Rustic Hawaiian Camping With Eric

On a deserted stretch of beach

Eric was so full of innocence, and excited. That was the up side; the
down side was that after talking to him, I wanted to go home and be
with my friends and with Carol Sue. He made me feel old, too old. I
felt trapped and nauseous. What the hell had I come to Hawaii for anyway?

When it came time to leave Keaau beach, I road my bicycle while Eric
hitchhiked. We agreed to meet again where the big cave entered the
mountain up the highway. Getting to the beach from there would be
doable, but still hard. From there, we followed a sand path through a
forest of brier bushes (Kiavi) until we came to a very narrow stretch
of beach where the tide forced us to camp with our backs against brier
bushes, which would have been okay were it not for the huge spiders
that made their home among the briers—plus the mosquitoes. After one
night of that, we both went back to Keaau. Compared to camping in that
critter-infested sand trap, camping at Keaau was like camping on the
putting green of a golf course. Avoiding the park service guys was a
problem, but not an insurmountable one.

Pushing my bike back out through the Kiavi forest, a thorn punctured
my tire. Eric and I walked the three miles back to Keaau. I spent the
rest of the morning in a Makaha gas station fixing my bike. The
gas station lady would have pissed on you if you were dying of thirst,
but that's all the compassion you could expect out her. Eric decided
to follow the waves, and of course, they were on the other side of the
island. After I fixed my tire I also planned to split to the north
side of the island too, only I planned on taking the short cut while
Eric stayed with the highway. Once I reached Kaena Point, I got off my
bike and started walking.