The Day I Almost Died

Okay, that might be just a bit over the top. But there were a few moments where I honestly wished I had a will prepared, just in case. And there were a few other moments where I wanted just a few minutes to write a farewell postcard to my kids.

What happened? This:




Behind the sunglasses and smile are tear-filled eyes and clenched teeth.

In case you doubt the sincerity of how freaked out I was:

-the guy we rented from and showed me how to ride the moped kept telling me over and over "you're gonna be fine."
-Pedro pulled over every minute or two to make sure I was still okay.
-My arms were shaking like crazy--fix that--my whole body was shaking.
-After my first attempt at turning left (at which I almost lost control of the bike and almost crashed into a bus/car/person--I don't even know) I refused to do any more left hand turns unless there was absolutely no traffic anywhere.
-There were at least 3 incidents of my almost losing control and crashing.
-I thought about abandoning the bike and taking a taxi back to the hotel.

Oh the things I do for Petey. That said, I'm still alive and I'm not currently sitting on a moped so I can say in retrospect "it was okay."

We drove our mopeds up to Diamond Head. A drive that should have taken no more than 10 minutes took over an hour because of all the stops to make sure I was still breathing and then a detour at a parking lot so I could get more comfortable being on a bike and then missing the left turn because dang it, it was in a bad spot and there was no way I was making a turn there.

I was okay once we got to Diamond Head--mostly because I could get off the bike. We hiked to the top and got these beautiful views:




The park closed at 6, so we hiked back down and Pedro and I joked about the bikes being towed away (only I wasn't joking). To my dismay after leaving the tunnel I had a clear view of my bike still chained up:




The hike did wonders for me. I wasn't so afraid of the bike riding back down to Waikiki. I handled the turns much better. I wasn't shaking so bad. I wasn't on the verge of tears anymore. And when it was all said and done, I guess it wasn't so bad.



And I'll even admit I'm glad Pedro got me to try something new. He got me to do something I never would have done on my own.