The Rugged Northern Coast…of DEATH

In the early 2000’s my wife Melissa, my husband Tim, our daughter Rhiannon, and I trekked to Maui for a relaxing, tropical holiday. It was our first time off the mainland.

Tim, whose atmospheric comfort zone consists of a 7-degree span in the upper 60’s and lower 70’s with 0 humidity, did not care for it. (Me: “Isn’t this beautiful!?” Tim: “It’s hot.”) However, Melissa and I loved Maui so much that we wept when we left. Those calm, quiet tears, however, stood in stark contrast to the Mostly Silent Wailing of Banshee Death that occurred a few days earlier when we decided to traverse the northwestern most part of the island.

We had been told “you MUST take the trip to Hana! It’s a rite of passage for first timers on the island!” So we did take the endless, meandering, boring trip. Imagine watching paint dry at 15 miles an hour for HOURS. That to me is the Road to Hana trip. It took so long to get there we thought of stopping by Oprah’s place to ask if we could get an airlift back to our foofy hotel just south of Makena. Alas, Oprah was not home.

The next day someone at our hotel told us about the “rugged northern coast” and how we could see a few different ecosystems just by traversing that 245 degrees of the island. Now *that* sounded interesting! I mean, how bad could it be? Surely not as boring as the road to Hana. Right?

Right. Oh, so very right.

It had been, well, I don’t know how long since I had encountered single lane roads in a car. By single lane I mean one lane FOR TWO CARS. If a car was coming the other way, you had to back up. Luckily, it being Hawaii, most people were really chill about it. (“I’ll back up, man.” “No PLEASE allow ME to back up, my bruthah.” “Mahalo duuuude!”) Not a big deal, right?

Then we hit hairpin curves on the one-lane roads. Then we hit hairpin curves on the one-lane roads with no safety barrier, past which there were often drops of hundreds upon hundreds of feet into the scenic, bone-gnashing surf and rocks below. By this time I could feel Melissa’s warm, moist, anxiety-filled breath on the back of my neck. It was like a sweet tropical breeze, only filled with terror.

I am not afraid of heights, and I like to think I’m a good driver. (Some may take issue.) Was I a little tense? Yes, but I was focused, plus I had the job of driving and not plunging off the side of the hill to keep me busy. When one is driving, one feels perhaps more in control and less wont to go bat-guano crazy, especially in front of my 12 year old kid.

Speaking of said kid, the one who screamed and ran from bees and cried when spiders were near her – she was fine. At the time, Rhiannon was not old enough to really freak out about death. Plus, I think she had the back seat that was toward the mountain. This left Melissa, my Amazon, my wife of many moons, my highly evolved Vulcan mate facing the death-plunge.

Did I mention that some of the roadside toward the drop had crumbled away in places, and that part of it was dirt road?

Melissa’s mother is deathly scared – and I mean “I am crawling out of this m*therf*cking car window if you go up that high road” scared – of heights. We have some indication now that this might be a genetic trait. For example, “ooOHHHhhhHHHHhhhHH shh*****t” was a phrase that Liss used more than once, her voice an octave higher than its usual, calm, dulcet tone.

My husband Tim, my Aryan prince, suffered in silence as he usually does, his jaw set and his eyes riveted to the road. I’m sure, however, that the good folks at Avis wondered about the lycanthrope-like gashes left in the upholstery on his side of the front seat.

Did I mention? … HUNDREDS OF FEET DOWN…

About the time when I realized that my knuckles were the color of snow and that I had ground my teeth down a few millimeters, the road turned inland and away from the demonic, gaping maw waiting to swallow us whole.

We descended slowly into a small, shining, emerald gully. It was lush, cool, and it was being farmed in neat, colorful rows of who-knows-what. Green, pink, yellow, orange. It could have all been exotic types of stink-weed and Brussels sprouts (I hate those damned things), but it looked like heaven… perhaps mostly because it was not on the side of a 500 foot drop.

Then we heard the two sweetest words we have ever heard.

“Banana breaaaaaaaad!”

There was an elderly lady in a ramshackle wooden stand on the roadside selling snacks, calling out, beckoning to us like a siren goddess of baked goods. To this day I wonder if she’d ever seen a car full of haoles pull over and stop with as large a cloud of dust and as much sudden gratitude.

We staggered from the car and bought as much banana bread and shaved toasted coconut as we could carry, some sodas, and went back to the car. We then proceeded to eat our stress away.

Later we wondered how many freaked-out touristas the banana bread paradise lady had sold her wares to, and thought her pretty wily for the placement of her stand. That day, however, I felt sorry for the people who came after us, because we may have bought her out.

It was, for the record, the best banana bread on earth.

Grant Thornley is a writer, career management consultant and Microsoft survivor. He lives in King County, Washington. His brand new blog is here.

Why I like this story: Because it has voice. I can hear the hyperbole in my head while I’m reading it.