Aloha, so I didn’t win the Halfway to Hawaii game. Oh right, and for those of you who don’t know what the Halfway to Hawaii game is, it’s this: When you are on any United flight to Hawaii the pilot will give you information such as miles traveled, headwind speed, how fast the plane is traveling during the first half of the trip, second half of the trip, etc. And with this information you come up with the exact time of day, down to the seconds, that you are halfway to Hawaii. I was only 3 minutes and 17 seconds off the correct time, which is a huge improvement from the last time I played in October where I was literally an hour or two off. Again, math has just never been my forte.

My two-day jaunt to Kauai was unbelievable. It’s amazing how a change of climate, scenery and way of life can refresh your perspective. When I woke up the first morning and stared out the window that overlooks Hanalei Bay and watched surfers drop into over head high waves at The Bay, I couldn’t help but smile to myself and feel like the luckiest person in the world. Of course this also led to an internal battle.

You see, most snowboarders don’t just hang out in Kauai the middle of January, believe it or not. But I was there for a photo shoot with my new off-hill training gear sponsor, Nike. When I first heard of this shoot I thought, “no way can I miss any days on the mountain.” There is no way I can go to Kauai right before the world championships, which is right before THE XGAMES. But because Nike only needed one day to shoot and because it’s such a great opportunity, this shoot was Nike’s once-a-year, all-girls shoot, I agreed to it. Poor me right?! Besides what’s the point of having this life if you can’t enjoy it?!

I’ll look at this trip as a way to take a step back from what I’ve been working on. It seems whenever I do this I am able to come back with so much more power confidence than before … and of course also get a wicked hot tan in the process! So the way I ended up working it out was this, I would arrive Thursday night, have all day Friday to myself, shoot all day Saturday and then leave Saturday night for Switzerland.

And this, you see, is why I didn’t know what to do with myself come Friday morning. What does a girl do when she only has one day in Kauai? I wanted to surf because I love to surf and frankly I’m just not that girl that sits around on the beach all day working on her tan. Yet the waves were PUMPING (maybe a little more than I like) and I did want a tan! I couldn’t sit still yet I wanted to sit still. So I compromised. I would go to the gym at about 4 p.m., work out, do a quick yoga class, and then have a massage (good for me and my body).

That would leave me most of the day to tan, which I did, for about two hours. Then Rachel from Nike and I decided to drive up the coast.

After a very relaxing and mellow yoga class, I went in for my massage. I was looking forward to this because just a couple days earlier I had taken a pretty hard fall in Breckenridge, where I had popped too hard from the wall on a frontside 900 and ended up doing a 720 plus into the flat bottom. So my back (and right butt cheek) were feeling a little tweaked and swollen and that plane ride hadn’t helped. My massage therapist was as nice as she could be and we got into conversation about snowboarding. Then she told me that she had known Andy and Bruce Irons since they were kids and that I ought to call them. I’m sure you all know who Andy and Bruce Irons are, but just in case, they’re two of the best surfers in the world and they grew up in Kauai. The mini role-play that ran through my head about what I would say if I did follow through with a phone call was hilarious and also gave my boyfriend, who is a huge fan, a good laugh later that night! “Hi Andy and Bruce, my name is Gretchen and I met your friend at the spa and she thought I should give you a call to talk with you about surfing and snowboarding!”

Anyway the lovely massage was cut only a few minutes short with two very panicked words. Tsunami Warning!!!!!! The gym was closing immediately because there was a very large earthquake off of Japan and a tsunami was supposed to hit at about midnight!

Unbelievable, imagine the odds of being on the island for one day and having a tsunami hit? Luckily it was all talk and no tsunami action when the clock struck midnight and now 20 hours later I am flying over the great Atlantic Ocean and am closer than I was before to Switzerland and the World Championships! What a life.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 18th, 2007 at 12:20 pm and is filed under gretchenbleiler. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.