saying something shitty to you.

Please come back, Meryl and Chris, because I've thought of 600 more things I need help with. I promise none of them are electrical.