I am currently sitting in my outdoor kitchen, chair facing the ocean, my boots up, and drinking the best coffee on earth- paired with some peanut butter toast with our own farm fresh apple bananas on top. It's about 64 degrees out, pretty chilly, but it'll warm up to 75 in a couple hours. It's always at least 10 degrees cooler up here on the mountain than it is in town. My two good friends Sarah and Adam are down here sitting with me. We're the early risers on the farm :). Today we get to have a nice long lazy morning because there are no guests at the Bed and Breakfast and we start working a little later than usual. I may give 8 year old Karen a ride to school around 7:30 but that's one of my favorite jobs to do because its nice to have a 10 minute relaxing drive in the morning when I can listen to some music or talk radio, wake up, maybe stop at the old Matsuyama store to pick up coffee and an apple pie... Karen probably is my favorite 8 year old ever. She can be an annoying little monster sometimes but other times I just wanna put her in my lap and cuddle!!! I'll really miss her and of course Hans and Marsha will be equally as missed. They have been my host family for over 4 months now and I couldn't have asked for a better experience. I think I have really become part of their family and they have taken very good care of me when I needed it (ie: staph infection on ankle, broken busted toe, feeling lonely when I was the only intern at the farm for a month). They are very interesting folk but very knowledgeable and very kind and I am for sure going to visit again at some point in my life.
So you can probably tell that this a bit of a "wrapping up" post. I'll be picking up my lovely parents at the Kona Airport this coming Monday! They will be staying one night at our BnB here and we'll be heading out the next day to have a nice 10 day long vacation on both sides of the island. Hotel. Bed. Indoors. Long hot showers. Room service. I can't wait! I have after all essentially been camping for 4 months. My tent is outdoors, my bathroom and shower is outdoors, even my AWESOME kitchen is outdoors! No complaints. I love camping. Camping in frickin' HAWAII is just as good as it gets. I'm quite proud to say I lived in a tent in Hawaii for 4 months. I think it'll be a cool thing to tell my grand kids about. So anyway, after our little vacation we'll all be headed home. Back to normal life. Gotta tell ya I am super excited to get back to my favorite season of the year and be able to share it with my awesome family whom i've missed so much. Eternal Summer is pretty dang cool but this girl needs her seasons. I don't think I could live in Hawaii for a year, I love this place but its not for me. I love Washington. The fir trees, snow capped mountains, lakes, snow, rain, and summer. We even have our own little piece of the ocean. Sure its 100000 degrees colder but I have never been too much of a water dog anyway. I'm excited to come home.
This has probably been the best 4 months of my life so far. I feel like I'm a new person in some ways. This is the first time I haven't had people to do things for me. I've never been away from my parents for longer than a week or two. I've never had to change a tire at night in the pouring rain on some side street. I've never really had to figure out directions or street names or where to get the cheapest gas before. I've never drove 5 people in the back of a truck for a 140 mile round trip. I've never had to figure out good meals to cook with a select assortment of canned goods... and there are many many many more "firsts". Including operating a shitty Chinese tractor that doesn't have breaks over 5 acres of land while spraying organic fungus and fertilizer over the whole orchard.
I have met so many people over these 4 months. Farm interns and just cool people who happen to be living in Hawaii. You meet so many different kinds of people because EVERYONE wants to come to Hawaii! it's paradise right? Right now I am working with two folks from Minnesota who just quit their jobs at a cafe, two folks from Alaska who are seasonal trail builders in the forest service, and one lawyer from Toronto who's on a break. Other good friends are living in town and working- Catherine who is from Georgia and is in the peace core, Kyle who is from California and recently went back home to get ready to sail from SanFran to Hawaii! Andrew who is from Portland and was at here at the farm for 4 days before deciding he was too much of a weenie to handle it and is now taking care of some old lady's horses on the North-Eastern tip of the island... and there are a couple more awesome people who left to go back home a few months ago. All these people are 23 years old to 31. I never thought I'd have friends that old but they all say I'm mature for my age so there :). They obviously haven't seen me with my cousin/best friend Georgia.
So I actually have to wrap this one up... there is so much more I wanna say but it'll be better to tell all of you in person around the dinner table at Thanksgiving or any other family get together. Can't wait!! This has truly been an experience of a lifetime and I wouldn't trade it for ANYTHING else. Coming to Hawaii to work on a coffee farm was sincerely the best decision I have ever made. Hands down. Thank you all for supporting me on this crazy adventure and it's time for me to figure out real work, education, and where I want to live and what I want to do with the rest of this awesome life. I feel so dang lucky to be living.
Love you and be seeing you soon!
XOXOXOXOXO
