Trouble in Paradise

Na Pali on a cloudy day to the left and the Waimea River below.


Waimea (the town where I live) below and some sweet falls in the canyon


I'm obviously still having troubles with this picture thing. This one is of the Pioneer fields just past that mountain.




Yes, that’s true. So I bought the car and took part of yesterday off to go and take care of car issues. Not only did I have to get insurance and get the title changed to my name, I also had to have a safety check—required in Hawaii and consists of me paying a guy $15 to check and see that my blinkers and horn work—and run to the DMV with my little blue slip of paper, look at my registration, and then run back to the safety check guy to get my sticker. Yeah, it took all morning. Also turns out the registration will expire at the end of next month so I have to go back to Lihue to pay for that anytime between Wednesday and November 30 but was not allowed to pay it today. Back to the car: I was going to take it to the dealership just to get it checked out but they were busy and the service in station in Waimea said they wouldn’t even have the parts on hand to change my oil. So I counted it a success and went back to work.

After work I figured I’d take out my newly insured car and see what it could handle. I headed up the Waimea Canyon Road and was amazed at every glimpse I caught of it even though I had seen it before. I found myself stopping along the side of the road to take photos every mile or so. I was hoping to go past Kalalau Lookout (where I took pictures of Na Pali last time) to Pu‘u o Kila Lookout which my guide book says has one of the best views in the Pacific but it turns out the state has closed that portion of the highway. I thought about hiking the rest of the way on the road, but I was alone so I decided against it.

Then the excitement happened. What good is owning a Jeep if you’re not going to test its off-roadability? There are small dirt roads coming off of the main road all up the Canyon Road and I tried taking a few. After a couple of very bumpy and muddy roads (and a huge smile on my face) I decided that my Jeep had passed the test and I headed back down to the coast.

It is at this point in the story that I would like to remind my readers that I officially took ownership (and got insurance) of my Jeep on the exact same day the rest of the story is about to unfold. While coming down the mountain, I felt the brakes were a little soft but they always had been in comparison with my rental so I didn’t think much of it. Then it started to smell like I had burnt my clutch (which I don’t have—it’s an automatic) so I knew that it was a burning brake smell. So I stopped on the road—full stop—no problem. Ok. Only 10 miles left until I was home. And it smelled more. I pulled over at a lookout since I wanted to take pictures of Waimea anyway and I looked under the car to see a little smoke underneath and an overwhelming smell of burning brakes. I grabbed all of my stuff out of the car (all I could think about was that car I saw on fire at the Urbandale library) before I popped the hood—all looked good. I figured out it was the passenger front brake. It was smoking a little and the hubcap was hot. Damn.

I knew I had to let it cool off at least. I could say luckily for me I had made it far enough down the mountain to make a call, but I had been checking my cell coverage and had stopped as soon as I could make a call. I gave Nicole a call to see what she thought though I didn’t doubt the ability of the Jeep to get down the hill. Anyway, she got excited and called Rick and they decided that they were going to come and get me. So then I waited. It seemed like forever. And I sat on the top of a bluff as I waited and watched some mountain goats (I didn’t know we had those) and thought how horrible my luck was. Nicole insisted on driving my Jeep back and it made it down just fine and all that jazz and I hadn’t turned in my rental so we parked my Jeep at Nicole’s to sit for now until I can get it looked at while I continue to drive the rental. It just really ruined my day. Now I have to make an appointment in Lihue to get it looked at and take another day from work to go there and get it looked at. I hope it’s nothing too major…