Hoomaluhia

Last time we did the camp over was 2014. Three years later, the OAG's wanted to practice backpacking again, so we shall give it another go around.

The preparation is insane for camping. The amount of stuff you need is a lot and probably not worth it since we were only going to stay one night. Its like you are packing your house to bring over to the campsite.

I created a checklist three year's ago the last time we went, but it seemed like I didn't complete everything because a lot of stuff was missing. I use that checklist to get me started with the packing. It probably would be easier if Michelle did the packing because she has the list in her head, but I need the experience.

The goal was to camp for the night at Hoomaluhia enjoying the peace and serenity of the place. It is truly a relaxing atmosphere, it is so quiet over there.

I invited all the OAG's, but only Erik and Aprille were going to camp everyone else couldn't or didn't. However, Daniel committed, but he got sick because of the heavy vog this past week. The final count was my family, Malia's friend Helene, Aprille & Erik, possibly Darren and Jana coming to hang out.

The time was 12 noon to 12 noon, Saturday to Sunday. Pretty much, we were just going to set up, have a good time, breakdown, and go home.

At 12:30pm, we checked in and headed towards the campsite Kahua Kuou. The permit which I got 2 weeks ago (permits are only handed out 2 weeks in advance) was $30 for the entire weekend. They don't give out one day permits. The lady at the front desk was over zealous. I remember her from the last time. She told me we can't do this and can't do that. I told okay, but I was going to break the rules because the rules they have are stupid.

One rule was that we couldn't drive to our campsite and unload. That is stupid. Its a quarter mile walk to the campsite, and to go back and forth 6-7 times to unload is ridiculous. I squeezed my car pass a tree and got to the campsite to unload. Erik and Aprille came about 1 1/2 hours later. Erik managed to get his truck through.

The main set up is the tent. First time I ever put this tent together, it took me 1 1/2 hours. However as I practiced more it takes like 30 minutes now. I like to have the kids participate. I make them do the easy things like run poles through the sleeves and pound the stakes into the ground.

Erik and Aprille wanted to start the fire. Erik brought his saw and started cutting wood from a nearby hau tangle. It seemed to consume both of them. Jared wanted to help, so he learned some things from Erik. All I know is that it takes at least 2 hours to start a fire. If we were ever lost and needed to camp for the night, we would have to allot ourselves a few hours for the fire.

We had a late lunch and went down to the lake to feed the ducks. It was about 5:30pm and the park was close to the public. This is a great time to feed the ducks. You have the park to yourself and can do whatever you want. We fed the ducks. A few were friendly and ate the food out of Jared's hand.

For dinner, we made chicken quesadillas. Its a easy and tasty meal to cook on the grill. It was a hit as everyone enjoyed it. Erik made his stuff mushrooms which had Portuguese sausage inside and wrapped with bacon. That's a lot of work to prep. And soon we would find out, took a long time to cook. Bacon is the hardest thing to cook on the grill. It doesn't cook evenly and the fire becomes uncontrollable. At this point is where Darren and Jana came. Everyone seemed to be intrigued by the fire.

We wanted to take pictures at night, doing long exposures. By doing long exposures, light gets into the camera, making it look like day. However to get the shot I had to bump up the ISO in my camera settings. The problem is that it makes the picture look blurry. Add to the fact that long exposure makes any movement look blurry, you probably will get a blurry picture which happened in a lot of my pictures.It started getting colder and I got more tired as the night went on. I wanted to make pizza, so I started. I was so tired, I couldn't finish it. I just took it out and put it on the table. Everyone grabbed it and ate it. In the meantime, I went into the tent and fell asleep.

I remember waking up at 3am, but fell back asleep and didn't wake up till 6:30am.

I headed down to the lake and took some morning shots. After that, I started the grill. One by one everyone woke up and we had some breakfast burritos and Portuguese sausage.

It was late already for some reason, about 10am. Michelle got fishing poles from the visitors center. We packed up what we could and headed down towards the lake. There were already dozens of people fishing. Hoomaluhia has this catch and release program, I guess for the last decade now where you can use a bamboo fishing pole and catch fish. The fish back then were stupid and kept on getting caught and release. However, like any animal, they adapt. They only nibble pieces of the bait and more and more fish don't get caught. Really no one was catching any fish today. There was this guy with his professional gear and showing off by catching fish. I think everyone was irritated at him.