"...brave clean, and reverent"

Day 11
Kokee, Kauai
62 F

Up early today ( of course ), and we headed back to Kauai. A gift I had gotten from Maui had become apparent, this morning; sun poisoning.

SP is a particularly uncomfortable condition where your back receives what amounts to a second degree burn from exposure to the sun, along with other unpleasant side effects. You might experience chills, infection, or other such fun because the skin plays a rather large role in regulating your body and protecting it. SP is fairly severe damage to the skin, presenting as raw-red skin and yellowish blisters.

Fun, eh? And oh-so-attractive.

I got this gift on the Haleakala hike. I certainly did wear sunscreen, but I hadn't applied it correctly.

Earlier last week on Kauai, I'd forgotten a basic axiom about living in Hawaii. When I'm in the Midwest, I usually shower in the morning. No harm there... but here, where I spend my day covered in sunscreen, that time rolling around in bed can be bad. Over night it doesn't make for a good combination, and my neck and center of my back broke out from the combo of some variety of sunscreen that didn't agree with me, mixed with the idea of it being on overnight.

So, now I'm in a silly zone where I am somewhat shy about putting a liberal amount of sunscreen on my back and neck. I do it, but not enough, and not low enough. On my little special forces hike, my t shirt rode down, and as a result I have SP over an area that looks something like that large gold neck thingy that King Tut wore, in the back.

So, I learn. My back is fine now, and most of the break out and SP is gone.

I also learned that there seems to be some sort of correlation between Benadryl use and my dream pattern; I recall -much- more dream activity after taking Benadryl, for some reason.

Anyway... back to Kauai. We make an easy morning of it, meeting up with Shelly and Bill ( Doris' sister and her hubby ) for a camping trip later that afternoon... but not before I had a chance to stop and indulge my latest topical infatuation at Borders.

Four books heavier, I helped pack and we set out for Kokee again, up near Waimea canyon. We arrived at the cabin we'd scheduled for the evening, and unpacked. The evening consisted of taking it easy, walking around a bit in the woods, sitting by a campfire for a time, and watching the pilot for Firefly ( I don't watch much TV, but it's amazing ).

All of this was great fun, but one thing that defintely stood out in my mind was the idea of it being a Boyscout-run cabin. There were all sorts of Scout things on the walls... reminders about the motto and different things a Scout needs to know. I was a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout, and all of these things started coming back to me like a song... the light of other days.

All of this was eclipsed by the stars. After Firefly, we wandered outside and looked up at the sky. Theres very little light pollution, and hardly any industry on the islands at all... so the view of the sky is pretty much unparalleled. Add to this the fact we were about 4k feet up on a clear night.

The view was transcendental. I've seen some amazing night skies in Wisconsin... but nothing coming close to this. The clarity of the ecliptic, the ease of spotting satellites, it was all breathtaking.

This is another reason, high up on my list, to come out here in a permanent way. We're all some kind of nerd, when we're kids. Car nerds, dinosaur nerds, whatever. When I was a kid, I was an astronomy nerd. It was probably my first area of fascination ( in an intellectual sense ). My mom maintains to this day that my first word was “starlight”, if you can believe that.

Anyway, I slept the sleep of the dead. The Benedryl, the SP, and waking up early yet again was starting to take a toll on me. My ear was starting to bother me a bit... but I figured it was normal, maybe part of the sunburn.

Ooooopsie.

From the Scout Law:
A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obediant, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverant.