Rusty Redd

We have landed!

Two car rides, a bus ride, two plane rides and a taxi ride have brought us to our final destination, Kauai! The last leg of it was the rockiest.  As we landed in Honolulu to take a puddle jumper plane to Kauai, Ryan got the call of dread from the person we were supposed to rent a car from for our month and a half stay-the car had crashed-it was not available.  *Translation* - the Craigslist lowlife had found a person willing to pay more.  Luckily, Ryan was prepared for such an event, realizing the Craigslist deal had the possibility of floundering.  We had a beater rental from Island cars lined up.  Only $6 more a day...$250 more...but hey, we had a car, right?  Still, a $22 a day rental on Kauai during the summer is good. Cars are hard to find on the island!

The Truck

We soon realized though that our rental was probably not worth much more than the $900+ we payed to rent it.  The outside looked marginal-the hood paint was in bad shape, it had quite a few dents and scratches and the truck bed was rusting out.  But that was the least of it’s problems.  Rusty Redd, as we have affectionately named her, almost didn’t make it off the lot.  You see, I could not shut my door-I kept trying but it would slam and then fly back open.  I proceeded to do this several times until the Island car rental guy (complete with the holy tee) so graciously came to my rescue, showing me that I had to help coax the handle down on the outside of the car.  He proceeded to explain that usually he did not rent this car to guys with wives riding shot gun, but rather surfer dudes.  Umm, I should have gotten a clue there, but hey, my motto for the trip is to ‘go with the flow’ and adopt some more ‘hang loose’ lifestyle.  The Island car beach boy also kindly reminded us that we would need to share the crank handle to open the windows in order to have ‘air conditioning’ as one of the handles had been ‘lost’.  No biggie-a little wind in the face has never hurt anyone.

A Well Greased Machine

Well between the totally greased up handle and steering wheel (oops-guess the mechanic forgot to wipe it off) and the non existent radio (biggest bummer for me) and the jack hammer-esque noise the car makes at any given speed (complete with additional rattles and bangs when going over bumps) we have totally achieved the ‘local’ look!  We got friendly waves and hang loose signs flashed at us as as we winded our way up the narrow highway to the North Shore.  Now you tell me, what other place do you know of in America that not only embraces but favors the beat up, clunker style?  I have to say, I love this place!

Finding the silver lining (err...should I say rusty red lining)

Old Redd might not make the cut for the entire 6 weeks (we’ll see if the rental dude remembers that he told us we are welcome to come trade it out anytime) but for now she’s great! We have already started taking pride by cleaning her up a bit with a spit bath and adorning her with a lovely local style hula girl on the dash board (see pics below :). Not only do we blend in better in Old Redd but she has also brought us good fortune!  We have been told that we can borrow the kayak that the owners of our rental own (which they usually don’t lend out) and we were able to give our first ever hitch hiker a ride (at a safe and comfortable distance sitting in the back of the truck).  In Hawaii you can ride in the back of pickups legally.  I did feel the need to apologize to the hitch hiker about the dirty truck bed but she didn’t seem to mind, she was just happy to get a ride on the only highway on the island up the road about 5 miles.

Well mahalo for now. I pretty sure that means see you later in Hawaiian..or something like that? More to come soon on our new residence and all of our ‘pets’ that we inherited!