TRAVELING YOGI CAMPER

Danielle, this one’s for you. We've never met, but Whit said that according to your reading of my blog the Ellikers are still in Hawaii. Good point. That would be one long-ass vacation. Though Josie was pissed we had to come home at all, I was thrilled to be back in Sparks. I like my real life. I prefer it to vacation. Probably because my real life includes vacation.

While we didn’t end up getting to skydive in Hawaii like we wanted—apparently skydiving companies have ditched the Big Island (something to do with cost)—we did go on a helicopter tour and saw lava. We did go to a black sand beach. We did go swim with dolphins. Well, Jim and the kids did; my leave-the-animals alone self sat in the boat and got knee-weakeningly seasick. We did climb rad trees. We did hike around and see waterfalls. We did strip off our clothes and jump off rocks into a pool of water that very well could have but kindly didn’t gift us leptospirosis. Don’t worry, we didn’t strip off all our clothes; we were in our underwear. Which, yes, yes, itself actually is cause for concern.

Dunno where Ben and Jim were at the time, but Dustin, Josie and I were scrambling around some rocks at Rainbow Falls and saw teenagers jumping off lil’ 20-foot cliffs. Dustin was like, Oh, I’m doing this, which was convenient for him seeing as he was the one of us three wearing a swimsuit. He jumped. He climbed back up. He said it was fun. Josie and I were jealous. Josie and I were not at all sure what to do. Do we jump in our clothes? Do we go in our underwear? Oh dammit, I guess we do. Before stripping down to my stepkid-scaring lacy underthings I looked at them both and said, “As your technical stepmother, I apologize.” 

That same afternoon Josie and I brilliantly decided to trek down what has to be the, like, at least fourth steepest road in America, and when it occurred to us collectively that the further we walked down the further we’d have to walk back up we turned around took the hardest walk of our lives back to the Waikoloa overlook parking lot. We side-stepped with jazz hands. We walked up backwards. We bear-crawled on our hands and feet. At one point Josie started hallucinating fauna. Guys, we almost died basically. 

Since we survived I can say it was a good trip. It wasn’t where this spoiled white lady would have chosen to go, but Jim brought me a fresh-squeezed beet juice every morning from the nearby shop and I got to go to Bikram four times. Homegirl got what she “needed.” She can label the vacation Good.

Shit’s happening, Dear Reader. At this moment I’m writing from the Palms Place in Vegas. Jim had to come see his people down here and I came along so we could make a weekend of it. Sweet Cameron covered my Saturday class. Dunno what we’d do without that lil' nugget of a yogi; he’s also caring for the doggies seeing as—wait for it—Dustin moved out yesterday. Tomorrow, the boy is starting the next leg of his flight schooling in Utah. Yes, spreading wings. Only literally. Therefore better than everyone else.

So yoga. Last week I taught seven classes. Between Bikram and Power I probably took nine, but I don't so much tally that anymore. Teaching seven is the most I’ve done in a week so far. I know I’m a decent teacher. But I’m a new teacher. It’s gonna take forever to just graze good. A bit ago I passed the little 100-class milestone and it still feels like every class is my first.

One night last week when I got home from Bikram—as sexily sweaty as ever—Jim and Ben were watching Star Wars Episode II. I sat and we watched for a while, me answering Ben’s questions here and there because I was raised by a legit Star Wars nerd, and then Dustin got home and went we full out, talking technology, story line, comparing to LOTR. At one point I looked at Jim and said, “Your family is a bunch of geeks.” His lack of pride was confusing. 

Hey, so Jim took me by a camping ground last Saturday. (Had to retrieve a trailer. Don’t confuse yourself thinking I was actually camping.) It was nothing like what I expected. The campground was basically a big parking lot winding through the forest where people sit around all day and tell their kids to go play with sticks. Our neighbors at home aren’t as close as these camp sites were. I thought you went camping to, like, get away from it all or something? Apparently it’s actually just congregating closer with people you don’t know and coming to terms with being filthy. ’Til now my reason for not camping was that it was outdoors. But my relationship with outside has been improving of late. Now my primary reason for not camping is that it looks stupefyingly boring and if I want to get uncomfortably close with other stinky humans I can just go to Bikram. Which I do every day. So it’s as if I camp every day. I’m a camper.