Pushing the Limits

Last week, my family and I traveled to the beautiful island of Oahu in the scenic state of Hawaii in celebration of my dad’s 50th birthday. It seems that we chose a crazy week to visit Hawaii because two hurricanes, Hurricane Iselle and Julio, were expected to wreak havoc on the island. With this information in mind, my family and I decided to pack the majority of our outdoor activities into the beginning of our vacation. First item on the agenda was hiking through a Hawaiian rainforest to see a natural waterfall. I am a huge fan of nature but I can count on one hand how many hikes I have done in my lifetime. I must admit I was a bit leery of going into the rainforest to find this waterfall.  I have seen dozens of stories of people getting lost while hiking in the wilderness and I didn’t want to become a statistic. Although I was a bit reluctant,  I decided to push my limits and went on into the wilderness armed with some Off Deep Woods mosquito repellant, a bottle of water,  my camera, my cell phone, and trusty traveling backpack.

As we walked deeper into the rainforest it got darker and started raining. I guess they don’t call it a rainforest for nothing! About 10 minutes into the hike we all lost cell phone reception. This  made me want to turn around and head back to the car. It started to feel like we were going to end up as stars in one of those documentaries that detail what not to do while vacationing. I figured it was a big tourist spot so it must be a pretty easy trail to hike. Boy was I wrong! People were coming back down from the trail and warning us to be careful because the trail was getting slippery due to the rain. We ventured on thinking it was ok because there were so many people hiking the trail. Little did we know, this trail went up to higher elevations which freaked me out because I am a bit afraid of heights. There also was no form of protection to keep me from falling off the cliff. To top things off I know I am clumsy. I can barely walk on a paved road without tripping over my own feet so I was a bit scared. I tried not to look down. At some points during the hike I tried to hold on to rocks from the cliff to avoid slipping. Every time I saw a group coming down from the trail I would ask how much further the waterfall was from our current location. The time frames got shorter so I started feeling a little more confident. The last stretch of the hike was a bit of a doozy but we made it and I didn’t break any bones or die. Woo hoo! I must admit I was a little disappointed at the size of the waterfall. I guess I was expecting Niagara Falls and what I got was a stream of water over some rocks.

Oh well. At least I have an interesting story to tell about that one time I went hiking through a Hawaiian rainforest while on vacation.

What have you done lately to push your limits? Do you have an interesting vacation story? Let’s chat about it!