Even though 9/11 had just happened, I went ahead with a vacation to visit my friend George who was living on the Big Island of Hawaii that November. Yeah, it was a little freaky getting on a plane in November of 2001, but when a friend lives in a beautiful place and offers you free room and board, I had to make the assumption that the terrorists would not want to bomb me out of the sky on my way to paradise.

At the time, George, who is a trained biologist, was banding birds in the aptly named town of Volcano, Hawaii, which is on the rainy side of the island. I was there for George’s birthday and to surprise him when he got home from work, I wandered around his yard and picked a bouquet. Rain=lush fauna.

During the day, he gave me use of his new/used car named “Sexy Girl” to venture around. I headed straight down the volcano to the black sand beach where I decided to snorkel. No sooner was I in the ocean that I was bumping elbows with the island’s renowned sea turtles. These guys were enormous and to be honest, they looked a little pissed off that I was intruding on them.

George took some days off so we could go camping on the beach on the sunny side of the island. After a night of “roughing it” on the secluded sands of a gorgeous beach, we packed up and headed through the tangled jungle Hawaiians call home. The jungle gets so overgrown, that even the abandoned cars are beautiful here.

And, speaking of cars, as we toured along in Sexy Girl, she started to get a little pouty–and then she stopped altogether–30 miles from nowhere. We got out, pushed her to the side of the road and luckily, found a house with 10 chained dogs within walking distance. The dogs guarded a little old Hawaiian lady who let us use her phone (this was 2001, remember) to call a tow truck. As we waited, we talked to her for about an hour. Or I should say, she talked and we listened, because she spoke pidgin English. Who knew pidgin was still spoken in our own country? If you don’t believe me, give a listen:

Finally, we were rescued and towed 30 miles to the nearest service station where George promptly stripped his car of her sassy moniker. From then on, she was dubbed “Worthless Trollop”.

Hawaiian lesson: if life gives you lemons, make lemon drops!

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I’m a Jersey girl, and yes, Jerseyites go “down the shore” not “to the beach”. Thing is, I left NJ in my early 20s, so I wasn’t really around for the scene on the horrid, horrid TV show.

By that point, I was already hiking in the Tetons and Cascade mountains, drinking lots of coffee and enjoying Red Hook beer.

I do have a funny, albeit unusual Shore story from one of my rare trips down the shore with my big-haired Jersey friend. Like the show, she used to rent a room for weekend use only to spend her days at the beach and nights at the bars.

We hit the beach on our first day in Belmar and were greeted by a patchwork sea of towels. It was like a game of concentration, with small openings between all these postage stamp rectangles of space on the scorching sand. She scoured the landscape and told me she always looked for a spot next to a group that looked like they’d have good stories to eavesdrop in on. And boy, did we strike gold.

In a dripping Jersey accent, a girl on the towel next to us was bemoaning the fact that her parents refused to clean and prepare their home’s in-ground pool to use during the summer that year. The reason? Her grandmother had died and her parents were still in mourning and dealing with estate arrangements. This little darling proclaimed, “Gweat, just cuz Nana doyed, we gotta sweat ta death!”

That evening, my friend with the giant red hair and her friend spent about an hour blow drying and hairspraying before setting out to the bar scene. As we walked to the bar, we noticed the streets were flooded from the inlet that had overflowed onto the side streets in town. Cars were gently skirting the standing water as they drove back and forth.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a renegade. This car was heading straight for the flooded section that was right beside us and as I ran off the sidewalk toward the side of a house I yelled “RUN FOR IT”. Just then, on cue, the car hit the water, the water doused my friends and the car full of boys drove away hooting with laughter.

By the time I walked back to my friends. big hair hanging limply down the sides of their faces, we all burst out laughing. “At least,” we said, “we hadn’t used the WHOLE can of hairspray already, like some girls might have.” With that, we started to walk back home to dry off, respray and reapply glossy lipstick. But before we could reach the apartment, that same car circled back around and, you guessed it, hit us all a second time. What else could we do but laugh all over again?

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